Yoko meshi (noun) Origin: Japanese | The stress caused by speaking a foreign language.
Its hard translation is ‘boiled rice’ (meshi) and ‘horizontal (yoko) which will sort of mean as ‘a meal that’s eaten sideways’ — this metaphor actually refers to the fact that the Japanese write vertically instead of horizontally. Hence, the word yoko-meshi has a nice spin to it, doesn’t it?
An old topic for me. I have nothing to add to this one-sided conversation except you should trust me when I say that I become super stressed when I have to speak in a foreign language professionally. However, privately, learning bits of other languages has enhanced my life and travels to measures I cannot ever truly express. The returns I have experienced by even knowing a few words in the language of the country I am visiting has caused laughs, misunderstandings, and deeper understandings and connections that have made my life so much better. Connections I never would have made if I had let that yoko meshi steal my confidence and stress me out. Push through it .. don’t give up.. make connections.
“A different language is a different vision of life.”
Federico Fellini“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein“One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.”
Frank Smith“Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.”
Rita Mae Brown“He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe“You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.”
Geoffrey Willans“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”
Nelson Mandela“To have another language is to possess a second soul.”
Charlemagne“Change your language and you change your thoughts.”
Karl Albrecht“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.”
Flora Lewis“Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom.”
Roger Bacon“Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes“Language is not a genetic gift, it is a social gift. Learning a new language is becoming a member of the club – the community of speakers of that language.”
Frank Smith“Learn a new language and get a new soul.”
Czech Proverb“A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.”
Gaston Bachelard“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.”
Chinese Proverb“One should not aim at being possible to understand but at being impossible to misunderstand.”
Marcus Fabius Quintilian“A mistake is to commit a misunderstanding.”
Bob Dylan
Connections: GSAL; Jan; Jo; OperationX; Lifestyle; Rivergirl; Nicholas; Ishita; James; Alina; Helen; Visha; Elizabeth
rfljenksy - Practicing Simplicity 