Posted in dailysentence on 2010-01-18 10:01 am by M Sinclair Stevens
“We want our money back.” In English the sentence is so simple but what a lot of trouble I had translating it into Japanese, even though I knew every vocabulary word.
There is a subtle difference between “We want our money.” and “We want our money back.” The former implies we want something that is due to us (such as wages or a payment). The latter that we want something that was borrowed returned to us. It’s really shorthand for “We want our money given back.” “We want our money returned.”
However, in Japanese there is no verb for “to want”. Desire is expressed in two ways. If you want to do something, conjugate the verb as follows. V + tai n desu ga. If you want to have something, state the object of desire and use the adjective “is desirable”.
I want a new car. = As for me, new car is desirable.
But how do you say that you want someone else to do something without turning it into a command. “We want our money [given] back.” has a different sense than a request “Please return our money.” or an order, “Give us the money!” By dropping the verb “given”, the sentence expresses a change of state without focusing on the cause of that change. “We want the money back.” implies an actor and an action offstage. We want to have the money. Someone will have to give it to us but the who and how are not explicitly stated in this sentence; they are understood from context.
I took a wrong turn in the grammar and tried to nominalize “the money returned by the bankers” and came up with 「銀行家にお金を返すのが欲しいです。」Kiyo provided the correction: 「銀行家にお金を返して欲しいです。」My problem was that I didn’t read far enough in “A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar”. The next entry explains that if you want someone to do something you use the construction:
| Experiencer + wa |
indirect object + ni |
Vte |
hoshii desu |
| 私達は |
銀行家に |
お金を返して |
欲しいです. |
| watashitachi wa |
ginkouka ni |
o-kane kaeshite |
hoshii desu. |
| As for us [the American people] |
by the bankers |
money being returned |
is desirable. |
I think the Japanese sentence lacks the simple directness of the English sentence–at least when it is translated back literally into English. Maybe in Japanese to a Japanese person it sounds direct. In English it is quite common for a dissatisfied customer in a store, restaurant or movie theater to say, “I want my money back!” No wonder Americans sound demanding. It’s built into our language.
Posted in diary on 2009-10-21 07:36 pm by M Sinclair Stevens
Accounts
| ¥3285 |
groceries |
| ¥300 |
2 pieces of cake |
| ¥6500 |
cylindrical lacquer vase |
| ¥2500 |
small square lacquer tray |
| ¥3000 |
2-tiered lacquer box |
| ¥1800 |
men’s zori (sandals) |
| ¥2000 |
bar and disco |
| ¥520 |
consumption tax |
| ¥19905 |
Total |
Notes from 2009: Hita Lacquerware
I buy the lacquerware vase I saw at the train station shop the first time I was in Hita and two other pieces besides. I love lacquerware. Just as Westerners call porcelain “china” because China is so well known for it, we used to refer to lacquerware as “japanware” or say that a laquered item was “japanned”.
The vase is made of a hollow section of bamboo.
My Japanese coworkers warned that lacquerware often did not survive in the US because it prefers a constant, high humidity. Certainly in a dry climate like California they would suffer. Or in an overly heated or air-conditioned American house. But I’ve never had any problems except in this one piec that was cracked when I shipped all my goods back to Austin. It cracked vertically.
Posted in diary on 2009-09-03 07:44 pm by M Sinclair Stevens
Accounts
| ¥920 |
train: 1.5
Kamegawa-Oita-Kamegawa |
| ¥350 |
10 B5 notebooks 240-pg |
| ¥800 |
book: Read Japanese Today |
| ¥2500 |
book: A Guide to Remembering Kanji |
| ¥1657 |
groceries |
| ¥200 |
deli: chicken |
| ¥250 |
shampoo |
| ¥1395 |
body care |
| ¥580 |
Vape (30 pack) |
| ¥310 |
beer |
| ¥200 |
present: cake for Abe-sensei |
| ¥100 |
machine drinks |
| ¥236 |
consumption tax |
| ¥9498 |
Total |
Postmark: Beppu September 3, 1989
We went shopping in Oita again this weekend. The basement floors of the big department stores always are supermarkets. We discovered one [probably Tokiwa] that had a large western liquor section. And they had Johnny Walker black label, the same size I bought that last night [in Austin] for only ¥3600 ($25.00). So I’m very relieved and happy to know I have a resource for my New Year’s presents. Plus, if I get desperate and dip int the scotch I brought, I’ll be able to replace it. But I haven’t been driven to drinking alone yet, except for the occasional liter of beer from the vending machine down the street. And that’s only if I’ve bought sushi for dinner. Of course, we practically live on sushi. An old woman keeps a take-out shop down the street and I can get six pieces of nigiri-sushi and one tuna roll for ¥400 ($3.00). That’s about the same as one piece of sushi in Austin.
Notes from 2009
Stationery
I found the notebooks on sale on the top floor of Parco. They were really cheap. Maybe it was a back-to-school sale. They were fairly plain notebooks by the standards of Japanese stationery. They came with aqua or pink covers which said.
Seduce Notebook: This notebook is well bound with automatic excellent machine by Bun’undo that is traditional since 1909.
Vape
Our un-air conditioned apartment was very open to the outdoors. We slept with the sliding glass doors to the balcony open and the screens did little to keep the mosquitoes out. Our dorm mother had brought over the modern equivalent of the mosquito coil, an electric diffuser for Vape mats. Each little mat had some sort of insect repellant. It smelled pretty bad and I wondered if they were carcinogenic so I was reluctant to use them. I couldn’t read the information on the Japanese packaging. But the mosquitoes were numerous, so I solved the immediate problem and tried to put my fears about long-term consequences out of my mind. Twenty years later, this is what I discovered about Vape, on the Internet.
Posted in diary on 2009-09-01 05:32 pm by M Sinclair Stevens
Notes from 2009
Loaf of Bread
Even loaves of bread were different in Japan. Loaves of sliced white bread came wrapped in plastic bags, like in America. But the loaves, all the same size, could be bought in varying widths determined by the number of slices in the loaf; the more slices, the thinner the slice. I suppose the concept is comparable to “thin-sliced” or “sandwich slice” or “Texas toast” sliced bread. The loaves were smaller but they did not include any end pieces. End pieces were bagged separately for stuffing. I thought this was a marvelous innovation. No one was stuck with the crusty end piece.
Our usual breakfast was toast and coffee. We liked the 5-sliced loaves because it made toast which was deeply golden on the outside and slightly soft on the inside. Hmmm. I guess that would be Texas toast.
First Day of School
Although all sorts of classes and meetings had been going on at the school throughout August, this was the official first day of the second term of school. Summer vacation interrupts the Japanese school year which starts on April 1st. So classes and routines were already settled. The half days at work I’d been attending helped me (and everyone who had to interact with me) make a smoother transition into school life. I was the first JET participant to come to Beppu Joshi and so no one on either side really knew what to expect or what to do. I was really glad to “belong” to a school. I think I would have felt very disoriented and lonely if I had worked at the prefectural official and had been assigned only to school visits, as many JET participants were.
Posted in diary on 2009-08-31 05:27 pm by M Sinclair Stevens
Accounts
| ¥1500 |
JQS, field trip |
| ¥100 |
machine drink |
| ¥100 |
postage: letter |
| ¥400 |
postage: 5 aerograms |
| ¥130 |
JQS: 50 pg B5 notepad |
| ¥278 |
groceries |
| ¥1060 |
deli sushi: 1 lunch 2 dinners |
| ¥11 |
consumption tax |
| ¥3579 |
Total |
Credit: ¥7050. Travel expense reimbursement
Postmark: Beppu Sunday September 3, 1989
I went to play tennis with about eight other teachers the day before school started. There is a recreation center in Hiji about 30 minutes drive north of here. It’s like a huge private country club but it’s open to the public. It was just completed in April and it makes me think that the Japanese have begun to equate spaciousness with luxuriousness. This facility could compare with the newest ones at UT.
I learned more about playing tennis in this one afternoon than I have in my entire life. Over the years I’ve played on and off with friends. These experiences have supplied plenty of comic relief but no one ever explained how I might play better. The Japanese are so different! I was part of their group and they felt it was their responsibility to help me learn. They showed me how to hold my racket and swing and they each took turns drilling me while the rest of the gang played a game. No one made any deprecating remarks about how bad I was or got impatient with me or acted liked they’d rather be playing for real than teaching me. In the end, I made some improvements.
Notes from 2009
I’m pretty sure that the other teachers in this group were all 2nd year teachers, that is, home room teachers for the junior, ni-nen-sei, class. The P.E. teacher, Yasanami-sensei, was also in charge of the school’s tennis and badminton teams. Washizuka-sensei seemed to love tennis and played much better than I did even though he was nearly twice my age. I didn’t pay for anything on this outing. I don’t remember if it was treated as a guest or whether it came out of some special 2nd year teacher fund.
Posted in diary on 2009-08-30 05:02 pm by M Sinclair Stevens
Accounts
| ¥100 |
postage: letter |
| ¥3750 |
JQS summer PE uniform |
| ¥3900 |
amusement park |
| ¥1263 |
groceries |
| ¥310 |
beer |
| ¥33 |
consumption tax |
| ¥9356 |
Total |
Notes from 2009
Kijima Korakuen, Kijima Gogen Amusement Park
Murakami-sensei and Tsuda-sensei took me and JQS to Kijima, an amusement park up in Kijima Heights west of Beppu. The only things I remember about it is that I really had fun driving the Skid Racer cars. I’ve missed driving a lot and I’m pretty good at controlling my skids. The little roller coaster looked so rickety and frail that I was afraid to ride on it.
Posted in diary on 2009-08-29 04:26 pm by M Sinclair Stevens
Accounts
| ¥1400 |
black garbage pail |
| ¥200 |
postage: 2 letters |
| ¥540 |
train
Kamegawa-Beppu-Kamegawa |
| ¥100 |
red inkpad (for inkan) |
| ¥100 |
glue |
| ¥100 |
4 red hooks w/suction cups |
| ¥798 |
towel rack w/suction cups |
| ¥100 |
red plastic mixing bowl |
| ¥298 |
strainer |
| ¥168 |
luffa |
| ¥750 |
Japanese poem flash cards |
| ¥200 |
machine drinks |
| ¥800 |
deli sushi for two |
| ¥118 |
consumption tax |
| ¥5872 |
Total: 5872 |
Notes from 2009
I remember the difficulty I had trying to carry all these purchases home. The black garbage pail seemed huge. It took up lots of space on the train and it was awkward lugging it on the 20 minute walk home.
I brought both of those black garbage pails home. I used them as packing containers when I shipped my household goods back from Japan. I still use them 20 years later in the garden to collect rain water or hold gravel mulch. In Texas, they are tiny.