Over the past 2 weeks I’ve been watching all the rugby league matches on TV. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is the way the commentators pronounce the Pacific Islander player’s names. What just a few years ago would have been voiced as “PaParlee” is now expressed as “Pa-pa-li-e”, ie. the way the Islanders would say it themselves. In this politically correct era, I guess such a thing is deemed necessary.
I thought to myself, if only people had the respect and could do the same for Japanese too. Wouldn’t it be nice for the people of Australia to order karage or soba with the correct pronunciation instead of me laughing at them all the time – (yep, prick I am - stop laughing I can’t). The population born innately bogan; I doubt this will ever be possible. So the karate connection….. It still baffles me at times when after many years of training, many karateka don’t even know how to correctly say the kata they are doing. Worse still, not even know what club or style they do nor what is written on their dogi badge or custom belt. How about thinking you have been doing koBOdo all this time and not Kobudo? 😊 At least learn the basics ….Wouldn’t someone working in a company want or would force themselves to learn and practise all things related to their job? Or is this comparison too far stretched? Or am I the problem again - expecting too much from everyone?
Anyway, I leave you here with a picture of my good friend MeKOKO on the right. We went to Okinarrwa together during covid when the borders were still technically shut. Here she is doing Sleepiinpai, but her favourite kata are Sighyeahnchin and Sheshochin. Her favourite food is Karaajii.
I don't usually comment but felt I had to for this. lol This is something I think of all the time and it reminds me of something humorous (to me) from back in the 80's. I won't get into the Japanese language since you know already...more than me... but it concerns the "u" and "i" sounds and how they often disappear in Japanese speech. For me I used to do a little research and inquiry into spellings and pronunciation ( back before the internet). But others didn't and just tried to copy what they "thought" they were hearing. There was a guy I used to train with and even years later, even after the internet became the norm, always pronou…