japanese and amharic.

i like these two lingua. as well as them
being beautiful tongue-twisters, the deeper
motive for me learning them is to communicate
with, or to understand.

but that's not the case.

i fell in love with nihon-go when i was in
johor, actually. those saturdays and sundays
(and most weekdays) were spent watching
nihon doramas (dramas). ntv7 aired them and
i was dumbstruck at how fine the leading
ladies were.

you could say it was love at first view.

aii.

at the time, it was ms takako tokiwa who
was the leading lady, and mr takuya kimura
as the leading man.

together, they starred in 'beautiful life'.

i heard it's the best dorama ever.

although, some might say it's 'long vacation'.

the list goes on. overtime, hero, tell me that
you love me, love love love, beach boys,
shotgun marriage.

they all have subtitles but i hate to see
them, because i know there's something
lost in the translation.

so i bought 'how to speak japanese' and
did my own jap-style nihon.

alas, my command was below, way below average.

still, i relish the days when i would view
cds after cds of those doramas. one season
an average of eight cds.

takku-san. zettaini takkusan.

now, i barely make time for those doramas.
they're still there in 8tv. maybe i should
revisit.

sugoi.

amharic. well. this is a different story
altogether. being in a different country
with a different lingua is a challenge.

well, not that big of a challenge. some
of the abeshas speak arabic.

ana la' fi mushkil. well, not all the time.

i grew bored of listening to the translator
doing his work that i decided to learn
amharic and see what'll happen.

it opened my eyes to a whole new experience.

it turned out, there's nothing more beautiful
to them than a foreigner trying to learn
amharic. besar hati, bak kata orang dolu dolu.

so whenever i wanted to order coffee with
less sugar, i'd say

'ahund bunna, tinnish sukarin'.

and they would laugh and pat my back.

they are gentle people and quickly warmed
up to us. i was taken aback by how pure
they were.

i liked chilled oranges so, everyday i
requested to the cook,

'kezkezah bertukan, buzu buzu'

and i got them. thank god. food was scarce
then.

my nickname there was 'tinnish anbessa'
which meant 'little lion'.

i don't know where they dug that up. maybe
because i was telling stories about lions
to them previously, i think.

anyways, there you go. essentially, a guy
got a chance to learn what is life in the
neck of the woods. catching fish for lunch.
wild meat.

nomads clashing.

but that's a different story altogether.