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Are Japanese natives generally exclusive? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| hombre gordo Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5588 days ago 184 posts - 247 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Portuguese, Korean | Message 17 of 66 14 September 2009 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Or perhaps they won't. Your theory on why they may not speak Japanese with people in England may seem logical, but I think the following is more simple and logical. They probably think to themselves "why do I owe this stranger the right to be responded to in Japanese? What has this person ever done for me". Well of course this is what I think when I am overseas. If people wish to practice English with me, first they have to get my trust and establish a genuine friendship with me because I don't do many things for free. Either that or they have to pay me for my time (honestly, some people at Eigo cafes or whatever they are called get paid for speaking English with people). Let's think business! That is just my personally opinion though. I think what I have said is fair and reasonable. We should only give favours to people who have earned our trust and who have established genuine friendship with us. I understand your idea of building a good reputation for one's own nation, but I see myself as an individual and wish to be evaluated as an individual. Ichiro, I understand your point on the recent influx of lonewords. Even though I dislike them because I am a bit of a linguistic purist I understand that I still have to put up with them. However, I met a woman who didn't just use lonewords, she just clearly mixed the two languages beyond recognition when talking to foreigners. I personally found that quite offensive and condescending. I know for sure that I would never say to an Hispanic in an English conversation "oye ese yesterday I went to the tienda, me compre loads of beers, drank them went back to mi apartamiento and hice el amor with my secretaria. And then I fui a la church para arrepentarme de my sins"! That is just unhearable! It is that kind of treatment which I find unbearable. Edited by hombre gordo on 14 September 2009 at 4:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5579 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes Speaks: English* | Message 18 of 66 14 September 2009 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Why must we keep languages distinct and separate?
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| hombre gordo Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5588 days ago 184 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Portuguese, Korean | Message 19 of 66 14 September 2009 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
The last couple of days I have had a few little rants on code switching. Objective response For the sake of understanding - Excessive codeswitching can make the meaning less clear. I once had a language teacher who did this to such an extent that people started to complain because they found it difficult to follow her mixed up conversations. Think about it. You expect language A and then suddenly language B is just thrown in and then language A again. There are sets of standardized rules maintained by organizations on usage for many major languages. Why not follow them? This point is specific to my encounter with that woman in my last post, but she was a host mother figure to me while I was at a language school in Japan. Accepting responsibility as my hostmother means that she ought to understand the reason why I am there. To learn the language naturally. Exposing me to unnatural mish mashes is not vary good since we learn a lot through immitation. You can make people uncomfortable by code switching excessively without any real reason to do so. I cannot remember whose blog it was, but I can remember reading an entry of a scandanavian person's blog. This person basically wrote that she encountered a fellow national who had just spent some time in an Anglophone country and would constantly codeswitch every other sentence to an abnormal degree. The writter of the blog found the experience uncomfortable. Normally there is no real necessity to code switch - Many language have been getting on fine for millenia without having to use code switching Subjective response I personally don't like lexical transparancy between languages. I like the challenge of learning vocabulary the hard way. I just find it more fun to learn distant language. I don't like the feeling of code switching. It just feels strange and wrong. Language A and language B may be awesome alone, but together for me they are like Sushi and chocolate cake mixed into one. Both are great alone but together they are not so good. People who excessively code switch like my uncle who knows several languages come across as conceited and self-loving showoffs. It is like look at me I speak this, this and this! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5579 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes Speaks: English* | Message 20 of 66 15 September 2009 at 3:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hmm.. somehow I just never see it that way. My wife is bilingual Mandarin and English. Even though she grew up in Taiwan, she will code-switch sometimes every other phrase, if she knows her audience will understand. I actually like it. There's some expressions in English that just aren't present in Mandarin, and vice versa. Or if she's quoting someone, she'll say what they originally said in the language they said it, rather than translate, which is always tricky.
I guess I would say it depends on the audience. If there's someone present that doesn't speak the language then I definitely see how it could come across as conceited and self-loving, or at the very least inconsiderate. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nissimb Tetraglot Groupie India tenjikuyamato.blogsp Joined 6419 days ago 79 posts - 102 votes Speaks: Marathi*, Hindi, English, Japanese Studies: Korean, Esperanto, Indonesian | Message 21 of 66 15 September 2009 at 5:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Lately I seem to be under the impression that Japanese native speakers seem to have an exclusive attitude towards foriegners even with regards to language. At least compared to other people.
You are absolutely right, my friend. Not only with respect to language, but every other aspect of life. In conrast, I have a solid grasp of both spoken and written Japanese, have good auditory comprehension, have a huge vocabulary and feel that Japanese is now my strongest foreign language. I have invested so much into this language. I don't want to come across as bragging, but I think that my Japanese is better than the English of most of the exchange students at the internation bar where I go You have already explained the reason!! I had the same experience during three years of stay in Japan. The truth is that the Japanese think that their language is difficult and "invincible" to foreigners, so if they come across a gaijin with a reasonable command over Japanese, most of them are shell shocked and are drowned in inferiority complex. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hombre gordo Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5588 days ago 184 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Portuguese, Korean | Message 22 of 66 15 September 2009 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Mmm, I was under the impression that no natural language is less capable of expression or less able to effectively transfer a thought into words than any other. But you have said it yourself, codeswitching has limitations. It does depend on the company you are with doesn't it. If you know the person very well and codeswitching has sort of became your own little in family idiolect then it works. If you are with someone unfamiliar who does speak the two languages but is not used to codeswitching between them, I think there is a possibility that you may annoy them. Therefore like you have said in your last post it can be inconsiderate. As someone who has learned Japanese to a fluent level, I find it an insult to my intelligence when people codeswitch with me. It seems like rudeness. In my host family and the related families there were about 4 people who did this annoying codeswitching thing with me even though I were paying them money to be in an environment to learn natural and proper Japanese. So naturally one can see how I could have found it disrespectful. By the way, I try to live by the philosophy of treating foriegners in my own country the same as anyone here is treated and so I would like the same treatment myself. Back then I was too polite to say anything about their annoying codeswitching, but next time I go to Japan I think I that if I happen to meet these types of people I will politely ask them the speak properly. Edited by hombre gordo on 15 September 2009 at 5:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hombre gordo Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5588 days ago 184 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Portuguese, Korean | Message 23 of 66 15 September 2009 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
When I was in Japan about a year ago I didn't really meet many of these "shell shocked" Japanese people who think their language is too difficult. Almost everyone who I talked to in Japanese didn't get shocked or anything, they just responded normally. Some would be impressed when I used large words though. Maybe it was because I was in the middle of nowhere. I lived in a countryside village of which most the residents were middle-aged. Older country folks just speak to foriegners just like they would with a fellow Japanese person. These people in my opinion are the best Japanese people. However, I seemed to have a problem speaking to young Japanese people. They appeared to take an exclusive attitude towards me. Maybe they do have an inferiority complex or something and don't like speaking to fluent Japanese speaking foreigners because of it. In fact almost all of the Japanese people who I socialized with were over 30. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5579 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes Speaks: English* | Message 24 of 66 15 September 2009 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
No definitely not.. For related languages, maybe. But I've found that quite often when I am speaking one language I'll think of something to say in another language, but the translation just doesn't have the same nuance. Or sometimes there's little conversational phrases that (like "well anyways," or "oh my god!", etc. in English) that either I don't know how to translate or don't translate exactly. It's just easier and more clear to code switch at that point.. assuming my conversation partner would understand.
But maybe it's not their intent to be rude? Or that their reasons for code-switching really had nothing to do with you at all? That's all I'm saying. I can't speak to your experience, but I know when I've encountered code-switching, most of the time it is as a convenience for the speaker, not the listener. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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