Favorite so far: "bakemono" => "monster"
I think I've remarked at some point in the past about my fondness for words. My vocabulary isn't necessarily extensive, but definitely obscure in some applications (vast knowledge of technological jargon helps). And, for the most part, I can spell pretty well.
However, recently trying to get back into learning Japanese, I'm quickly realizing that my aforementioned language skills are severely limited in some regards. In order to learn a word (the Japanese word, and its English equivalent), I have to first attempt to pronounce the word in Japanese (which I'm pretty sure I'm doing wrong), then write my best estimation of the Japanese word in English before it will stick in my mind.
I don't mean to come across as just saying "Japanese is hard." It is. Very. Or at least its writing system is difficult. But which isn't? Anyhow: my point is, the more I exercise like this, the clearer it becomes that potentially every word I know is "anchored" in my mind as a picture of the English alphabet representation, such that in order for my mind to "grok" their meaning, I have to be able to see it first in my mind's eye. Proving my point, I can pronounce the Japanese word in my head, then aloud, and see the Japanese symbols, but nothing will click until I mentally translate the Japanese word into its English alphabet equivalent.
I shudder to think what this implies in other applications. For instance, in holding a conversation, am I, consciously or unconsciously, translating every spoken word into its pictorial equivalent before parsing it? Is my pictorial language system why programming (involving 90% textual manipulation) seems to come easy, while getting a halfway intelligent sentence out feels like trying to compute square roots in my head?
I think I need to reevaluate my parsing algorithm. The current model is insufficient.