Japanese Lessons

"To learn a new language is to gain a new soul"

I just decided it was about time to learn something new, totally different from what I know, so I'm taking japanese lessons and I'm loving it! One of the most interesting things I learnt is that Japan in japanese is called Nihon, and the story about how it became Japão in portuguese, Japón in spanish, Japon in french or Japan in english is very very funny: the portuguese sailors during the Age of

Discovery were the first westerns to arrive to that place called Nihon (Japan), after months and months starving in the sea they saw land in sight, because they were so so tired and so so hungry, the portuguese sailors asked each others: "já há pão?", which in english means: is there [pt: há] bread [pt: pão] now [pt:já]?, and voliá that distant place has the western name of Japan " Já há pão?" (and actually the japanese word for bread is pan, from the portuguese pão). How cool! :)