Getting A Little Bit ‘Ecchi’

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I think most of us realize how communicating using two different languages sometimes can result in misunderstanding. Well, I’ll tell one of the problems that can arise between Japanese and Indonesian this time (if you think that this is related to the word ‘ring’: it’s not that one!).

Like perhaps I’ve already told you a hundred times before, I often receive an invitation related to the word “eat” (he he he…) from my friends in Japan. This time Ali and Kiki, friends from Korea, invited me and several other people from Hippo for a dinner party at their home. The dinner was great (I quickly realized that I can live happily ever after in Korea if it’s only a matter of food :-), well, that’s probably simply because Kiki can cook very well... ), and while eating, we talked about lots of things.

Since people from Hippo always like to learn languages, they didn’t forget to ask me to teach them some Indonesian words. All was going well, until they asked me about the Indonesian word for “study”.

Well, the Indonesian word for study is ‘belajar’. However, when it’s spelled, it sounds like brajaru for Japanese (they don’t have the character for L in their kana), and in Japanese, barajaru means (sorry!) bra (actually, it came from the word brassiere). Most of us laugh after knowing the fact, and although I was worried that the dinner would turn a little bit awkward after that, it wasn’t (thanks to the openness of most Japanese to such a thing). That “study” thing even make the party become more lively (later Ali even wondered whether the word for not studying in Indonesian would be no*** (you guess those three stars yourself :-) ), but Ani quickly cut him by menacingly saying「アワン君に何を教えてるの！」(And what are you trying to tell Awan-kun!) - so the conversation was quickly switched into other topics...

So, one important advice: be careful with what you’re saying...

* If you don’t know the meaning of Ecchi, it’s actually means ‘H’ in Japan, and ‘H’ is more or less equal to ‘x-rated’ in English. If you still don’t know what it’s meant by it, you better consult your encyclopedia, because I don’t want my blog to be banned for underage :-).