So I have a Japanese tutor, seeing him for the first time next week. He asked me to prepare a brief intro about myself. He sent me the below:
"On the first day, we will study reading and writing Hiragana then we will review some Kanji. If possible, briefly introduce yourself in Japanese. for example, your name and where you were born.
Watashi no namae wa Dan desu. (My name is Dan.)
Watashi wa California de umare mashita. (I was born in California.)"
So I thought it would be funny to bust out some super obscure slang stuff before letting him know you guys made it up, not me.
Any thoughts?
edit: maybe include what it actually means/how it is used. I am struggling here.
I guess it could be kind of funny and would show that you are enthusiastic about learning at least. Although, you’ll have to assure him that you won’t be too impatient with him since he might think that you only want to learn really advanced stuff without a strong foundation.
I don’t know anything to tell you but sometimes Japanese people who tutor talk about times their students attempted to be funny and they never seemed to think it was funny. I think Japanese people just tend to have different ideas of what is funny and I wouldn’t want my tutor to think I’m unfunny.
I’m gonna be a party pooper and say, while I love humor and playing jokes, in this case I have to agree with @anon43714060 . This is a random person who you don’t know anything about and, presumably, want to make a good impression on. I’d stick with something safe like osaka dialect or something.
This does remind me of someone I read about on reddit who tried the whole jojo line of “omae mo shindeiru” or whatever on some random waitress and it freaked them out because they had no clue what they were referencing.
I mean, if my tutor has no sense of humor, I’d like to know from day one.
I’ve had two Japanese (nationality) teachers, and while one didn’t really get my jokes, she wasn’t opposed to them, but I guess I didn’t start from day one either.
These are all great Ideas but like mentioned above this is a stranger. Japanese people hold first impressions in high regard so maybe save it for the second or third meeting. That being said if he isn’t Japanese and is a foreigner who is tutoring in Japanese I say go for it.
My Japanese friends like this joke: 女子は上司だ (joshi wa joushi da.) It means “girls are the bosses” but the word girl and boss have a very similar pronunciation. It’s a fun joke to make when you talk about how your girlfriend makes you do things. My Japanese friends always laugh when I say it.
Idk if it’s so much about the tutor not having a sense of humor, more that it’s about Japanese humor not really aligning with Western humor. Same way with British and American humor being pretty drastically different. One or the other isn’t “correct”, they’re just very different. I don’t think it’s over the top to try to be funny when first meeting someone, but they should definitely be prepared for the joke to completely flop. But hey, then you’re one step closer to knowing what does work.
Yeah, joking with Japanese people can be a bit troublesome. They often don’t really get sarcasm/irony, being unexpectedly random or self deprecating humor. A lot of jokes seem to work with double meanings or funny sounding phrases. I wouldn’t try anything weird until you had a session with him and are on more friendly terms.
Without knowing more details about the situation or your tutor, I would recommend to actually make a good impression, work on your pronunciation and just show him that you take it serious.
