I said, “Touch your chin,” and proceeded to place my finger on my mentum; however, Japanese-toddler logic mandated not the mentum as modeled, but what he very knew to be his chin. You see, “chin-chin” (ちんちん) is the Japanese kid word for penis.
Read moreIsn’t it interesting that humans have feelings about the words that we use to express feeling?! This is property is called Phoneaethetics.
Read moreYou got a cellphone in Japan! (Did you get SoftBank or au? I like au for two reasons unrelated to the actual phone. […]
Read moreTranslation tip: If you are reading a sentence in English/ Japanese and are unsure of what it says, identify the subject and then try reading the sentence backwards and the grammar will be much more akin to your native tongue.
Read more“How did you hurt your face?” Asked my concerned coworker. “I hit my car,” was my matter-of-fact reply. Their looks of consternation […]
Read moreParents are stressed. Teachers are stressed. I know because I am a parent and a teacher. I have also learned that if I find […]
Read moreThe Japanese language has now come full circle. ♻️ Kanji started as pictures, morphed into ideograms, and eventually was combined in Japan with a syllabary that held phonetic value, and now technology is taking people back to the origin of writing roots.
You see, our brains are meaning-making machines and will try to make meaning make sense even when it does not, and will fill in words it thinks it hears. The school game telephone (also known as Chinese whispers) exploits this property linguistically known as a mondegreen, which got its name through Sylvia Wright’s famous mishearing of the poetic line “layd him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen.”
After my firstborn, a combination of stress and genetics triggered Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in me. (The fact that this disease was discovered by […]
I have to remind myself of this quote so often.
The dance between chaos and order is where we live and where are is born.
If I wait till I’m perfect and perfectly ready, then I will never begin.
Parents are stressed. Teachers are stressed. I know because I am a parent and a teacher. I have also learned that if I find […]
This poem was written during my high school days when I was in my third depression, and when I found what an incredible healing tool writing could be.
Being able to speak a language is subjective. I have many Japanese friends who speak beautiful English but do not consider themselves to be English speakers.
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Tagged calligraphy, emoji, Emoji Etymology, emojis, etymology