母：「今日の試験できた」
娘：「たいしたことはないと、たかをくくっていたら、とても難しかったわ」
Taka wo Kukuru
Haha: Kyoo no shiken dekita?
Musume: Taishita koto wa nai to, taka wo kukutteitara, totemo muzukashikatta wa.
Mother: So were you able to pass the exam today?
Daughter: I'm not sure, I'd underestimated just how difficult it would be.
Taka wo kukuru means to make light of or underestimate something or someone.
A few months ago my eldest daughter, who will graduate from college this March, announced that she didn't want to follow the usual path of becoming a nine-to-five OLer. "Instead," she'd declared, "I want to go to graduate school and, while doing that, receive training to become a teacher of Japanese as a Second Language." (Seems she'd been influenced by my teaching of Japanese to non-native speakers. ) "Why don't you take the entrance exam for the Japan Foundation's Teacher Training Course," I'd encouraged. It was just after she'd taken the test that this week's conversation occurred.
"Nihongo no shiken nante yasashii to taka wo kukutteita" ("Any test of Nihongo must be easy"), she'd thought. The exam, however, was anything but easy; there were questions on a wide range of subjects; from linguistics to phonetics to teaching-methodology. Given the test assumes 200 hours of special study or 2 years of JSL teaching experience, this, of course, isn't surprising. Knowing what the exam is like, maybe I should have warned her, "Taka wo kukutte ukeru to ato de kokai shimasu yo" ( "If you take (studying for) the test too lightly you'll only regret it later").
Even if she'd passed the exam, however, there was still a tough personal interview to get through. Last year one of my students, for example, got all the way to the interview only to be eliminated because she couldn't satisfactorily explain the meaning of obon (the Buddhist Festival of the Dead.) There probably isn't a Japanese alive who doesn't know the answer, so having to talk in front of the examining committee must have made her so nervous she couldn't pull her thoughts together. JSL teachers accustomed to the difficult and sudden questions of non-Japanese students, of course, wouldn't have any trouble giving a clear explanation of Japan's yearly Buddhist festivals or the custom of sosen suhai (ancestor worship/continuing concern for the departed. ) Such teachers would have thought such an interview-type exam easy and so been optimistic about their chances ("Mensetsu shiken wa kantan da to, taka wo kukutteita").
March 15 is the deadline for filing income tax returns and people like me vho not only receive income in the form of a salary from their college, but also from book royalties and the writing of articles have to actually go to the tax office in person. Now I don't mind calculating large amounts, but figuring out and writing up small amounts is really bothersome. Me: "Dose aite ni wakaru hazu ga nai to taka wo kukutteita" ("I'd underestimated him by believing he'd never know anyway"). But the tax officer did know and said triumphantly: "I see you haven't declared income from the Asahi Evening News. Shiranai to omotte taka wo kukutte ita'n desho" ("You'd underestimated just how well-informed we were, hadn't you?"). It felt just like a game. (By the way, this is just an example and I don't have any complaints about how much AEN pays me! )
These last two expressions can, of course, be used in other situations, i.e., when a husband or wife is caught being unfaithful, an employee takes a day off by feigning illness, or a student is caught cheating on an exam. But I don't expect my readers to know about such things....