Japanese and Bihari

Little knowledge is dangerous and the little knowledge I am gaining of Japanese might be no exception to this. I am trying to learn Japanese a little. I read a Japanese learning book everyday though I might never be able to use Japanese much. Its a disappointing thought but I am trying to keep the (non) usefulness of learning away from the joy of learning it.

So, armed with my little knowledge of Japanese,I have been drawing premature parallels with other languages I know : namely Hindi and English. The Japanese learning book I have is in English and I do my thinking in Hindi. So its two levels of translations I have to do to understand something. But then after a day or two I discovered that Japanese is more like Hindi than English:grammar wise. The subject, object and the verbs are arranged in Japanese and Hindi in the same way. But even more interesting is some literal parallels with Bihari, (a Hindi dialect) Example:

Bihari's often add 'wa' after a noun . e.g. if you want to say "That building is here "


Woh building-wa idhar hai.
( Woh= that , idhar=here , hai = is )

Incidentally, Japanese do the same :

Ano Biru -wa sono des.

( Ano = that ,biru= building, sono= here , des= is )

So,in this case, a straight,simple literal translation from Bihari will give you a correct Japanese translation :)

Another example, Bihari's add a 'ka' at the end of a sentence to make a question from a sentence. Example, if you want to say, " Is that building here?"


Woh building-wa yahan hai ka?
(woh= that, yahan = here ,hai= is )


A Japanese would say :

Ano biru-wa doko des ka ?
( Ano= that, biru=building, doko= here, des= is)

With such miniature discovery and enlightenment, I was already feeling like a Japanese expert. But before long, my pride took a beating. The reason is that today I said "Ohayo gozaimus" ( good morning) to a girl in the bank instead of "Arigato gozaimus"( thank you). Thankfully the she understood what I wanted to say because I have learned to bow at every excuse, or the lack of it ( I am a natural at it). She said something in Japanese with an expression which gave away friendly understanding and enjoyment of my situation and also some appreciation of the large effort I was putting on my brain to find the right words on the spur of the moment.