1/07/2016

Language test 2

My 7-year-old son told me last night when we were taking a bath:

"Mom, can you press your elbow to Tatsumaki?"

"What?? What do you mean? Maybe you are talking about Tsumuji (a hair whorl), right? "

"Oh, I mistook it."

"Why do you think that you misunderstood it? "

"Because both are in a whirl! Don't you think they are similar?"

"Yes, I agree!"

His misunderstandings were really funny.


When we ate snack yesterday evening, my son was eating small chocolates.
s
"I want to eat all of these by myself, but if you want it, I can give you one."

He said.

"OK. Why don't you barter? I have a small chocolate pie."

"But, can I exchange this chocolate? It isn't pimply."

I couldn't stop laughing.

Barter is called Butsubutsu-koukan ( 物々交換/ぶつぶつこうかん) in Japanese.

This Butsubutsu has a lot of meanings in Japanese : mutter / nag somebody / grumble about something / have a rash /cut into small pieces  /make holes in a piece of paper with a pin

Those are wriiten in Hiragana, but Barter is written in Kanji like 物々, and it means thing and thing.

He mistook 物々for a rash.

It is difficult to learn the language, but fun.


Thank you(^o^) for reading this article!
If you enjoy it, please click these buttons and vote me!
I will be encouraged by you.

にほんブログ村 英語ブログ 英語の日記(英語のみ)へ

  

3 comments:

  1. Hello Kumi-san,

    I had some difficulty interpreting the meanings of some of the sentences written in the article. Although chocolate eating and chocolate pie sounds like a fun snack.

    Listed below are issues I found.

    This line:
    "Mom, can you press your elbow to Tatsumaki?"

    Question: Unsure how to interpret this line, is your son asking:

    "Mom, can you press/touch your elbow into a Tornado?"

    I am unsure as to how Elbow is being used in this case.

    This line:
    When we ate snack yesterday evening, my son was eating small chocorates.

    Should be:
    When we ate snacks yesterday evening, my son was eating small chocolates.

    This line:
    "But, can I exchange this chocolate? It isn't pimply."

    Question: Is your son asking to exchange chocolate because it is not pimply? So meaning he wants chocolate that is pimply/dimpled?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Terry!
      I tried to answer your two questions.
      I hope you will make them clear.

      Question: Unsure how to interpret this line, is your son asking:

      He wanted to ask me whether I could touch my hair whorl with my elebow.
      (He actually knew that it was impossible, he only wanted to ask it to me.)
      But he didn't know the name of hair whorl ( we say it Tsumuji in Japanese) and he made a mistake, he said it Tatsumaki.
      "Tatsumaki" in Japanese means tornado, so it is quite different from hair whorl.


      Question: Is your son asking to exchange chocolate because it is not pimply? So meaning he wants chocolate that is pimply/dimpled?

      This question is a little difficult to answer!
      He understood my word if the chocolate is pimply, he could exchange my chocolate pie because I said to him "Butsubutsu-koukan".
      Butsubutsu means "something and something" in my sentence case, but he thought that butsubutsu meant pimpy.
      (As I mentioned in the post, Butsubutsu has a lot of meanings. My son misunderstood what I wanted to say.)

      Can you clear your question?
      It is really difficult to explain, I really think if I had more English skills, I could explain it better.


      Delete
  2. Hi Kumi-san,

    Yes you cleared up the questions I asked :)

    ReplyDelete