You Sound Like a Llama
Here I was, thinking I was a perfectly fine and normal American studying abroad in Japan for a year. Days passed swiftly and I was having the time of my life. But little did I know I was slowly being consumed by a most debilitating disease, the kind of disease that one can only pick up while in Japan for a long time. When my parents came to Japan, they saw it right away and made the chilling diagnosis: “you sound like a llama!”
Yes, in the course of studying Japanese and speaking with Japanese friends every day, I had picked up Japanese conversational vocalizations, which are quite different from those in English. In a conversation in Japanese, it is expected that you demonstrate, audibly, that you are following along with what the other person is saying. In English, one may nod their head, or say something like “uh-huh.” In Japanese, however, it comes out something like this, which is apparently llama-esque to English speaking ears:
Photograph by Jessie Reeder. This post is a submission for the July ‘09 JapanSoc Blog Matsuri.
great post joe. as i was reading, i wasn’t sure what sound(s) you were referring to but as soon as i listened to your embedded audio it became so obvious. :-)
HA! My mom has since gotten over me uhmming back to her as I speak to her on the phone. It’s hard when you get back to the states to stop it sometimes.
Here I’ve noticed that I can’t pronounce some words in English as well as I could, and I find conversations where I can’t use both languages troublesome.
Nice post!
It sounds like me when I’m sleep-talking. XD
I am from Peru and I didn’t notice the sound of llamas do, but you made me laugh!
Hey I’m from Peru too!
While I was reading I accidentally clicked on the button for the audio. I was freaking out, wondering where the noise was coming from… hehe
I didn’t know llamas sounded like that.
(lol the llama in the picture looks very regal)
hmm…as for me, a chinese malaysian, doesn’t find it sounds weird, may be due to the similarity of the slang when malaysian’s chinese speak. For your information, malaysian chinese have quite much ’slang’ in their speech, especially the end of every sentences. For instance, -lar~, -lor~, yeah meh~, those kind of~ you know…XD
Joe, you don’t know me, but I just have to throw this out there: go back to Japan so we can all read about more Japanese adventures! I really dug your youtube tour of your school, bike route, etc. I’m three months into AJATTing and your blog pumps me up into overdrive mode. Keep on keeping on.
-Matt
You and me both, Matt! I’d love to go back to Japan sometime soon, but it’s going to wait until at least next summer. If you’ve followed my tweets lately then you know I’m applying for the JET program. If I get accepted then, I’d go back next August.
Good luck with AJATT! I hope you’re finding as good a method for learning Japanese as I am. :) Thanks for the comment!