Jenglish and Englese - excerpt from the book 'Thank You and OK!'

"IT'S RAINING!" Okamura-san called out to me in the kitchen where I was sitting studying Japanese at a deep brown wooden table.

"Thank you!" I responded, opening the sliding screen door. She was outside taking the clothes off the line and putting them in the basket that was under the overhang. I walked out apologizing and started helping her help me.

"I'll get this. You'll get wet."

She picked up an umbrella that was leaning in the corner and held it over me as I got the last of the laundry out of wet's way. We stood under the overhang talking. Gray-haired Okamura-san was in a small-patterned white floral dress protected by a light blue apron with a ruffled edge. Like most Japanese she is not a bit overweight. She comes up to my shoulder and is about the same age and build as my mother. She lives with her husband behind our house in a large two-story home with a walled-in flower garden.

"I've been bothering you," she said, taking her leave.

"Here, take this river (kawa)," I said, handing her the umbrella.

"Kasa," she responded softly, with a twinkle in her eye.

"Oh, of course," I said. "Take this umbrella (kasa)."

"No, thank you. I only have to walk to the door and it's not raining so hard."

But I insisted so she took it, thanking me and apologizing for being rude I went back inside thinking what an idiot I am - always getting even the simplest words confused.

I had the morning to myself and was using the time to study Japanese. Before returning to the books I put brown rice and water into our rice cooker and turned it on. "Neuro-fuzzy" is printed across the front of the machine. Words like that - Japanese-English - attract our attention as much as the Japanese we are always studying and trying to figure out. A lot of it is quite creative. We have a tall white plastic wastebasket in the kitchen that we bought new at a local homu sutoru (home store) that says:

This expresses our life vision

LET'S

Supreme Can

("Let's" is the brand name)

Jenglish 2

While riding the bus to town Elin and I have made a mental list of interesting names of commercial establishments along the way. Some of the names are cool, like Niagara Moon, a coffee shop. Some are uncool, like Infect, a lady's dress shop, and a bicycle rental store at the train station called Shity Cycle (that's "city"). There's a coffee shop named Guns and Coffee, a barber shop named Cut and Bro, a beauty parlor called Haircutter Freak and, at the busiest intersection downtown, a men's clothing store called Brains Organic Matter. I copied a message written in large letters on the wall of the video rental store nearby. It says:

This is the space where we can be willing to coming so it gives a lot of good amenity and rental A@V for you.

Sometimes I surprise my teen-age English students when I ask If I can write down the messages on their shirts. Here is a sampling:

Pay close attention to various objects and be calm

Doc Holiday stokes his chin and regards you through hooded, hostile eyes, You stare at your head or hand SENSATIONAL

HAIL TO THE QUEEN He spokes as if to say in that low cautious tone of voice, "you Bastards." INFORMATION

Advanced Program Poison Gas Specialist Spats

(I copied that one off of the back of a motorcyclist's jacket)

New Basic @ Trendy Fashion Good Feeling Life for Young Mind

Sleep With Me Tonight

for the player who demands the ultimate best sensitive comfortable fat fashion good things exists throughout time

Princess Cat There is something graceful about cat. Cats represent cute, cooing, sweet, everything is oh, so nice love.

I looked down at my notebooks, full of idiomatic Japanese phrases and useful words. The cover of one notebook says, "White Superior Note - always be along with you." Another reads, "Notebook - please use this note book politely, and use up the last sheet. And then please use your brains everyday." A third that I use for random thoughts in English is more apropos. It pictures three kittens with bat and ball and says, "Showing Off," then on each page at the top, two cats dressed like the Bowery Boys walk along arm in arm and it says, "a couple of crooked priest that you just can't seem to dislike."

Jenglish 3

Okamura-san was calling my name again. I was staring at the table at the time - the one that she and her husband had loaned us for the duration of our stay. At first her voice seemed to come from beneath the table's surface, but then I caught her in the corner of my eye standing out on the driveway. The rain had never really gotten going and the sun was out. She stared putting the clothes back up on the line. I told her to stop but she wouldn't, so we did it together. I looked for something timely to say. Of course - her cherry tree. It's a late-bloomer with double flowers. A lot of the cherry blooms in this area were all rained out and blown away by mid April, but hers still looked pretty full. As I pinned a shirt to the line a breeze came up and a flurry of petals took to the air and wafted gently, circuitously to the ground. Aah - they use the word "snowing" for that.

"The fish (sakana) are snowing," I said.

She looked at me, smiling, "Sakura (cheery blossoms)?" she asked

"Yes, yes, how stupid of me - the cherry blossoms are snowing." I pulled a clothespin from may teeth and grimaced.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Point Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group