Nari could not participate last week because of illness in his family. He is still looking for a job, challenging in the middle of a pandemic and dangerous because the interviews have been in Osaka, a COVID-19 hotspot. He’s been to two interviews so far. I told him that in America, you often hear that the third time’s the charm. He said Japan’s lucky number is 7, and Nobutaka said there is a saying that goes something like “One, two, three is two.” I said that that makes no sense, how can three be two? This was spoken in Japanese, and after Nari’s repeated translation, I understood. The Japanese are unable to pronounce R when it is in the middle of a word and they were trying to tell me, “One, two, three is true.”
Nari had tendon (tempura on rice), Yuriko and Nobutaka had pasta with enoki mushrooms and Japanese spaghetti sauce, and I had lemon garlic shrimp. Because of the time difference, they had lunch, and I had dinner.
Nari read an ESL article about the success of Netflix during the lockdown, and sure enough, a share of Netflix is going for $424. For his questions about idioms, he asked about backwards and forwards and smell a rat.
Good luck, Nari-san!