🌈 ✨ Stories of funny mistakes when learning Japanese β˜€ 🌈 ✨

rude joke

Mango is the staple food of many a young, red-blooded ALT in Japan.

γƒžγƒ³γ‚΄ - mango
γƒžγƒ³γ‚³ - lady bits

My friend wasn’t very good at Japanese at the time and simply misheard the students.

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Lol β€” I glossed over the missing テンテン and was Googling for γƒžγƒ³γ‚΄ to no avail… I guess I’m a bit innocent as well. Thanks for the gentle education!

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I see かっこいい all the time in YouTube comments when something is cool but it always looks very wrong to me. Are people just googling β€˜cool’ and finding that? Or is it actually used in Japan to talk about cool things. Because it’s always been well dressed/handsome/stylish in my head and not β€˜cool’.

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Cool is a useful translation for covering all the various ways かっこいい gets used. Someone might call a handsome man かっこいい, but then a kid might use it to describe Kamen rider and someone else to describe a song at which point cool fits all the circumstances. It’s maybe more of a translation by usage circumstance than by literal meaning though, a bit like かわいい being cute.

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Thanks. So it really is β€˜cool’ in all the same ways that it is used in English? (Exploding spaceships, Monster Hunter speed runs etc.?) That’s very helpful. :+1:

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It’s pretty much used in the same situations. Though for example the way it’s used in say an 80’s movie when they talk about β€œthe cool kids” I’ve never come across. It seems to be more of a personal reaction than an agreed upon standard as it’s sometimes used in English.

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I don’t think I have ever heard someone call something like an exploding space ship かっこいい but maybe it happens sometimes. I think かっこいい is usually used in relation to people, like their actions, behaviour and things they own.

It’s definitely not just for handsome/well dressed/stylish. People often use it for actions like if someone does something brave or scores a goal during a sports match or something like that.
E.g. in a drama I watched yesterday a guy stood up to his boss and punched him in the face and his coworker said γ™γ”γ„γ‹γ£γ“γ‚ˆγ‹γ£γŸ.

But yeah it’s almost never the case that you can use a Japanese word in all the same situations you use the English word counterpart given in dictionaries except for simple nouns. Just have to do more immersion to learn when people use words.

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ι ‚γƒžγƒ³γ‚³ :wink:

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I think you are thinking γŠζ΄’θ½ (γŠγ—γ‚ƒγ‚Œ)

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Years ago while on Skype with a language exchange partner, the young daughter of the lady who I was practicing with was jumping around on screen in the background. I wanted to say あぢγͺい (be careful in that context), but accidently ended up saying γ‚γ°γ‚ˆ (A slangy way of saying goodbye that can change based on context). Well, it must have not been the right context because her Mom’s eyes became perfectly round.

I immediately apologized, and she understood. I was hoping her daughter was too young to understand, but seeing that she walked away soon after I said so, I’m guessing it was loud and clear. Haven’t made that mistake since.

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A couple of years ago when I first started studying Japanese, I was dating a Japanese girl (we all go through a phase), and she taught me some words that a man may need to know. One of these was a word for a male function starting with β€œsha”. I took great pleasure in typing this word into our line conversation whenever she was on a crowded train as she would reply rapidly with kitten stamps.

Unfortunately, this made my predictive text heftily overvalue the need for this word, so one fateful day while trying to ask a stranger for a picture of their their dog, I hit しゃ and then the first suggestion without looking, and instead of the previous top pick ε†™ηœŸ, ε°„η²Ύ made its way gracefully into the chat.

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What happened after that? :sweat_smile:

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He’s only allowed a few hours of internet as per his parole, so we’ll have to wait to next week to find out!!

It’s not a phase, mom!! this is who I am, damnit!

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Was on the lookout for a reception desk while lost in Narita Airport, so I flagged down an official looking member of staff that was passing by. However, I ended up asking them where the εΈθ‘€ι¬ΌοΌˆγγ‚…γ†γ‘γ€γοΌ‰was instead of the ε—δ»˜οΌˆγ†γ‘γ€γ‘οΌ‰ :no_mouth:

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This isn’t a mistake but if you look up the word 聖水 which is holy water, it’s used by fetishists as a term for urine. So now if I see the word whilst reading all I can think of is the second meaning and the scene becomes funny instead of serious.

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I instantly remembered all 3 pieces of keigo I knew at the time and commenced seppuku to restore my honour despite the girl being chill and understanding.

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I don’t think you did it right…

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But I followed the youtube video created by a high pitched 13 year old from San Francisco perfectly.

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When I very first came to Japan I asked a guy in a conbini if he was singing shampoo instead of selling it…
γ‚·γƒ£γƒ³γƒ—γƒΌγ‚’ζ­Œγ£γ¦γ„γΎγ™γ‹γ€‚
instead of
シャンプーを売っていますか。

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Oh yeah and there was another one where I said to a teacher εŠ©θ©žγ˜γ‚‡γ—γ―γ‚γ‚“γ©γγ•γ„γ§γ™γ­γ€‚But of course ε₯³ε­γ˜γ‚‡γ— is a homonym and my deputy head teacher overheard and she said ζ—₯本θͺžγ γ‹γ‚‰γ‚γ‹γ£γ¦γ‚‹γ‚ˆοΌ
Of course, 助詞 is a linguistics term so many Japanese people don’t even know what it means.

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