Pages

Showing posts with label silly foreigner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label silly foreigner. Show all posts

Friday, 21 March 2014

The wasabi mystery becomes clear

The other day, I was telling my housemate about my misfortune in having received wasabi-spiked sushi, and was told, "But all sushi comes with wasabi here!". Now, I remember the nice lady at the counter saying, "some words that I didn't understand, some more words WASABI yet more words" and me nodding happily because I heard a word that I recognised. At the time, I had thought she was asking me if I wanted some wasabi on the side, and, back at home, once I had doused the flames in my mouth, I assumed that she was confirming my choice of death-by-wasabi tray.

Now, it came to mind that there may have been a third option. She had been asking me how much wasabi I wanted in my sushi, and my happy and emphatic, "Hai!" encouraged her to heap the stuff on there. Oops.

So, to cut a long story short, I had another go at it today. After a lot of mime, I returned triumphant, carrying both sushi and a new word in my vocabulary -- sukoshi, meaning 'a little'. Success!

Oh so I'd thought! It seems that she and I do not have the same definition of 'a little'. How do I say 'a tiny tiny amount', someone, please?