Ah Ahaha

[akujunkan]

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Ahem...

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The Japanese language has a very limited phonology, which makes it very easy to make mistakes. Everyone who's studied the language for even a little bit knows someone who has (or knows someone else who has) mixed up the words for 'red bean paste' and 'turd.' But this... This takes the cake.

A friend of mine, one of the gentlest, sweetest girls to ever walk the earth, who unlike many JETs is seriously trying to learn Japanese, asked her baseball team* what they did over the weekend. This brought first a shocked silence, and then gales of laughter so strong they ended in tears. The team was still laughing at her a day later, so she asked a teacher if he could tell her what she'd said.
*(the baseball teams in this city are historically the club of the roughnecks and punks.)

"I can..." he said, and would say nothing else.

So she asked me.

It took me a good long while to figure out what had happened, but oh my god above, when I did figure it out... This is the single best mistake ever to have been made in the Japanese language. EVER.

I want to see if any of the Japanese learners among you guys can figure it out.

So here's the Japanese as my friend thought she'd said it:
週末に、何をしましたか？
しゅうまつに、なにをしましたか？
shuumatsu ni, nani o shimasitaka?

Any takers? Any ideas? (I'll let you all in on it tomorrow sometime if no one can figure out out). Because, oh my god...PRICELESS.

That will be all.

Comments

[firesign10.livejournal.com]

(Since I am one of the few NOT studying Japanese, I anxiously await the resolution of this post! hehehehe)

[sara-tanaquil.livejournal.com]

My immediate thought was that she didn't pronounce the first syllable of shuumatsu as long, but shumatsu isn't pulling up anything in any of my dictionaries. Is it so bad that it's not even dictionary-suitable? Or am I off on the wrong track altogether? I can't imagine what else she would have mispronounced.

*very curious*

[amasugiru.livejournal.com]

I WIN!!!