Language Lesson and Anecdote

I’m working on completing my post regarding Undoukai, including loads of great photos, but I wanted to take a break and share a funny story before it escapes my memory.

Watching Ridge and Holt acquire a second language has been a fascinating experience. Though I knew, logically, that they would pick up Japanese faster than I could ever hope to myself, seeing it in action exceeded all my expectations. Once Ridge entered pre-school full time last April, his Japanese knowledge practically exploded. Holt’s, in turn, took a big leap forward after Ridge started first grade and was no longer around to help translate for him at the pre-school. One day, while marveling over our children (no one will ever accuse us of being objective), we counted up the number of hours during the day during which our children are in full immersion Japanese.

Holt goes to school from 8:30 until 4:00 five days a week. For a year, Ridge’s schedule was the same. Currently, he is at school slightly less, but even after school he is frequently only around his friends. When all is said and done, they speak Japanese for nearly more hours than they do English, at least during the week. It’s no wonder they are so fluent.

It’s not just the vocabulary that is so fascinating, either. With Ridge, we have been able really enjoy watching his problem-solving abilities grow as well. At first glance, it might seem easy for him to translate for us, but not so. There are several steps involved that you might not really be aware of unless you see it all the time. For example, because Ridge has learned Japanese through immersion, there are many Japanese words and phrases that he can understand, but he doesn’t know how to say it in English. The best example is counting. He can count much higher in Japanese than in English. Also, he knows that he goes to the “shogakko”, but the doesn’t know that the English word for that is “elementary school.” Yesterday, he heard someone on T.V. use the word “idiot” and he asked me what that meant. Without thinking, I responded, “baka”, which is the Japanese word for “stupid”. Being the typical big brother he his, “baka” was one of the first Japanese words he learned. Needless to say, Holt learned it pretty quickly also.

About a month ago, we had a little barbeque with the guys from my office. Between the four of them, they can communicate pretty well with me, but only because I’ve managed to pick up a bit of Japanese. Their English is limited. While trying to describe what Aaron’s father does for a living, we were stumped by the word, “x-ray”. How do you describe that? We had just about given up when Mr. Oohara turned to Ridge and asked him if he could explain it. Aaron and I looked at each other, thinking that our six-year old doesn’t know what an x-ray machine is in English, much less in Japanese. Then, to our astonishment, Ridge responded, in beautiful Japanese, “It’s a machine at the hospital that they use to look inside your body with.” I swear you could see the light bulbs lighting up over all their heads. “Ahh!” They all exclaimed. Mystery solved, we continued on with our conversation. It was awesome to watch Ridge piece together an explanation to help communicate a word that none of us could translate.

Holt, too, has had his moments. In Japan, there are three kinds of written language: kanji, katakana, and hiragana. Katakana is most often used to express loan words. For example, take the word “lemon”. The Japanese for this word is “remon”. When written in katakana, the characters, “re” and “mo” and “n” are used. There is no “l” sound in Japanese. “R” is also absent, and instead, the character “ru” is used. Holt’s name in katakana is written “Ho Ru To”. This habit of ending words and sounds with a vowel such as “o” or “u” is one of the things that gives Japanese people their distinctive accent when speaking English.

Well, Holt learned at an early age that if he didn’t know a word in Japanese, he should just “katakana” it. That means that if he doesn’t know the word for “black”, he’ll just stick an “u” at the end of it, change it a bit more, and say it with a katakana accent: “bu ra ku”. Since there are so many loan words in Japanese, this will often work. Take the word “basketball”. The way to say it in katakana is “ba su ke to bo ru”. Magic. Change some of the letters and you can suddenly speak Japanese! Holt also knows the difference between talking to a Japanese person and an English speaking person when it comes to these words. If he says his name to a Japanese person, he says, “Horuto,” but to an English speaker, he will say, “Holt.”

The other day, though, he stunned me more. We were talking about his Undoukai dance, which is called the “Osojiki dance”. “soji” means “to clean”. The “O” is an honorific pre-fix. So, it’s as though it’s the “honorable cleaning dance” (we pretended to mop while doing the dance). I was relaying the information to Aaron and got the name wrong; I said it was the “Osoji” dance. I accidentally left off the “ki” part. Holt corrected me immediately and said, “No, Mommy. It has a tree sound.” Now, you might wonder what in the world does a tree sound have to do with this? As it turns out, the word “ki” means “tree”. I had left off a sound that was also the Japanese word for “tree”. Holt noticed that I didn’t say it, and this was his way of correcting me. Make sense? I was floored. What an interesting way for him to conceptualize the language.

I just re-read that paragraph, and I think it might be difficult to follow if you haven’t been living in Japan for two years, so here’s another breakdown of it.

Name of the dance: OSOJIKI

Honorific pre-fix: O

To clean: SOJI or SOJIKI

Tree: KI

I said: OSOJI

Holt said: It has a “tree” sound (i.e. the word KI)

Hope that didn’t just make you more confused!