Some families discuss politics or sports or movies. We talk about talking, reading and writing.

I don’t think we can have dinner without discussing Japanese grammar. Last night, Tod read aloud from Anthony Burgess’ “Language Maid Plane” about the structure of Asian languages while I brought our meal to the table.

The night before that, having dinner with friends at Pizzakaya, Tod & Mike joked about making up nonsense words in Japanese by conjugating verbs in pattern phrases. For example, Ohayou gozaimasu which is used as a morning greeting but literally means something like ‘it is honorably early’ could be conjugated into Ohayou gozaimasen which is the negative. Native speakers don’t say that, of course, and they look at you funny if you try it as both Tod & Mike can attest.

And two nights ago, I had a Webgrrls meeting at the house. Tod and Hiromi discussed whether the passive causative verb form (i.e. to have been made to do something) was common. Hiromi’s answer, “No, not really.”

Sometimes I think sports and movies might be more entertaining… Posted by kuri at November 10, 2000 07:47 AM