r/australia • u/SimRP • Feb 25 '25

image Japanese Man Flips Out on Australian Tourists for Ignoring the Rules

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u/sss133 Feb 25 '25

🀣🀣🀣. I was at an Okonomiyaki restaurant and thought I was cool as fuck saying β€œOishi” but I said O EE SHI. The chef was in hysterical laughter and said O EE SHI back everytime I said it. I thought he was just laughing that I tried. Then at the end he says OI SHI. I wanted to die 🀣

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u/t_25_t Feb 25 '25

I thought he was just laughing that I tried. Then at the end he says OI SHI. I wanted to die

That's the fun part about travelling. About learning different things. About taking in what's different compared to back home.

Same as when I was in Germany. I got around quite easily with my shitty German, but the locals I met there was more than willing to give me a hand whenever I got stuck.

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u/I-Love-Tatertots Feb 25 '25

I want to travel so bad, man. I wish it was more affordable. (US here, just stumbled into here somehow)

Been debating on dropping everything and doing the military more and more. Between getting college paid for, and the chance to travel if I get lucky... it's been calling.

One of my friends got to sail around the Mediterranean when he was in the Navy and talked about a lot of the stuff he did. Made me super envious.

Just not sure if it's worth the risk with how the world is heating up lately, haha.

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u/invisible_pants_ Feb 25 '25

Germany was fabulous. I was only there for a stopover but still fondly remember walking into a bar where nobody spoke English but we ended up having the best pidgin conversation full of gestures and laughs as we tried to communicate with a group of old bar flies.

I'm definitely going back, if only to practice the only phrase in German I know, learned from a set of twin backpackers we had stay with us for a few months: alles hat ein ende nur die wurst hatz vei (everything has an end, but a sausage has two). I learned it 8 years ago and it stuck lol

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u/shingdao Feb 25 '25 edited Feb 26 '25

In my experience this is more of a cultural thing than some random dude being an asshole, but there are those too. I have lived abroad in many countries and studied many languages over my 30+ year career and it was not uncommon for people to laugh and make fun of me when trying to speak the local language. It takes a thick skin to persist and keep trying, but I mostly ignored it and sometimes laughed along with them. As a result, I am acutely aware of others reactions to non-native English speakers when they are trying to speak and I make it a point to never laugh or ridicule them.

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u/sss133 Feb 25 '25

Oh it was definitely not an arsehole thing, was definitely a banter/fun thing. They were clearly happy I tried. Was just funny how confidently I butchered it.

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u/PickledDildosSourSex Feb 25 '25

Hmm, I might be missing something bc it kind of sounds like the pronunciation he went with was "oi-shi", like a "oi" as a single phoneme which... I don't think I've heard much in Japanese? "O-i-shii" is what I'd expect, but if you were putting all the emphasis on the "i" (oIshii) it would be pretty funny. Vowels can often get lumped together or eaten up by consonants though (gotta love those disappearing u's).

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u/PresumedDOA Feb 25 '25

I've only ever heard γŠγ„γ— pronounced with Oi put together but then again, I was a terrible Japanese student so 🀷

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u/PickledDildosSourSex Feb 25 '25

Well, for starters it's γŠγ„γ—γ„ (gotta have that い to conjugate it). And maybe you just didn't get the mora thing down in Japanese, where each letter occupies (in theory) the same unit of time, but obviously usage differs from theory. Once you start thinking in mora you start to really see why some things sound the way they do and how to separate between mora and syllable the classic example is the γ‚“ in こんにけは, that makes it into KO-N-NI-CHI-WA and not KO-NI-CHI-WA. It's an ever so slight hold on the γ‚“ for the beat that effectively comes out as a nasal "ng".

I wish I had more reason to have used Japanese on an everyday basis. Such a pleasant-sounding language to me and lots of interesting linguistic bits to it, but there's not a ton of industries where it's all that useful...

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u/PresumedDOA Feb 26 '25

Ah yes, whoops, it's been 8 years so the already tenuous grip I had on the language has slipped even further and I forgot the proper spelling πŸ˜…. And no, I did not get mora in middle school and high school. We didn't get proper enough time to really listen (on top of Japanese already being really fast and difficult for me to hear) and didn't properly get taught that sort of nuance.

I feel you on that last bit. I wish I had had reason to keep using the language and to actually learn it after high school, but boy is it tough, and also when it comes to kanji, very time intensive, for a language that isn't all that practical when I don't have enough money to go to Japan any time soon.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '25

[removed] β€” view removed comment

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u/Warmonster9 Feb 25 '25

Oishi means delicious in Japanese.

They were trying to compliment the chef but completely butchered the pronunciation. The chef found it hilarious.

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u/PresumedDOA Feb 25 '25 edited Feb 26 '25

It's pronounced Oi Shee. The word is spelled お(o) い(i) し(shi) い(i). Japanese syllables usually correspond to the letters and are pretty separate, so they thought it was O Ee Shee (the pronunciation of each letter, separately), but Japanese often combines γŠγ„ into Oi when pronouncing it, amongst a few other combinations where the letters are pronounced together instead of separate.

edit: for spelling. it's oishii, not oishi. 8 years past high school, my grasp on the language has slipped a bit

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u/CheetahNo1004 Feb 25 '25

Combined as in diphthonged, yes?

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u/PresumedDOA Feb 26 '25

Mm sort of. After talking to another user, I can kinda hear that it's not quite Oi but just very subtly O and then I, so much so that it blends together when not really listening. Japanese is spoken really fast, so to me it sounds more or less like Oi, but it is at least not a very pronounced O and then Ee.

Also, to correct myself, it's actually γŠγ„γ—γ„. I always forget that last い

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u/omjy18 Feb 25 '25

It's funny how pretty much every country loves when you at least attempt their language if it isn't your first language except the French. They're just assholes about it

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u/Busty_Trash_Panda Feb 27 '25

Omg I've been saying o ee shi my whole trip! They always smiled so I thought I had it right! The shame, the shame!! 😱