Trott Weblog

I told myself after our trip to Tokyo in January that if Six Apart decided to take funding, I would force myself to take a Japanese language class so that, the next time I was in Japan, I'd be able to wipe that "I'm so stupid that I don't understand your language" look off my face.

Ten months later, we're back in Japan and the only phrase I can speak (and poorly at that) is "nihongo-ga wakarimasen" which is, as you could probably guess, "I don't understand Japanese."

Remember that Chris Farley Saturday Night Live sketch where he's on a Japanese game show but can't speak Japanese? And as he misses question after question and is about to be electrocuted as penalty for losing he keeps on shouting "I don't speak Japanese!"

That's basically how I feel -- but probably a bit less eloquent than Farley's character.

The other day, while sitting in a room for about eight hours straight and surrounded by others discussing work stuff almost entirely in Japanese, I found myself trying to will myself to speak, or at least understand, Japanese. It's a safe bet to say that I wasn't too successful and, after all those hours of intense Japanese, I realized that I wa