Bikkuri shita, benkyō ni narimashita, uso!
(How do you say these phrases in English?)

In this week's one-point lesson, we look at 3 phrases that I often hear Japanese people use in their everyday conversation. The reason I want to look at these phrases is because (a) they are very common, and (b) if they are translated literally (文字通りに), they will sound a little strange in English. In the next 3 sections, we will look at some situations where you might use these phrases in Japanese, and think about what we could say in English.

Bikkuri shita!

Imagine this scene: it's late at night and you're sitting alone in your room. You're reading a book of horror stories, Maybe Bram Stoker's Dracula or something like that. You're the only person in the room and outside it is very quiet. You reach the part of the story where Dracula is abouit to sink his teeth into the woman's neck when, suddenly, the  door opens and your sister walks into the room. Your heart misses a beat, you drop the book and you say, "Wah! Bikkuri shita!"


QUESTION 1:
How would you say bikkuri shita in English?

Benkyō ni narimashita!

I often hear interesting things from my students. Recently, I was talking to a high school student and I complained that many young Japanese have very long, complicated addresses on their mobile phones. Some people I know use lots of dots, hyphens and underbars. Their addresses are sometimes like this:

I asked him why people create such complicated addresses. He told me it was because of the ore-ore telephone fraud. If you have a complicated address, you're less likely to get pestered with ore-ore messages. Now, as many of you will know, I don't have a mobile phone, so my student was able to teach me a lot about ore-ore calls. "Hmm..." I said, "benkyō ni narimashita!"


QUESTION 2:
How would you say benkyō ni narimashita in English?

Uso!

I remember when I first came to Japan and worked as an ALT in junior high schools and primary schools around Ena. One day I was telling a primary school class about my life in Englans and one little boy kept saying, "Uso!" I started to feel irritated and looked across at his home-room teacher. I thought she would tell the boy to stop, but the teacher was laughing and seemed to find the boy's "uso" very funny. I knew she was a very good, professional teacher so I didn't say anything. Later I spoke to the teacher and I realised that the boy was not trying to be rude.


The reason for my irritation was that I knew "uso" means "lie." So, it seemed to me that the boy was calling me a liar. That sounds very strong and insulting in English. So...


QUESTION 3:
What would the boy have said if he'd been speaking English?


Think about the 3 questions and then click here to see Bob's suggested answers and comments.

There are plenty of other one-point lessons on this site. Please click on the link below if you want to check some of them out
Bob's one-point lesson archive

© Robert E. Jones, 2004