“Noriko-speak”

Before jumping right into presenting Noriko’s Tales, it seems prudent to give the uninitiated reader a bit of tutelage regarding Noriko’s English. As mentioned in the introduction, I failed miserably at learning Japanese, but I have worked very diligently at honing the skill of speaking English with a Japanese accent. I have discovered that it is an artform that goes well beyond the notion of confusing “l’s” with “r’s”.

Here is an introductory list to get you oriented:

• Noriko fancies that she speaks “British English” so drop any American “r” sound. That is, “er” always should be replaced by “uh”. If anything, exagerate the “uh” sound; put undue accent on that syllable. Thus “slender” becomes “slen-DUH”; “toaster” becomes “toast-UH”; “teacher” becomes “teach-UH”, and so on.

• Make it your practice to DROP your articles; lose all of your “the’s” and “a’s”, as in “I go see doctuh today” or “Where book?” In the rare occasion that you do use a “the”, please pronounce it “duh”.

• Another key practice is never use PLURALS. In Japanese there are no articles and plural simply doesn’t exist. So don’t use them.

• Verbs seem to be rather optional, as in the example above “Where book?” in which you drop both the article “the” and the verb “is”. The key seems to be to use as few words as possible and make the listener guess the rest.

Here is a real example. One evening Noriko and I were driving around in Los Angeles, near Hancock Park, if I recall. While I drove she suddenly said “Flynt Hustluh?” “Excuse me, honey…?” “Flynt Hustluh?” The weird thing is that in this case, somehow I DID manage to infer what she was really saying: “Was it Larry Flynt that was the editor of “Hustler” Magazine?” As you can see, the key is to keep’em guessing!

• The ONLY time to use plurals is when they are expressly NOT called for. I don’t really know if this is a Japanese thing or Noriko’s unique creation, but her talent for doing this unconsciously is extraordinary. I wish that I had kept a list of her creative capacity to do this, as there is no way I can rattle them all off on command: junks, stuffs, childrens, furnitures, traffics, etc.

• The “th” sound as in “there” is dumped in favor of either a “d” sound or an “s” sound. For example, “this” becomes “dis” and “thirsty” becoms “susty” (remember, no standard “r” sound, so “er” becomes “uh”.)

• Look for cute ways to mess up by using a word that is similar to what you intend but inappropriate. For example: “It fit snuggle” for “It fits snuggly”, or “I sink he vedy fondle me” for ” I think he is very fond of me.” Hey, he better NOT fondle you!

Okay, I think that is enough to get you started. The rest will reveal themselves in the Tales, but at least this gives the uninitiated the basics of Noriko-speak, which by itself will not prepare you for what is to come!