Forgot an English word… should I worry?
Ever have one of those times when you know a foreign language word for a common thing, you can see the thing, you know what the thing is, but for the life of you you can’t remember the English word?
In the supermarket today I saw a fruit and knew it was あんず (anzu). I knew what it was. I knew what it was called in Japanese. I knew it was a common fruit. I’ve eaten them before in the U.S. and in Japan. I know I knew the English word. It was not an unusual word. But I just could not recall it all day.
I thought if I didn’t try hard to remember it would eventually come to me. Finally it was bothering me and I looked it up in Google Translate – apricot. Of course.
But how could I forget the English word and remember just the Japanese word? It feels really … weird.
Is something happening to my brain?
Nope, after 30 years you’ve turned Japanese, for which I envy you no end. Anyway, “anzu” is way cooler sounding than Apricot! Well done you!
Normal 50s Dementia. I do it quite often. Of course not the foreign language part, just normal words. My husband and I laugh about it because I’ll remember at 2 am and I’ll tap him on the shoulder, tell him the word and he’ll say “Oh yeah!”.
It’s kind of funny. So now you are old like me!
What Nancy said – welcome to the world of us older folks.
I like to envision my memory as a huge, Raiders-Of-The-Lost-Ark type warehouse. With the passing of years the warehouse has to hold more and more stuff, so it’s not too surprising that a small thing like a particular word might be temporarily misplaced.
I think I prefer Rosalie’s reply (that after 30 years I’ve turned Japanese) to “50’s dementia.” 🙂
doug