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Difficulty of spoken Japanese imaginary? | ||
Tags: Difficulty | Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6126 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 9 of 37 28 April 2012 at 3:15am | IP Logged | ||
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I've never lived in Japan and it doesn't seem that easy to me. I did go to Japan once for a brief trip but just kind of wandered around and didn't interact all that much. Do random strangers talk in Japan? I am half-Japanese so maybe it's a little different? That there's is an expectation that if you're half, that you'll be bilingual -- though this is totally not me, and the conversations can start kind of relaxed and then after a few bits of listening confusion or mistakes and weirdnesses it sort of sputters. I do have super-power of making everyone just cringe while feeling no shame myself from this. I do try to keep people from going back to English at the meetups here in the USA. Sometimes I just run out of things to talk about, or I keep asking about their lives, but they don't reciprocate, so it just becomes tiring and awkward. I think I know what to do next time I go to Japan and that is to seek out other half-Japanese groups, as I've learned more about this recently. On the pitch accent issue, I just ignore it and try to sound as good as I can. I think I have been around the language so I kind of know what it's supposed to sound like. But sometimes I'll say something and the Japanese guy will just be baffled, and maybe this is a result of incorrect pitch? I try to be monotone, but sometimes English-like pitch sneaks in when I'm nervous. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6950 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 10 of 37 28 April 2012 at 8:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree that the difficulty of spoken Japanese might be overrated. It's foreign, and
you have to get used to new ways of arranging your thoughts, but once you get used to that, I find it much easier to speak in Japanese than in German or Spanish where I constantly have to worry about verb conjugation, gender and number agreement, etc. But I think it's more likely that Japanese people got the idea that their language is impossible from foreigners than the other way around. Originally, when Japan was relatively isolated, they would have had no reason or occasion to consider the difficulty of their language to outsiders, but eventually were probably told over and over their language is impossible and special by Europeans who were unreasonably intimidated by kanji. For example, I recall reading a text that a European missionary wrote a few centuries ago calling the languages "the devil's tongue" and claiming that kanji were invented by Satan to prevent the people's conversion to Christianity. Also, keep in mind that many people claim their language is the most difficult in the world (there should be a few threads about this in the archives). I've hard this claim often from English speakers (using evidence such as the many different pronunciations of "ough" to support their claim), and other users on the forum have heard the same claim from speakers of Hungarian, Czech, Chinese... and even languages we would consider easier, like Spanish and Italian. So the idea (and the phenomenon of being "linguistically ignorant" in general) is far from unique to the Japanese. As for the second part of the post, I've said this in another thread, but I haven't really felt like an outsider due to being non-Japanese. It's only in the first few moments of conversation when someone might speak slowly to me, or ask my boyfriend to act as interpreter because they assume I can't speak, or go way overboard in praising my Japanese. This used to be hurtful and frustrating, but then I realized that to their credit, it's not that common to run into a non-Asian who can speak comfortably in Japanese (assuming they don't work in an industry where foreigners are typically overrepresented, such as a language school or international trading company). I may have been the first such person they've encountered in their life outside of TV. So now I just wait for that initial wave of shock and awe to ride itself out, and within a few minutes I'm treated normally without any 違和感. For some reason, the only ones who just refuse to accept me as a Japanese speaker no matter how well I prove myself seem to be awkward, creepy, entitled 3rd generation aging businessmen, but I also have a hunch they don't take any women seriously, so I try to avoid these types as much as possible (honestly, I've experienced so much more condescension as a woman in Japan than I have as a foreigner.) At the beginning of your post, you talk about Japanese learners being influenced by their own preconceptions: we go into it assuming it's hard, so we are more likely to feel that it's hard due to confirmation bias. But as I read the second part of your post, I wonder if that isn't the exact same thing that's going on with you in your interactions with Japanese speakers. Maybe you're stuck with the mindset that "this is going to be awkward, they're not going to accept me, I'm always going to be an outsider, it's not normal for me to be speaking Japanese as a Caucasian", and this frame of mind shows through your body language, tone of voice, etc. and actually does make the interaction awkward and distant. Whereas in my case, the reason I feel accepted is not necessarily because my Japanese is so great (I cringe at the sound of my own American accent), but because I genuinely believe that there's nothing different about me, and that they'll realize it soon enough if I ignore the inevitable initial misunderstanding. I remain positive and let my Japanese skill, knowledge of the culture, and nonverbal behavior speak for themselves. I think that since our Japanese level seems to be roughly comparable and we're both Western in appearance, our preconceptions and mindsets might be accounting for this difference in how we feel we're being treated. Edited by Lucky Charms on 28 April 2012 at 8:25am 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| anjathilina Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6605 days ago 33 posts - 106 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Spanish, Mandarin Studies: Hindi | Message 11 of 37 28 April 2012 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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In another thread, you argue that Spanish is more difficult than it seems, and are
annoyed when people call it easy. You have also made it clear that you love Spanish and the people you interact with in Spanish. You have also made it clear that you have come to dislike Japanese and Japan quite intensely. "Contempt" is the word you used, I believe. And now you argue that Japanese is easier than people say. If you'll forgive me, it seems to me that on some level you are buying into the idea that "difficult=superior" in languages, and therefore you point out the ways in which Spanish may be difficult and the ways in which Japanese may be easy. But, of course, difficulty is not a matter of superiority. It is also pretty subjective and depends on your first language. Japanese may well be easier than some people think. However, it is fairly well-documented that a native English speaker will take longer to get to a proficient level in Japanese than in Spanish, though this can certainly vary from person to person, and does not mean that Japanese is in any way superior to Spanish. 18 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| VGKing Newbie United States Joined 4609 days ago 33 posts - 35 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 12 of 37 28 April 2012 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know. I've been studying it for a while, and I still find actually forming
thoughts in Japanese immensely difficult. I can't think of anything to say that I feel would be appropriate for my level, and when I simply abandon that thought and just think of anything to say, I've not the slightest clue how to translate it into Japanese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| melkior79 Newbie Japan Joined 4632 days ago 16 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Latin, French | Message 13 of 37 29 April 2012 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know many foreigners who are non-asian, who speak very comfortably in Japanese. They are fluent. All the stuff about not being accepted does not bother them too much. They keep hammering away with a positive mind-set. Eventually they make a circle of friends who accept them. If they meet people who don't like them , they don't focus on those people. Like Lucky Charms' post, these people just pushed on and have had a great time talking in Japanese. I have much to learn from this and need to pluck more courage myself! I think speaking Japanese is difficult, I make mistakes all the time. On the other hand, the OP is right to say that the difficulty is over-rated by some. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tennisfan Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5361 days ago 130 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: German | Message 14 of 37 30 April 2012 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||
Could you explain what you mean by this? you're saying they don't expect it, or... they don't like it/they don't want westerners speaking Japanese with them? I haven't studied Japanese seriously, but about a year ago I went through the entire MT Japanese Foundation, and I found it to be rather intuitive, not too challenging and very pleasing grammatically. Of course, I'm sure it gets harder, but it didn't seem as if at least at that point there were as many little niggling things that come with languages that decline and have extensive case systems. I could be wrong, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4702 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 15 of 37 30 April 2012 at 3:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Every Japanese person I've met so far was helpful and encouraging. OP's impressions are not representative.
Also, we have a saying here in Germany: "Wie man in den Wald ruft, so schallt's auch wieder heraus". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4601 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 16 of 37 30 April 2012 at 7:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I think once you get a hold of the grammar, speaking Japanese is easy... learning the
kana is easy... really, kanji is the only hard thing about japanese, but learning them systematically, and given enough time, dosnt stack up to how hard japanese was "supposed to be" before I started it 1 person has voted this message useful |
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