I have the pleasure, and it is a pleasure, of teaching a small group of ladies of more than a certain age, once a week. I say 'teaching', but perhaps accompanying would be more apt. We have tea, and various biscuits and so on, for an hour and a half, during which time they chat cheerfully amongst themselves, while I enjoy the tea and biscuits. But occasionally they direct comments my way, and sometimes in a form of English - I mean there are recognisably English words interspersed among the Japanese, albethey in Japanese word order. As I regret to say I don't understand Japanese, there is a great deal of mileage to be had in the cross-cultural and linguistic confusion, nay, mayhem. The simplest, cognitive and linguistic concept can be spun out for a good half an hour. We tend to start with the news - our own individual news - and go round the table. Seiko, when she's here, has usually been playing golf. Kimoko has very often spent part of the weekend at an onsen, while Keiko has as often as not been praying at the shrine of one of her forebears. Takashi, a young man, and employee/apologee of the absent Seiko has usually spent the weekend sleeping - a couple of weeks ago he managed to sleep through 18 hours of a particularly nice Sunday, got up, ate, and went back to bed. Thoughts of Peter Cook.
However, it's good for my listening practice. One word which comes up several times a minute is 'wakanai' (dunno), followed lower down on the frequency scale by 'wakaranai' (I dunno) and 'wakarimasen' (I don't know). Then there's 'shiranai' (dunno and don't care - haven't got the foggiest), 'nantoka' (wotsit), and so on.
As a colleague used to say in Qatar, several times a day, God help us.
Eh up - another earthquake - that's two big ones this week....
However, it's good for my listening practice. One word which comes up several times a minute is 'wakanai' (dunno), followed lower down on the frequency scale by 'wakaranai' (I dunno) and 'wakarimasen' (I don't know). Then there's 'shiranai' (dunno and don't care - haven't got the foggiest), 'nantoka' (wotsit), and so on.
As a colleague used to say in Qatar, several times a day, God help us.
Eh up - another earthquake - that's two big ones this week....
Piero della Francesca: Battista Sforza, Federico da Montefeltro
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