Returning West: Memories of Sound and Language 2026/5/2 (Sat) R8

Kanon
May 2, 2026 21:16

While soaking in the bath, I suddenly heard myself say, “Yanaa.”
In that instant, I realized—I have come back to the West.

Even the same “Good evening” carries a different resonance from the way it sounded in Shizuoka.
The meaning is the same, yet the breathing behind it is different.

Forty years ago, when I moved from Osaka to Shizuoka, I grew tired of sound.
To ears accustomed to saying, “Sou iu koto ya kara,”
the neatly shaped “Sou iu koto desu ne” flowed in every day.
I understood the meaning. Yet the resonance did not fit.
For a long time, I kept adjusting my body to that subtle discomfort.

I began standing at the teacher’s podium almost immediately,
and speaking in the sound that reached students most clearly became my job.
It was not my own sound, but it was a sound that carried.
Before I knew it, that sound became “normal.”
Somewhere along the way, I quietly reshaped myself,
thinking, “This is something I simply have to accept.”

Today in Matsuyama, when “Yanaa” slipped out naturally,
it did not feel like returning to the past.
It felt as though a sound long stored away had gently stepped forward.

Thinking about this, I found myself remembering my grandchildren.

When my eldest grandson was three, every time my husband said “rainbow,”
he would repeat “No” again and again, trying to correct the r sound.
To him, a difference in sound was the same as a difference in meaning.

But last year, after spending one month in a Japanese first-grade classroom at age six, he changed.
He no longer corrected our pronunciation as he used to.
Sometimes he looks at my face quietly and says nothing.
Perhaps he has learned, through experience,
that something can be different and still be understood.

My five-year-old granddaughter did something similar.
When my husband said “child seat” in the car,
she repeated “No” over and over.
That happened this past April.
To her ears, /siːt/ and the Japanese “shiito” were entirely different sounds.
For children, sound itself is the word.

I taught English for many years.
Even after earning a TOEFL score high enough to study abroad in graduate school,
for the first three months I could barely understand the lectures.
I recorded them, prepared in advance, checked with friends,
and one day, I suddenly felt, “Maybe I can hear it now.”
That experience left a deep mark on me.
I realized then that language begins with listening.

Yet for a long time, English education in schools
placed letters before sound, grammar before breath.
Students studied hard, yet could not hear or speak.
I felt that gap constantly as I taught.

Now, here in Matsuyama,
living among sounds closer to the West,
saying “Yanaa” in the bath,
and planning to speak with my grandchildren through a screen tomorrow—

The sounds of Osaka.
The sounds of Shizuoka.
The sounds of English.

Having passed through all of them,
I now stand in a place that does not fully return to any one sound.

What is language?
What is Japanese?
What is English?

Sometimes sounds differ, yet we understand.
Sometimes we understand, yet the sound catches in the ear.

On this night after returning West,
all of it felt connected by a single line.

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#WhatIsLanguage
#MemoryOfSound
#Accent
#LifeInMatsuyama
#ConversationsWithGrandchildren
#EnglishPronunciation
#ReturningWest