You also could try arigato which as two applications. In Japanese domo arigato means thank you while in Italian it means a cat named Ari (an Israeli cat) that lives in the Domo.

Very funny and I can see it happening. R

Btw, "Ohio Gozaimasu" is used for "Good Morning" in Japanese.

Ie ie.

(More Japanese--as Casey Stengel used to say, You could look it up.)

Jan, marrying Italian to Japanese makes you a master linguistic matchmaker, a pun my word.

Okay, let's consider "Hi." It means "yes."

Leon-san, let's make your one-word Japanese into a three-word bare bones
Japanese survival kit.

1. Ohio ("Good morning")

2. Hi ("Yes.")

3. Ie (pronounced eeeee-yay. It's "No." It also means "House," but
that's not importnat right now.)

Our survival kit has a greeting and both Yes and No. That should suffice for
80- 90% of the transactions one encounters in Japan.

Thanks, Kimura-san . Google says Ie ie means No problem (as in, You're welcome).

But now I know: one Ie alone is No. As you say, with three basic words one-san can go far. To a Japanese restaurant, anyway.

If you repeat ie (ie ie) it can mean "no problem." An expanded translation would be "No no no no no, that isn't a problem for us," with the emphasis on the "No no no no no" part.

On that basis, if ie means no, and ie ie means no problem, or yes, ie is an alternating word where odd numbers mean no and even numbers mean yes. This differs from English where no means no and no no emphasizes the no unless you mean no no which means there is no no which means yes which matches the Japanese sense and is an alternating positive negative. Clear?

Said like a much-sought-after appeals lawyer, Jan.
Also explains the triumph of binary code.

Incidentally, Iowa was named after an American Indian tribe, the Ioway. Io was an ancient Greek nymph seduced by Zeus and subsequently transformed into a cow. She was said to identify herself by scratching her name, Io, in the sand but perhaps the scratch was misinterpreted numerically to be the basic digital numbers. Since the zero had not then been invented, perhaps the Greeks had initiated modern mathematics by misunderstanding. WA stands for western Australia. What that has to do with Indian tribes or cows or Greek nymphs makes good material for pointless contemplation.

The Ayatolah will not brook others taking credit for Arab initiatives in mathematics. Hence death to Greek mythologists, double death to American Indians and triple death to Australian aborigines.

Fatwah, baby!

I assume cows are safe.

And Iran is not an Arab country.

Jan, you forget nothing.

But not like the fellow who forgot nothing and learned nothing.

Actually, since nothing has nothing about it worth remembering it's well worth forgetting.

And so to bed. With a bottle of Pepys-Cola.

We each have our individual sexual peculiarities.

Ka-ra-o-ke is universal for making people forget your faux pas (uh-oh, a third language). But make sure to include enough sake.

Kampai! all. And to all, a good drink.

...and so to bed sounds good to me! How do you say that in Japanese?

To seek to snore
Can never bore
When there are dreams
To explore
Whee one can dance
In fields of fireflies
Or seek romance
In a pair
Of golden eyes.
So slip beneath
The coverlet.
Punch the pillow,
No regret
In sleep retreat
Making any day
Complete.

Thanks, Jan, for your erotic lullaby.