Comic #5: Nuances

Sorry for using a bit of a "rerun" - this is from my original comic and due to and uncooperative computer I'm repurposing it for language use.

In Korean there is a word hyuji which literally means "rest". You can add suffixes to make new words, such as hyujishil, a room where one rests, and hyujiso, a rest area (as in one off the highway). However, as I found out, it's important not to confuse hyujishil with hwajangshil, which is where you'll actually find the toilets.

And yes, they sell waffles at rest areas in Korea. I don't know why.

Comic #4: Style

Do you generally associate a language with a style of dress? I've never thought about it that way, but when I had this girl approach me certain I spoke English because of what I was wearing, I was a bit shocked, to say the least. The shocking part of course, she then couldn't identify the country (England? Canada? Australia?), but seemed to assume only an anglophone girl would be wearing jean shorts and a rugby shirt that says "Ireland".

Do you generally look at a way someone is dressed and say "oh, he must speak Italian" or something similar? Does a common language really imply a common culture? Or is it just for anglophones? It does have me wondering.

Comic #3: Improvising

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I'm lucky enough to have studied so many languages, that some that I haven't make sense to me sometimes. Meaning I was able to read street signs in Portugal, order food in Catalonia, and so on. Sometimes the languages I have studied are the ones that give me a bigger problem - I know I only had a semester of Italian for example, but for some reason I would get mad when my horrible accent would make people switch into English for me. It's not like I could properly speak in Italian anyway! Still, what was even more fun was people coming up to me and asking for directions or some such - I would know what they were asking, but either not know the answer or not know how to say it. A little embarrassing! I guess when you travel alone people are going to mistake you for a native - it's much more likely for someone who knows the city to be wandering it alone without a map.

Comic #2: Barcelona

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This has a little backstory to it: I tend to travel alone and without many plans, so when I was in Barcelona and noticed some lost Japanese tourists trying in vain to understand what a man was trying to say to them in Catalan, I used my rusty Japanese skills to try to help, since I understood mostly what he was trying to say (about the cable car being closed). They were just so shocked that I spoke Japanese and grateful for my help that I ended up staying with them most of the day and really speaking only Japanese - except when we ordered food. I certainly never thought my Asian language skills would be useful in Europe, but I guess that's what makes languages worth learning - they can help you meet people and go places you never would otherwise.

Comic Strip Number 1

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