Nice to see a vibrant community! I hope to join you in lively conversation! My wife is Japanese and I want to better increase my language ability, so here I am! We just returned from 2 months in Japan, and though my language ability allows me to maintain a fundamental level of conversation, I fee like I’ve only scratched the surface!

Plus my mother-in-law laughed at me when I hurt my back. She said “Dai jobu desu ka?” and I replied “Sakana itai!”. She laughed, I got offended. Then I realized that instead of saying “Senaka itai!” (my back hurts), I said “my fish hurts”. Senaka and Sakana sounded too similar to me. See, that can’t ever happen again!