Japanese for Reckless People

Or should I say “People who speak Japanese recklessly”.

At the escalator in Holborn station yesterday, a lady who was standing in front turned around and asked if I was Japanese.

“Ex-er kill-su me, are you Jar-par-nee-su?” she said with a thick Japanese accent.

Before I could decipher what she was saying, she continued in Japanese, “Nihon-jin desu ka?”

I paused for a while to think if I should answer her in Japanese or English since she asked me in both languages.

Then I replied, “Sorry, I am not.”

She apologised and repeated it in Japanese, “I yam sorry..Gomen nasai…gomen nasai” and bowed a few times.

"Ah! You look-ku like a Jar-par-nee-su. I yam sorry." she bowed once more.

I smiled and said, "That's fine."

The tiny size lady looked like she needed some help. Before the escalator peaked, I spoke to her in my dysfunctional Japanese to offer help. “Ano, Nihon-jin janakute, nihongo ga hanasemasu yo! (Err…I am not Japanese but I can speak Japanese!)

Her face brightened, “Ah! Honto?!” (Oh! Really?!)

She then explained her situation to me- at length! It reminded me when I was in Japan. The moment you speak a little Japanese, they will assume that you’ll be able to understand everything in the language – so you end up communicating and signing (or hanko-ing; Japanese seal) agreements away at the bank, post office, immigration office etc based on the little stuff that you could understand and leave the bigger ones to chance and pray that you’re not signing your life away! Thank God, Japanese are the most honest people in the world, or at least that’s how they come across to me!

I could understand pockets of the conversation. Two dots connect a line, so I made up she was trying to tell me she lost her husband two hours ago somewhere in the station after their visit to the British Museum. And her husband has a back pain! She needed help to locate him.

I may have missed other points but I thought that was sufficient to know what she was after.

The problem came. How the heck should I respond to her? That was the time I thought, “Shucks….why did I respond to her in the first place!!”

I mustered whatever Japanese words I could remember and just shove it up the conversation.

It was an emergency after all, so there’s nothing to be embarrassed about even if I had accidentally said that she looked like a whore or something. I am sure she would understand.

I found the use of “shimasu” extremely helpful at a time when you need to speak Japanese desperately!

From experience, an English verb and “shimasu” work wonders. The lady could almost understand me completely! Magic!

I was struggling with simple verbs like “check”, “take”, “help” and even “walk”! These were basic words but even that, they have slipped my mind! This shows how important practising is to learning a language.

The words ended up as “check-ku shimasu”, “take-ku shimasu, “help-pu shimasu” and “walk-ku shimasu”. They sounded funny but hey, the important thing is she got the message!

We had a good chat in between; about her trip, her family and her worries if she really had to lose her husband in London!

We finally found her husband in the room when we went to check it at the hotel. An outburst of a familiar word came out unconsciously when I saw them together; "Yokatta ne!!" (That's good!)

I realised we have spent 2 hours in the hunt for her husband when I needed to catch up on the next appointment. I have never spoken in Japanese for a long time since coming to the UK.

Two hours are an ordeal if you don’t know what the other person or you are talking about. I could remember I nearly boarded the next flight back to Malaysia when I first stepped into Japan and felt paralysed by the language. So I am glad I survived with my reckless Japanese.

Needless to say, I need to “practise shimasu” instead of practice “shimasu”.