What “Shitsurei” Taught Me

In a very quiet café, a staff member accidentally broke a cup while working and said, 「失礼しました」.

「失礼しました」 literally means “I was impolite just now.” Here, it could be translated into Chinese as “Sorry for the disturbance.”

I did not really understand why an apology was called for. The cup belonged to the café, and the staff member had broken it by accident. I understood that he was apologizing, but that did not immediately help me understand why the apology was directed at the customers.

Later, as I learned more about Japanese culture, I gradually came to understand it this way: the cup had shattered, and the sound had broken the quiet of the café. To my ears, the staff member’s apology was also an acknowledgment of the customers disturbed by the noise.

The cup belonged to the café, but the quiet was something everyone there had been enjoying.

That apology made me more aware that the people around me and I share the same environment. Even when an action does not touch anyone or interrupt a particular person’s conversation, it can still affect others.

Even now, I would not instinctively say the same thing in a similar situation, but I do pay attention to preserving the shared environment.

Simply knowing the Chinese meaning of 「失礼」 was not enough to explain everything I later came to understand.

In Japanese, 「失礼」 can be used in many situations. When entering someone else’s office, you can say 「失礼します」. You can also say 「失礼します」 when leaving before others. After disturbing someone, you might say 「失礼しました」.

In Chinese, these would be translated respectively as “Sorry to disturb you,” “I should be going,” and “I’m sorry.” Each translation is natural and makes clear what is happening in that particular moment. But if I read only the Chinese translations, I might never notice that Japanese uses the same word in all three situations.

Learning Japanese allowed me to retain that connection.

The same word appeared again and again in different settings. I had to take time to understand why it could be said when entering a room, why it could also be said when leaving, and why it was used after breaking a cup. The uses are not exactly the same, but together they gradually made me notice how a speaker takes into consideration the disturbance they may cause others.

What I heard in the café also became connected to my understanding of those other situations.

At the time, I already knew that the staff member was apologizing, yet my confusion remained. The word did not change. My understanding of it gradually became more concrete as I gained more cultural experience.

It is possible to understand all this through life and observation without learning Japanese. AI can also explain the different uses of 「失礼」 and tell me why the staff member might apologize in that situation.

But Japanese has helped me understand it more fully. I can recognize the word as it recurs in different situations, and I carry my earlier questions with me when I hear it used again.

If all I wanted was to know what a sentence said, translation would already be enormously helpful. But I still want to learn Japanese, because I want to understand why someone would say those words at that particular moment.

After understanding the staff member’s apology, I still had some distance to travel before I understood why he apologized. By traveling that distance, I also began to care about the quiet in that café.