🚧 K’s COLUMN 061 : 語順にまつわる事故
かれこれ35年ぐらい前の話である。
その頃は昭和末期〜平成初期の「海外出張が増えて、現地語を覚えよう！」という時代だった。
とある有名な会社の社員が出張で中国に行く機会が多くなったので中国語を習い始めた。
そして現地でも通じるようになったから得意になって喋ってたそうだ。
ある日、お付きの若い女性に、
「君、このカバン持ってくれる？」
みたいな感じの中国語を話したそうだ。
そうしたら彼女が真っ赤になって怒ったそうだ。
なぜだろうと思ったら、全然違う意味の言葉を間違って覚えていたそうだ。
その人はカバンのことを「パオピー」と発音した。
本当は「ピーパオ」なのに・・・。
中国語では、皮包（pí bāo）＝革のバッグ、革製の鞄。
包皮（bāo pí）＝包皮。
語順を逆に覚えていたわけだ。
しかも「包皮」は医学用語として普通の言葉だから、単なる意味不明な発音ミスではなく、ちゃんと別の単語になってしまう。
本人は得意満面に「パオピー」と言っていた。
女性側からすると、「えっ！？」となる。
本人は、後から意味を知った瞬間、
「俺、今まで中国で何を喋ってたんだ・・・」
と非常に恥ずかしい思いをしたそうだ。
それまで
「どうだ、俺の中国語は！」
という自信満々の顔だったのかと思うと、もう腹筋崩壊だ。
さて、私はこの包皮が女性を怒らせた原因だと思っている。
この意味が何であるのか調べてみたら、「包皮」は文字どおり「包む皮膚」を指す言葉で、医学的には包皮（foreskin）のことだった。
医学用語として、男性の亀頭などを覆う皮膚を指す。
私はこの包皮こそが女性を怒らせた原因だと確信している。
「あ、この人、バッグの言い方を間違えてるな」
程度だったら、普通は、
「違いますよ、それはこうですよ」
くらいで済みそうだ。
ところが、
「真っ赤になって怒った」
という証言。
これは確かに、何かしらかなり失礼に聞こえる表現として受け取った可能性を感じる。
大体うら若き女性に、男性の亀頭などを覆う皮膚を持たせるなんてあり得ないからだ。
「現地でも通じるから、俺の中国語は上達した！」
ところが実際には、
「ちゃんと別の単語を使って、ちゃんと相手に意味が伝わっていた」
可能性がある。
語学学習者にとってはかなり怖い話だ。
「通じた＝正しかった」
ではない。
むしろ、
「間違っているのに通じてしまった」
という最悪のパターンが存在するのだ。
🇬🇧 English version below
🚧 K’s COLUMN 061 : An Accident Caused by Word Order
This happened about 35 years ago.
It was around the end of the Showa era and the beginning of the Heisei era, when overseas business trips were becoming more common and there was a general feeling of,
“We’re going abroad, so let’s learn the local language!”
An employee of a well-known company began studying Chinese because he was making more and more business trips to China.
Eventually, he became confident because people in China seemed to understand his Chinese, and he started speaking it quite proudly.
One day, he said something to a young woman who accompanied him, along the lines of, “Could you carry this bag for me?” in Chinese.
The woman suddenly turned bright red and became angry.
He wondered why, until he discovered that he had actually learned a completely different word by mistake.
He had been pronouncing “bag” as “bao-pi.”
The correct pronunciation was “pi-bao.”
In Chinese, 皮包 (pí bāo) means a leather bag or handbag.
But 包皮 (bāo pí) means foreskin.
In other words, he had learned the two characters in the wrong order.
And because 包皮 is an ordinary medical term, this was not simply a meaningless pronunciation mistake.
He had accidentally turned the word into a completely different word.
He had been saying “bao-pi” with complete confidence.
From the woman’s point of view, it must have been something like:
“What!?”
Apparently, the moment he learned what he had actually been saying, he became extremely embarrassed.
“What have I been saying in China all this time…?”
When I imagine how confident he must have looked before that, thinking,
“How about my Chinese?”
I can’t help but burst out laughing.
Now, I believe that 包皮 was the reason the woman became angry.
I looked up what the word actually meant and found that 包皮 literally refers to “the skin that covers something.”
Medically, it means the foreskin—the skin covering the glans of the penis.
I am convinced that this was what caused the woman’s reaction.
If she had simply thought,
“Oh, this man has got the word for ‘bag’ wrong,”
she probably would have just said something like,
“No, that’s not the word. It’s this one.”
But according to the story, she turned bright red and became angry.
That makes me think she must have interpreted what he said as something considerably more offensive.
After all, asking a young woman to carry the skin covering a man’s glans is hardly the sort of thing one would casually ask someone to do.
He probably thought:
“People here understand me, so my Chinese must be getting pretty good!”
But in reality, it may have been that he was using a completely different word—and people were actually understanding what he was saying.
That is a rather frightening thought for anyone learning a foreign language.
Being understood does not necessarily mean you were correct.
Sometimes, the worst possible thing can happen:
You can be completely wrong—and still be understood.