One of my biggest motivations to get better at speaking Japanese is because I had an embarrassing encounter in Japan 10 years ago.
During that time, I visited Japan and had my first real test of speaking Japanese after downloading Duolingo. I approached a security guard in a shopping mall and confidently asked, "トイレはどこですか？" (Where is the toilet?).
He understood me, and I was so happy! But then he started explaining something in rapid Japanese, and I couldn't understand a word. I just nodded my head, thanked him, and ended up running off in confusion.
For those who have tried conversing with locals in JP, do you have any interesting stories to share?
(And if these situations also motivated you to learn Japanese afterwards)
by ErvinLovesCopy
25 comments
When I first spoke to a Japanese person I would motion the pitch accent for each word I said right in front of me with my hand. It was pretty embarassing after I realized what I was doing lol
This wasn’t exactly a mistake of speaking Japanese. I was outputting on hellotalk in a voice room, there were a few learners speaking there along with 2 Japanese natives. Someone said 数学 as [1], where the pitch goes from high to low. This was when I wasn’t very good at pitch, and was trying to improve, so when others were speaking I was trying to see whether their pitch is right or wrong on each word. So when this learner said 数学 with the wrong pitch, I accidently blurted out 数学 with the correct pitch, and he was like what? That was really awkward lol.
I think learning a language is like 30% learning to not be embarassed. Like, you will sound like an confused animal for a good 1-3 years atleast. The ones who shamelessly keeps embarassing themselves are the ones who improve the fastest in my observation.
High school students take ぼき exams, not ボッキ exams. And if you say, ask them about the latter, they are gonna get real quiet real fast.
When trying to order an おろしポン酢 bento, I accidentally said おしりポン酢
I remember a few instances of mistakes, but the funniest one must have been accidentally using パンツ to talk about pants, I heard snickers and I suddenly realized.
I went to a bookstore in Umeda because I heard there were english manga there. I asked the shopkeeper えいごのまんがはどこですか and I was glad she understood me but she started speaking so fast I couldn’t understand her lol.
I went to a mental health clinic and I wanted to ask if everything was done so I said いじょうですか but apparently my pitch sounded more like 異常 than 以上 and she proceeded to kindly explain to me that I’m not crazy.
Not too embarassing, but just felt odd. I’m a translator by occupation and I looked up this word to find it was 訳者 (やくしゃ). I wasn’t aware that 役者 (actor) sounds exactly the same. So when I told a Japanese person 「私は訳者です」 the reaction was naturally 「どんな劇場で働いていますか」 🙂
On my first Japan trip (5 years ago) , I was eating in a restaurant. I sat down an put my backpack on the ground under my chair. Some moments later a woman next to me approached me and said something like there are baskets (バスケット) to put the backpack in. I was completely lost and understood バスケ… And was thinking basketball? Wtf does she want from me? 😀
She tried like 3 times until I realized how dumb I was. SUPER Awkward
Imagine saying お疲れ様です into 俺様です.
I repeatedly said ブス to my Japanese teacher while trying to remember the word for bus. I just sat that saying it over and over again while she stared at me confused in silence. I didn’t know what it meant but I just couldn’t remember if it was バス or ブス
I once was having conversation with my tutor and we were talking about various cities in my home country. I said I went to X city only once for “tourism” except I said こうかん (交換?) instead of かんこう (観光) and she was visibly confused. She asked me if it was for a job and what job I was doing there etc and I didn’t understand why she said that when I just mentioned it was tourism, not job.
I only realized later I had swapped the two words :facepalm:
I said 会いてよかった｡ instead of 合って良かった。
My ex is Japanese. She got a haircut and asked me what I thought. I was VERY early in my studying. I thought cute = kawaii and adding sou means something appears to be so. So I said it was kawaisou. Thankfully she understood me but was still rather embarrassing when she explained my mistake like a week later.
Landlord (very old) told me his wife had passed using, “おばあちゃんが亡くなったですね”to which I thus proceeded to talk about my trip back to the UK for my grandmother’s funeral, which i had just got back from the day before. I didn’t realise he was talking about his wife as i thought he knew my grandmother had passed. This was done in front of his children (adults) as well. I realised the next day after talking about it with a friend and quickly went to apologise, give my condolences and a small present. He said he understood the confusion thankfully. Very awkward.
Edit: i realise the Japanese may be wrong, I was just writing what first came to mind about what he might have said back then.
Not me, but my classmate on a school trip (This was 10 years ago) We accidentally ended up being interviewed on live radio in Nara, and she said she was 50 years old rather than 15. The interviewer was very amused.
Almost 20 years ago but anyway. Uhh. There was a girl, I admittedly liked. I wanted to get to know her better. From context I thought 付き合いたい was the phrase to go with, ie, thought it meant “get to know you”. Well, that was dumb. She and I ended up going out for coffee despite my blunder but she was pretty awkward.
It uh, didn’t work out. And later I realised how much of a dumbass I was and how I probably creeped her the fuck out.
付き合う is essentially to be bf/gf with someone. I err, went a few steps too far in retrospect.
One other, far less worse in degree. Saying お腹いっぱくなった and having my hosts laugh their collective asses off at me.
In class, said oni chan instead of ani san
Beginner here. What’s the problem with the OP question ? Is it just that it’s too formal or that the word for restroom isn’t correct ?
i setup a bumble bff account, typed in my description on my phone without checking, and received a message from a kind new friend informing me that, unless it _wasn’t_ a mistake, that i probably wanted to change my profile to say something like:
日本人と外国人の友達を作りたい
i want to make friends with japanese people and foreigners
instead of:
日本人と大黒人の友達を切りたい
i want to cut my japanese and big black friends??
we both had a laugh about it 😂
Going to restaurant, pointed at 牛肉 and said 牛乳お願いします
A large part of my early embarrassment was speaking and not being able to listen and comprehend anything.
Don’t ignore immersion. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. If you’re crazy like me spend 90% of your days with Japanese only. Good luck, I pray everyone becomes their desired level of 上手🫡
Oh I’ve had a few in the last few weeks as I had my first opportunity to speak Japanese to Japanese people.
-I rehearsed how to say my son was 14 years old (ticket prices were 0-10, 10-15, and adult) – I hold my hand around my 14 year old son as tall as me and accidentally said “He’s 4 years old”. She gave me the price for a teen and I didn’t realize my mistake until afterwards.
-I wanted to ask for a larger shoe size – I had properly asked for a 24 and needed a 25. I said “45”. Guy stared at me for a while until I said “ohhh, sorry, 25”.
-I wanted to compliment the beautiful food that had come out in our omakase meal. I said “it’s lovely isn’t it?” Or so I thought. The waitress blushed and thanked me for the compliment. I guess I said “you’re beautiful, aren’t you?” I used きれい .. I guess it isn’t the right adjective to describe beautiful food?
Well, my most embarrassing situation was in Anime Japan last year, I took a flyer, then a guy started to talk to me. I said something like “はい……はい” without understanding a word he was saying (lack of skill + really loud environment). It took like 3 min until I understood I had to subscribe to their twitter account to take the flyer.