I spent four fun-filled months working at a ski resort in Echigo Yuzawa, Niigata-ken, Japan. In that time I learnt a great deal of Japanese and I had many eager teachers. One time I was riding the ski lift with a member of the ski patrol who asked me:
'toki' shiteru?Which means "Do you know what 'toki' means/is?", to which I ably responded with:
'toki' wa kite koto ga aru kedo...Which means "I have heard that word before, but ...".
He interupted my proud recital of this well-worn phrase to indicate that this was not what he meant at all. In the end, I wasn't really sure what he meant since we only had about a minute on the lift. It wasn't until later in the day that I discovered/remembered that 'toki' means 'time', and he was asking 'Do you know what <the> time <is>?', in much the same way we do in English. Oops :-)
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