Ken Loo brought up a good point. Just how is "Austin" spelled? Both in English and Japanese, it has two spellings.

Austin, the city where I live, the capital of Texas, is named after Stephen F. Austin. Austin is his family name. It is spelled the same way as "Austin Powers" who has it as his personal name. Austin is an unusual personal name. I've never known anyone else to have it.

However, the author Jane Austen, spelled her family name differently, with an "e" instead of an "i".

Anyway, 日本語で Austin (the city) used to be spelled オースチン, but now it's spelled オースティン。The new spelling should help you pronounce the second syllable like "ten" and not "teen" or "chin". I still think it's really strange that the first syllable is rendered with an オ. In Texas, we pronounce it like the "aw" in "Aw, shucks!" or like "Open your mouth and say 'Ahhh'." It doesn't sound anything like "Oh!"

My family name has undergone the same transformation. In 1989, I learned to spell it スチーブンス. But now I'm made to spell it スティーブンス。In English, I spell it "Stevens", but other families spell it "Stephens". Whenever I give my name, I always have to explain, "It's S-T-E-V-E-N-S."

質問とコメント

Here's a page from the University of Texas site that spells Austin both ways.

And here' another site with some nice photos of cattle in bluebonnets and Austin's most famous homeless man, Leslie Cochran. Leslie has run for mayor of Austin, but hasn't won...yet.

中野さんは上野公園に野菜で野球をしていました。

Generally Speaking

Mr. Nakano was playing baseball with vegetables in Ueno Park.

Yup. That's a pretty silly sentence, but it helps me remember the various readings and meanings of the character 野。

English is full of little sayings and rhymes to help you remember difficult spellings and arcane points of grammar. When I was a technical editor, one of the most frequently misspelled words I corrected was "separate". For some reason people tend to spell it "seperate". I would always write in the margins, "Remember there's 'a rat' in separate."

Speaking of rats, did you know that "a rat in the house may eat the ice cream"? If you did, you'd remember how to spell arithmetic: a rat in the house may eat the ice cream.

どこはきれいな庭があると思いますか。

所が日本にありませんが、サンフランシスコがあります。

先週は夫と一緒にサンフランシスコに行きました。

楽しみましたよ。

サンフランシスコはオーシテンより古くて大きいてにぎやかです。

いろいろな人間はたこくせきげんごで話しました。

お天気がとてもよかった。海から弱くて涼しかった風が吹きました。

海近くに住みたい。

Generally Speaking

Where do you think this beautiful garden is? It's not in Japan. It's in San Francisco. Last week I went to San Francisco with my husband. (He was on a business trip, so the hotel was paid for with an expense account.) I had a good time. San Francisco is much older and larger than Austin, a bustling metropolis. There's a tremendous variety of people speaking all kinds of languages. The weather was perfect. A gentle, refreshing breeze blew in from the sea. I wish we lived next to the sea.

質問とコメント

bustle: to move briskly; to be busily astir, to teem (with activity, excitement); full of activity, noisy and energetic.

きれいな花ですね。「ラインリリー」です。雨が降ること後でたくさんラインリリーは咲き出していました。

Generally Speaking

Isn't this a pretty flower? It's a rainlily. A few days after a rain, a profusion of rainlilies pops up.

質問とコメント

1. The botanical name for this rainlily is Zephyranthes grandiflora. Zephyr is the Greek god of the west wind. Because rainlilies suddenly blanket the prairie after a rain, it looked as if the gentle breath of the god had caused the flowers to magically appear.

2. There are many kinds of rainlilies: pink, white, yellow. They grow where the soil is dry and dusty most of the time. When it rains heavily, they send up a flower stalk and bloom overnight. Since they appear so suddenly, it's very magical. The flowers last for only a day or so and then fade until the next rain.

火曜日の夜は雨が降った。今朝も雨が降った。日本は今雨期「梅雨？」ですが、テキサスの夏は干天です。そしてここに雨が降ることがすごいです。

Generally Speaking

Tuesday night it rained. This morning it rained some more. I know it's the rainy season in Japan (so you're probably thinking "So what!?!"), but Texas summers are always hot and dry. So, here, when it rains, it's great!

質問とコメント

1. We haven't had a heavy rain since the middle of February. Tuesday night the amount of rain was four times greater than the total amount of rain that fell in the month of May. That is, it rained 2 inches on Tuesday night and about half an inch all of May. May 2003 was the third driest May that we've had in more than 100 years. We broke record high temperatures several times, including one day when it reached 101F degrees. Our temperatures for May are usually in the 80s.

2. My lawn is so happy!

先日は車に乗ってから、窓の外にこの変なサインを見ました。

サインを読みました。目を丸くしました。「ちょっと待って。あれは日本語です。」

それは新しい日本料理のレストランです。私たちは昨晩レストランに行きました。高かったですが、とても美味しかった。夫は吸い物と焼き鳥を食べました。私はあげどふとすしを食べました。デザートはチョコわさびケーキ。ほんとに。面白かっただね。

Generally Speaking

The other day, when I was riding in the car, I looked out the window and saw this strange sign. I read it without thinking. Then it hit me. My eyes practically popped out of my head. Wait a minute. That's a Japanese word.

It turns out that it was the sign for a new Japanese restaurant near our house. Last night we went there for dinner. It was expensive but it was very good. My husband had suimono and yakitori. I had agedofu and sushi. (The sauce on the eel was amazing, not overly sweet and cloying as it is sometimes). For dessert we had chocolate-wasabi cake. Really! It was a very interesting combination of tastes.

質問とコメント

1. In Austin, most of the signs and billboards are in English. There are also quite a few in Spanish, especially here in South Austin which has a high Hispanic population.

2. It's really hard to express just how strange it is to see a Japanese word, especially one that is not obviously a place name (like Kyoto or Fuji), and to see it written in romaji with no other indication that it is connected to anything Japanese. I. knew it was a Japanese word, but my husband didn't. In fact, my guess is that 99% of the people who drive down South Lamar, have know idea what it means, or that it means anything. This part of Austin, home to honky-tonks like the Broken Spoke, Mexican restaurants, second-hand stores, and fast food joints, is the last place I'd choose for an upscale Japanese restaurant.

夫の友だちの誕生日は先週の金曜日でした。一緒にカントリーアンドウエスタンダンスに行きました。有名なダンスホールのBroken Spokeに行きました。自宅の近くにですが、ぜんぜん行きませんでした。私はカントリーがちょっと好きじゃない。でも私たちは楽しかったわね。夫はおどるのがだめです。そしてすわってだけ見ました。

Generally Speaking

A guy my husband works with turned 30 last Friday. He suggested we go country-western dancing together. He wanted to take his family to the famous South Austin dance hall, the "Broken Spoke". Although our house is quite near, we'd never been there. Country-western is not really our style. We all had a lot of fun, though. My husband won't dance. so we just sat and watched.