となり の しば が あおく みえるtonari no shiba ga aoku mieru
I'm officially out of my old house (no more moving gripes mixed in with the yojis) and crashing at Brett's apartment for a few weeks. I can't promise that this means I'll be more productive because, as I've realized, my ability to write the yoji with regularity was largely related to the fact that I had a job, or, that is to say, on the the fact that I was obligated to sit at a desk for long periods of empty, empty time. Now that I'm out, even when I'm not busy, I have a million other things that I can do. Walk around Saga Castle, play Smash Brothers, go swimming, boost my ego by walking through crowds of JK at Youme Town (a mall chain in Japan) and draw pitying looks from my girlfriend, who knows exactly how NOT カッコいい I am.
Sounds nice, right? But then, I'm not getting as much studying done as I used to. Maybe I was better off working at Kawa Chuu after all?
Just kidding. I just wanted a way to segue into today's ことわざ.
Definition:
自分の手に持っているものより、他の人が持っているもの方がよく見えること。また、以前持っていたもの方がよかったと思っている場合もある。
Translation:
Literal - The neighbor's lawn looks bluer (greener).
1. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Good one to know, as apparently, it expresses a universal tenet, true of humanity no matter where you go.
Also good to know that even though 緑 (みどり; midori) means green in Japanese, in a lot of instances (traffic lights and newbies for example) are referred to as 青い (あおい；aoi), blue. This is not because of a different concept of color categorization, but actually because of a linguistic phenomenon common in a number of languages that aren't English, one that has no real bearing on today's post but is fascinating, so I will link it here: grue.
Again, in the spirit of trying to be nice to you guys, this expression is used commonly and will be instantly recognized, requiring no long-winded explanation on your part (which, I usually screw up so badly that any hopes of being perceived as knowledgeable in the ways of 日本語 go right out the window).
Lemme know if you find any situations to try it out in!
例文：
A-san: 大学生時代のことを思い出すと、楽しかったと思います。毎日パーティ、ナンパばっかり、ドンだけ飲んでも、2日よいにならなかった。今の社会人の生活と比べたら、｢良かったなー｣と思います。
Thinking back on my old college days... man, that was fun. Partying all the time, hitting on all the girls in sight, and no matter how much I drank, I NEVER seemed to get hungover. Comparing that to my life as a working man... I can't help but think how much better it was then.
B-san: だが、現実的に思い出せば、当時はきつかったよ！毎日カップラーメンをくい、お金ぜんぜんない、周りの人にタバコを借りないと吸えない、週二回ぐらい、母親にお金のことでおこられ。。。大変だった。お前、今の楽な生活の方がいいじゃないか。「隣の芝が青く見える」ってことでしょう。
But if you remember it realistically, it was pretty rough! Eating instant ramen every day, having no money at all, if you didn't borrow a cigarette you couldn't smoke, and your mom was on your case about money like twice a week! It was terrible! Isn't your comfortable life now better than that? Sounds like a case of "The grass is always greener..." to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment