One day years ago, I was sitting in the lounge at school where I worked. There was a group of high school students gathered around something—a photograph I think—talking and laughing about what they saw. Another student came over and wanted to see too. He said in a lonely-sounding voice なかまにいれてよ！The group burst out laughing and made room for him.
At the time I was struggling to learn Japanese and hadn't understood what he said. But everyone's laughter made me want to learn more.
I understood ～にいれる(put ~ into ~). But I didn't know the word なかま（仲間）. So I looked it up but my dictionary had an impossibly long list of possible translations: friend, fellow, partner, company, companion, circle, associate, colleague, gang, mate, party, set.
What? How could one word have so many meanings?
Clearly, I thought, なかま described a kind of relationship. But what kind? I tried to find the common thread of meaning in the words. Some seemed similar (friend, mate) but others quite different (colleague, associate). How could the same word translate as both friend and colleague? And other words, circle, gang, party seemed totally out of place.
I asked a student. "What is なかま?"
"It means‘friend’".
"So what does なかまにいれる mean?
(The only translation I could think of was "Put something into one's friend." That couldn't be right. It sounded painful and not very friendly!)
"It means something like‘Let me be your friend.’"
But this didn't make much sense to me in this situation, since the students were already friends.
"What's the difference between なかま and ともだち?" I asked.
My student thought hard and said "It's the same... but not really. Sorry, I can't explain."
I dropped the subject. Studying Japanese had forced me to stop trying to translate directly. Sometimes I asked for a translation of a simple English word and got back a very complicated answer. For example, shortly after arriving in Japan I asked how to say "but" in Japanese (as in "I want to go the party, but..."). Someone told that it could be が or けど or けれども or しかし. Other times, particular words seemed very Japanese. I was told it was impossible for a foreigner to understand わび・さび.
So I tried to forget the word なかま.
But it kept coming up in conversations. I heard なかまになる. I wondered if that meant simply "To become friends." But I also heard なかまはずれ. I knew that はずれる means "unfasten" or "come off". This made no sense to me: To unfasten a friend? And what about 仲間意識? Friend awareness?
One thing was clear: To understand even this simple word, I had to understand Japanese relationships. They were different than what I was used to in the U.S. Hierarchy is important (use of honorific language is common and complex). And people socialized differently. Even making friends seemed different. In the U.S. it's often a one-on-one process, while in Japan people often become close with those in their class, circle, company, etc. Individual friendships often develop in the context of the group.
So, to truly understand なかま, I needed more than a dictionary. I needed to make friends, socialize, spend time with Japanese colleagues... I had becomeなかま. I had to be someone's ともだち. Learning this one word would take a long time. I had to experience relationships as Japanese do—to learn to look at Japan from the inside.
But in the end, this approach worked! And eventually I learned that being on the inside is what なかま is all about. |
No comments:
Post a Comment