Language Miscellania

Some stuff I've been thinking about the Japanese language recently.

a. In Japanese, there's no way to say "I want to be brave". Explanation: the English verb "to be" gets broken up into three seperate Japanese verbs, 1) ある (aru) which means "to exist" and can only be applied to inanimate objects; 2) いる (iru) which is the same as ある but applies to animate objects; 3) です (desu) which means "to have the quality of", as in "Firetrucks are red" and conjugates really funny. です is probably the closest Japanese comes to an irregular verb. And while you can conjugate ある and いる into the verb form that means "to want" (they become ありたい (aritai) and いたい (iritai), but don't really mean anything at all useful if you think about it) you can't do that with です. I guess I can't really explain that one in a blog, but it just doesn't conjugate that way as far as I can tell. The closest I can get is 勇気の男の人になりたい (yuuki no otoko no hito ni naritai) which literally means "I want to become a brave man".

b. If you're in Japan and find yourself in a situation where in English you would want to say "thankyou" (that's ありがとう (arigato) in Japanese), a lot of the time you're supposed to say "excuse me" (すみません (sumimasen) in Japanese) instead. Example: Erika and I went for Indian food back when we were dating, and every time the waiter brought something to our table she would say すみません. Example: today I was trying to go into the bathroom when another guy was trying to get out, and when he deferred to me I was supposed to say すみません (I didn't, whoops). There's a lot of stuff like that. I guess sociologists would say it has to do with a greater focus on "intrusion" in the East, as opposed to "gratitude" in the West, but I don't really know what that means. It's just one of those language things, as far as I can tell.

Alright, I've yammered on enough. I'm going to go shopping in Kobe tomorrow I think - I came to a decision in the gym today that having only two long-sleeved shirts without collars is ridiculous. I'm basically cold all the time, and the weather is actually quite mild.

I'll try to post something again tomorrow :) おやすみ