Your Japanese word of the week is...

"(noun) shika (verb)-nai" ~しか～ない . It sounds really complicated but it's another double negative like this one. This time, however, the shika part can be thought of as "other than" and the nai part is "not".

As an example, futari shika inai 二人しかいない means "Only two people are here" or, technically speaking, "Other than two people, no one else is here".

Likewise watashi wa beeru shika nomenai 私はベールしか飲めない is "I only drink beer" or "Other than beer, I don't drink anything else".

If I'm honest, it makes perfect sense but it's having to wrap your head about the double negative while hearing it said quickly in a conversation that's confusing..... what makes it particularly difficult is that most people learning Japanese soon find that listening for the "nai" at the end of the sentence/verb usually helps them understand that it's a negative verb. However, in this case, the negative modifier has nothing to do with what the sentence means and thus it's very easy to mistake "I only drink beer" with "I don't drink beer".

I bring this up mostly because this is a bit of Japanese I only picked up quite recently (two months ago perhaps) and it's actually used quite often. It comes in handy because a friend of mine from Japan is in Vancouver and every so often, she needs to switch back to Japanese to full express herself, and these bits and pieces show up so..... well, I guess it's quite convenient I figured it out haha......

Besides that, being back in Vancouver is nice.......... for the most part. It's hard to explain because I quite like it here and while there are things to do, they're much less accessible than they are in Tokyo; I have to drive everywhere to do things. And while I love driving, it doesn't change the fact that it's a bit of a hassle considering where to park, paying for parking, decided if going somewhere after is worth the time, etc. But, for now anyway, Vancouver being the novel city that I haven't seen in a long time, it's still nice to be here. And seeing all my old friends again is great...

Of course, culturally it's also different. Vancouver doesn't have, for example, the awesome "Manner Posters" like in the Tokyo Metro. This month's is particularly ridiculous....