Did I Fall for the Shapes of Hiragana?

 For nearly six months, the title of my blog had been wrong—and I didn’t notice it.
It was a small typographical slip, but one that revealed just how deceptive the gentle curves of hiragana can be.

 

Something strange had happened to the title of my blog.

What was supposed to be “Konna kimochi de iraretara”—“If I Could Feel This Way”—
had somehow become “Konna kimochii deraretara.”

I have no idea when it happened.
Perhaps it dates back to when I moved my blog to Hatena.
I was so embarrassed when I noticed it that I fixed it right away.

Maybe I made a mistake when I copied and pasted the title during the move,
or maybe it happened somewhere along the automatic migration process.
Either way, according to my old posts, the move was on April 25.
That means the wrong title had been sitting there for 190 days—almost half a year.

What puzzles me is how I failed to notice it.

When written in hiragana, de iraretara and ideraretara look so much alike.
The latter makes no sense at all, but once you believe it says “iraretara,”
your mind accepts it as correct.
It’s a curious thing—how easily we can be fooled by what we expect to see.

Japanese is said to be difficult because it mixes hiragana, katakana, and kanji.
But if even native speakers miss such mistakes,
it must be far more confusing for those learning it as a foreign language.

Then again, every language is difficult for those who didn’t grow up with it.
Reading, writing, and speaking—none of them are easy.

If only we all shared one universal language,
things might be simpler.
But then I wonder—why did God decide to make life so complicated for us?