I started Hebrew, which is why Iâve been dead on this blog, but I donât think I can ever properly convey to you guys the sheer cultural whiplash of spending years learning Japanese from Japanese teachers and then trying to learn Hebrew from an Israeli
Japanese: you walk into class already apologizing for being alive
Hebrew: you walk into class, the teacher insults you and you are expected to insult her back
Japanese: conjugates every single verb based on degree of intended politeness, nevermind keigo and honorifics
Hebrew: Someone asked my teacher how to say âexcuse meâ and she laughed for several seconds before saying we shouldnât worry about remembering that since weâll never need to say it
Japanese: if you get one stroke wrong the entire kanji is incomprehensible
Hebrew: cursive? script? fuck it do whatever you want, you donât even have to write the vowels out unless you feel like it
Japanese: the closest thing there is to âbastardâ is an excessively direct âyouâ pronoun
Hebrew:Â âbitchâ translates directly