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Are Japanese natives generally exclusive? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Clintaroo Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6876 days ago 189 posts - 201 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Tagalog, Indonesian | Message 41 of 66 22 September 2009 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||
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hombre gordo,
No problem. It's always nice to share my experiences overseas. I've been very lucky to have had a lot of interactions in Japanese with young people. In 2004 I did my first homestay in Japan but didn't speak a lot of Japanese. In 2008 I returned to my host family's house and my host sister and brother had grown up a lot. We interacted, of course, but it was 'weird' at times. My host sister preferred to hang out with her boyfriend and when she came home didn't speak too much to me. My host brother was busy with study, so I ended up speaking mostly to my host mother and grandmother, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The family's 7-year old cousin used to come around and once she stopped hiding from me she talked to me pretty normally. She actually used to laugh if I made a mistake in Japanese! As for interaction with Japanese university students, I don't really have any advice per se, but one thing's for sure: you will be able to make friends. A lot of students I met were really keen to have a non-Japanese friend. It may require you on most occasions to take the initiative and strike up a conversation but you will make a lot of friends. I agree that older people can be more interesting to talk to, especially if you're not too interested in talking about trivial matters such as gossip. But with my friends I went to bars and had a great time. As long as you're using and practising your Japanese anyone is good to talk with I suppose. I also am pleased to meet someone who shares similar views with mine on Western loanwords. I used to question some Japanese about this. It was almost as if they were ashamed of using the kanji equivalents, but they said that the kanji words felt very stiff and outdated. It has to be something more than that though, perhaps something to do with the Japanese identity? There was a bit of controversy in Japan in 2007 or 2008 about loanwords being used in city pamphlets and some elderly citizens not being able to understand the meaning of the loanwords. 3 persons have 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 42 of 66 22 September 2009 at 12:50am | IP Logged | ||
I read your post with great satisfaction my friend! Just like you did, I spent most of my time speaking with my host family's Grandmother. She was so awesome, so interesting and spoke really heavy Kansaiben. She even used expressions which reflected her generation like まんだ in place of まだ and 食べてござる in place of the standard 食べている. I know that I said that I wasn't that satisfied with my host families in a previous post, but Grandmother was certainly an exception. Although she naturally used less loanwords then younger people anyway, she even kindheartedly used them less with me on purpose so that I could learn from her conversations. She even used 複写する in place of コピーする. And she was so kind to me and appeared to hold me in high regard unlike the rest of my family who didn't seem to get along with me. Maybe it is because I hold many traditional conservative values like the older generations and so I find it easier to make conversation with them. About Japanese identity, I get the feeling that the Japanese kind of resent being an Asian country. They seem to welcome with open arms anything American while at the same time express dislike for nearby Asian countries. I find it funny how even Japanese characters in Anime are often depicted with western features. I personally cannot come to understand why anyone would want to replace this beautiful and noble writing system with some shabby katakana words. I also lament the way how Kanji are kind of "dumbed down". Now you see even Joyo Kanji words often written in kana alone. I have read about the controversy you have mentioned. It certainly reinforces my opinion that the use of loanwords has now just gone too far. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lancemanion Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5577 days ago 150 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 43 of 66 22 September 2009 at 3:26am | IP Logged | ||
Oops - I voted for you when I meant to quote you. Sorry about that. I agree that Japanese embrace some American culture enthusiastically, but put their own spin on it of course. But I don't think they resent being an Asian country. They preserve their asian culture better than any other asian country that I frequent, except for the possible exception of Thailand. While I'm sure it happens, I've never heard a Japanese person openly express their dislike of other Asian countries (I don't count angry teenage boys on the internet). The closest I've seen is several peoples annoyance at being treated unfairly while traveling in another Asian country. I do hear a lot of resentment, and even shame, when talking about how certain asian countries hate them. I often hear other Asians openly express hatred of Japan. 2 persons have 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 44 of 66 22 September 2009 at 11:56am | IP Logged | ||
I certainly have. Even well educated Japanese people. I always took their expression of dislike with a pinch of salt though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Thuan Triglot Senior Member GermanyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6935 days ago 133 posts - 156 votes Speaks: Vietnamese, German*, English Studies: French, Japanese, Romanian, Swedish, Mandarin | Message 45 of 66 25 September 2009 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Never really had this problem.
Most Japanese are really impressed by me speaking Japanese and would often introduce me to their friends. When I`m around Japanese people, I seldom use anything but Japanese. I often hear people complaining about Japanese being cold to non-Japanese and difficult to be with, I can`t share these experiences. A Polish friend spent a year in Japan and had the same experience. His friends were more or less exclusively Japanese and they didn`t use him to practice English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Endo Tetraglot Newbie Netherlands chokochoko.wordpress Joined 5542 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Cantonese, Dutch*, English, Mandarin Studies: Japanese | Message 46 of 66 27 September 2009 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it's kinda contradicting, on one hand Japanese people are always polite, on the other hand I also sometimes
hear people saying that they're exclusive and sometimes cold. I personally have never experienced it as my Japanese friends are really kind. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5788 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 47 of 66 27 September 2009 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | ||
The largest factor is simply a [very] different standard of what constitutes politeness. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6090 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 48 of 66 29 September 2009 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Eric makes a good point. I don't get the impression that Japanese embrace people with open arms. I don't think it has to do with exclusiveness. I think it has more to do with how they choose to conduct themselves around others. I've learned a lot about the culture since I've started my correspondence, and perhaps some of you who live or have lived there will concur or not, but it seems to me that they covet the whole idea of "less is more". There is one segment of the population that dislikes any (unsolicited) outward display of feeling, expression, or opinion. Contrast that to the other segment who behaves very openly despite what others think of them. They have proverbs like "口は禍の門 ちはわざわいのもん 口が滑るくらいなら足が滑った方が増し better the foot slip than the tongue" to support the idea that self-expression is not always welcome. There's also this one: "the eyes are as eloquent as the mouth", which means that you can get all the information you need with your eyes, by watching people's behavior, without ever opening your mouth to speak.
This permeates their speech, too. I've talked to someone who is older, who was forced ("conditioned" is the word he used) to use Keigo by his mother, grew up resenting it (being male), worked hard to change the way he talked only to suffer ridicule and humiliation for it. So you can't just say their "polite". This is way too simple to describe such a complex social structure. Westerners have to put things into the Japanese perspective before they judge which behavior is more suitable for sharing language. (IMO) Otherwise they might be offended or otherwise misunderstand their behaviour. By the way, some have brought up the question why they use so many English loanwords, I may have a good example- I'd never heard of this holiday before but it's 敬老の日 (Sept. 21, Respect for Old Folks Day) which you find within シルバーウィーク, a new unpaid holiday. Now, why do they say シルバーウィーク "Silver Week" if they already have a perfectly good name for their holiday? Maybe it's because it helps to link the newer generation to this old custom? I can imagine "Silver Week" being a good way to make grandma (and the language) sound "not so old". ^^ Edited by Sunja on 30 September 2009 at 8:52am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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