It was inevitable really. Eighteen months of living in a foreign country without putting in the necessary effort to learn the local lingo would undoubtedly come to haunt me one day. And it appears that this day has now arrived -although I should add that it came as a mixed blessing. Thanks to the help of a Japanese acquaintance my jobhunt has finally paid off & I'll be working as a shopgirl in a French bakery starting next month (ok, it's not exactly a girl's dream job but I've thrown my pride out the door and am going for hard cash!). Serving Japanese customers & working alongside Japanese staff of course involves me having to communicate with them and that's where things get rather tricky... For the past 1,5 years I have skillfully managed to avoid conversations of more than three sentences, in the process hiding my linguistic inability to the outside world (and to myself!). But the past week it has become painfully obvious just how bad my Japanese is; I seem to be incapable of anything more than stringing random words together without any order or logic. Add to that the fact that the owner of the bakery is a Frenchman who I have to talk le français with and you're getting a Tower of Babel-like confusion of languages on my part! But hey, I guess it can only benefit my linguistic skills, right? Wouldn't it be nice though to just have one single, original language like the Babel myth suggests :-)?
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The confusion of tongues
It was inevitable really. Eighteen months of living in a foreign country without putting in the necessary effort to learn the local lingo would undoubtedly come to haunt me one day. And it appears that this day has now arrived -although I should add that it came as a mixed blessing. Thanks to the help of a Japanese acquaintance my jobhunt has finally paid off & I'll be working as a shopgirl in a French bakery starting next month (ok, it's not exactly a girl's dream job but I've thrown my pride out the door and am going for hard cash!). Serving Japanese customers & working alongside Japanese staff of course involves me having to communicate with them and that's where things get rather tricky... For the past 1,5 years I have skillfully managed to avoid conversations of more than three sentences, in the process hiding my linguistic inability to the outside world (and to myself!). But the past week it has become painfully obvious just how bad my Japanese is; I seem to be incapable of anything more than stringing random words together without any order or logic. Add to that the fact that the owner of the bakery is a Frenchman who I have to talk le français with and you're getting a Tower of Babel-like confusion of languages on my part! But hey, I guess it can only benefit my linguistic skills, right? Wouldn't it be nice though to just have one single, original language like the Babel myth suggests :-)?
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4 comments:
Ah, but which language? My choice is the best language in the world: - Kiwi English! After all it's the only one that is spoken properly.
Actually you're right you should find that your Nihongo (& Japlish!) will improve now you have a reason to use it. Soon Vaughan will need you to do all the translating.
Congratulations on the job! As for communication, the French should be no problem, right? And after a couple of weeks you'll notice your Japanese will have improved greatly too and you'll begin to wonder what all the worrying was about! I'm sure you'll do fine. Good luck!
You will be wonderful Inge - you are such an intelligent girl you will pick it up in no time! Btw - working in a bakery sounds heavenly! Want to swap jobs (although I wouldn't wish my evil boss on anyone actually - she makes people at RC look saintly in comparison!
*note: today = VERY bad day at work*
~ Kelly
Hey guys, thanks for the encouragement :-). I guess I need to toughen up & not worry about my Japanese co-workers thinking I'm mentally & linguistically challenged! And Kelly, how can your boss be worse than the managers at RC?? Waw, that's rough...
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