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Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Ha Ha, Hee Hee, I laughed so hard it made me...

The average adult only laughs 14 times a day, where as children laugh on average 200 times a day. I definitely need to laugh more. It is so very good for your spirit, soul and body. When is the last time you laughed so hard you thought you were going to wet your pants? I currently have a ClixTutoring.com homestay guest who is a 57 year old Japanese man, Eiki. He is laughing all the time. It is such a delight to hear his laughter along with my children. I realized I don't laugh very much. It feels good to laugh. So I'm trying to just let loose and laugh at myself and be more light hearted. Ha ha, hee hee, huh huh huh!

Here are two funny little "lost in translation" episodes:

I asked Eiki what a word meant in Japanese. He responded in English, "you know." I shrugged my shoulders and tried to think if I knew the word and then said, "I don't know. What does ___ mean?" He responded again, "you know". I was starting to get frustrated. He obviously thought I knew the word. Then he showed me on the Japanese/English dictionary that the Japanese word I was trying to get the meaning for meant "YOU KNOW", like you have knowledge of something. Oh we had a good laugh when we both realized what had happened.

This same kind of thing happened to me in 2002 when I was in Russia. I knew a phrase that was fun to say but I couldn't remember what it meant. The phrase in transliterated English goes like this....Ya nee pah nee my you. So I asked our translator friend what does "ya nee paw nee my you" mean? She answered, "I don't understand." I thought maybe I didn't say it correctly. So I told her maybe I'm not pronouncing something correctly. But I thought is sounded something like "ya nee paw nee my you". She giggled and said again, "I don't understand." Ha ha ha The joke is on me. You probably guessed it. Ya nee paw nee my you means in Russian "I don't understand!"

Please share you miscommunication story that made you laugh?

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