She said, “I feel queasy.”

Years ago, when I had just started working in the pharmaceutical department of a hospital, the senior nurse came into the pharmacy and said, “I feel queasy”.


Hearing that, you would think that she was suffering from nausea, wouldn’t you?

Well, she said it in Japanese, and the words she used were “mukamuka suru.” That means both “I feel sick to my stomach” and “I feel offended”, so I first thought she had had some sort of conflict.

I said, “What’s up?”which meant “I’m prepared to listen about your worries.”

She didn’t realize I was misunderstanding her, and kept repeating “I feel queasy.” for several minutes. I waited for her to confide in me. Then she said, “E ga itai.”

I was in a crisis! “Itai” means “have a pain”, but I didn’t know what “e” was. I thought it must have been a part of a human body I didn't know about.

“I should have studied harder!” I regretted my lack of knowledge since earlier I had mistook “nose bleeding” for “a small amount of bleeding” during a phone call from a paramedic. (Both words have the same pronunciation in Japanese medical terms.)

I said, “Which part?” with some hesitation. She repeated “E ga itai” for about 20 minutes.

And then, she told me that she had eaten too much. I finally realized what she was saying.

“You have a pain in your stomach?”

She angrily looked at me. Her eyes seemed to be saying “How many times do I have to tell you?”

However, “stomach” is “i”. Not “e”. Never!

She just wanted some stomach medicine.

Afterwards, I found out the senior nurse was famous for her dialect. Many people had problems understanding what she would say. This made me wonder how possible it was that she was unaware of her dialect and how it confused people, but I didn’t have the guts to ask her.



Thank you!

Koir, thanks as always.