Sometimes I have doubts about English...

When you're studying a foreign language, especially in that foreign language's country, you begin to doubt your native language.

For example, my grandpa Satou-san is really smart and knows a lot of English and just knows a lot of things, especially when it comes to words. I love word games and such, so I love to hear all his stories and about all the knowledge he has. The other day at my conversation club, Satou-san talked about the word groups high, tall, and takai and cold, samui, tsumetai.

In English, there is a difference between high and tall, while in Japanese there is one word to describe them both: takai. If a balloon is up in the air, it's high in English, takai in Japanese. If a person is tall, they are also takai. So, in English, there's a difference between elevation--an object's position in the air/atmosphere without necessarily a base--and height--an object with a base on the ground with a measurable distance from that ground base to its peak. Japanese doesn't have that difference. Everything is just takai. Not to mention, takai is used to mean expensive--as in a high price--but that's another story.

So, Satou-san asked everyone in the club, what do you call a person? Tall. What do you call a building? Tall. What do you call a mountain? High. But then, I was like, what? That's not right. A mountain is tall! It confused me that everyone was so unified on the fact that a mountain was high. Tall sounds more natural. But then again, it is true that I've heard a mountain be called so-and-so feet high before. So, I looked it up today, and apparently, a mountain is both! When you're talking about a tall mountain, you're referring to the distance from its ground base to its peak. When you're talking about a high mountain, you're referring to the distance from sea level to its peak. So, Mount Everest may be the highest mountain in the world, but Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the tallest mountain in the world. In my opinion, that difference is kind of strange and a pain to think about, but apparently, it exists. In Japanese, however, you don't have to worry about it. It's takai either way.

Now to give an opposite example, where Japanese has more words than English, there is cold, samui, and tsumetai. In this case, samui refers to coldness of atmosphere, temperature of a place, while tsumetai usually refers to coldness of the touch or taste. Sure, English has chilly/chilled, which is pretty close to tsumetai but it's not exactly the same. For example, a place can be chilly, but although the air may be called tsumetai, a place would be samui. A beer may be called chilled, but it can also be called cold. When you're drinking the beer, you wouldn't say 'this beer is chilled', but rather, more naturally, 'this beer is cold'. In Japanese, a beer is never samui. It is tsumetai. I found myself making the mistake today twice when I was holding a cold drink and eating a frozen yogurt, of saying 'samui!'--it's cold. Natural in English, but in Japanese, the correct thing to say is 'tsumetai!' because I'm directly touching/tasting something. In relation to heat, English has hot and warm and Japanese has atsui and atatakai, so it comes out naturally. When I want to say a drink is warm, I'll say atatakai. If something is hot, atsui. However, because there isn't really a difference in relation to coldness, I find myself making foreigner mistakes. 

Although there is not always direct translation for every word, I can get the feeling of what the word means because I've been studying the language so long, I think. Unfortunately, though, that feeling is often difficult to express to those who don't know the language and often impossible to express in written translation. Interestingly, when I tried to explain the difference between high and tall to a Japanese audience who only had the word takai, I was met with blank faces. Perhaps native English speakers who don't know Japanese also find it difficult to completely understand the difference between tsumetai and samui.

In Japan, I'm learning Japanese, but at the same time, I learn things about English, too. Anyways, I found it fascinating and a learning experience, so I just thought I would share. Did I explain things okay? Did everyone learn something new?