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Speaking Japanese in Japan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6316 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 1 of 25 05 September 2009 at 3:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Just stumbled across a video on YouTube, where a guy living in Japan says that a lot of Japanese have little interest in hearing you speak Japanese or speaking it with you, since many of them have studied English for so long and would rather use it. This contradicts most of what I hear about foreigners in Japan and although I'm used to hearing this about Korea, for instance, I was under (perhaps false) impression that speaking Japanese in Japan was much more of a necessity. Apparently the guy got yelled at by one woman for speaking Japanese to her and not English! I'm sure there are those who would prefer English, no doubt, but is this quite as widespread as he makes it out to be?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6gEH7-j9K0 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lancemanion Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5572 days ago 150 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 25 05 September 2009 at 4:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I didn't watch the whole video, but generally Japanese are thrilled when I speak their language to them. There are
certainly exceptions, but if he's saying the opposite is true, I have to disagree. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| anytram Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie France Joined 5669 days ago 85 posts - 89 votes Speaks: German*, Polish*, French, English Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 25 05 September 2009 at 10:46am | IP Logged | ||
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I met both cases: those who switch to English whether you talk Japanese to them or not, just because they see you're not Japanese. (Which doesn't mean it's easier to understand them. At times quite the contrary. There might be different reasons for this: they don't understand your Japanese or they want to make it easier for you or...)
And then there are those who talk in Japanese no matter if you do or don't. (Some slow down, others keep their usual speed. It's bothering for those who do not understand Japanese to listen to all the polite explanations of the cashier when you don't understand a word. Every time you go to a supermarket or konbini...) As true as it is in other countries: it depends on the people. Find the right bunch and you'll speak Japanese all day long. :) PS: I didn't watch the video. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7077 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 4 of 25 06 September 2009 at 4:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I would've been happy if people had tried to speak English with me in Japan since at the time I spoke about 10 words of Japanese :/
The only time people attemped any English was after I had embarassed myslf sufficiently in Japanese, then they used about as much English as I used Japanese - with the healthy dose of body language being the lingua franca. Them attempting English happened twice; once in a clothes shop with a 20~ year old girl and once with a 60~ year old woman near a shrine... and I tried speaking to a lot of people because not reading kanji made directions kind of hard. As a side comment... of all the time I've spent in Korea I've had virtually zero contact with people switching to English after I spoke Korean. So... it's very much experience dependent I think. As the video kind of hinted for about half a second of it's duration. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hombre gordo Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5583 days ago 184 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Portuguese, Korean | Message 5 of 25 14 September 2009 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | ||
In Japan you DO need Japanese if you want to have meaningful conversations with anyone (unless you're going to tourist resorts). Most Japanese people speak very little English (unless they are in a specific job which requires English proficiency) and even those few I met who do speak English to a satisfactory level often cannot understand TV or understand specialized words. If you are going to Japan, in most places you will find a command of Japanese indespensible. My opinion is that if you study Japanese seriously for about 6 months, you can get better than a good 95 percent+ of Japanese people's English skills. That percentage is just on gut instinct. I have not watched the video either. The guy probably just bumped into your gaijin groupie foreigner fetish afflictees who will look for any opportunity to spew out some of their crappy English at him just to derive some kind of erotic stimulation and fulfill their pathetic foriegner fetish. That's all. I once got off a bus at the main station in town and a Japanese woman (in her 30s btw)came frantically running up to me, screechingly squeeled with joy, bounced around in an incontainable state of exstasy and kept asking me "Are you American? Are you American?". What a tool! A clear proof that Darwin's theory of evolution is flawed. Because some people clearly haven't evolved yet (sigh). These people are rare though because most people don't inbread thus avoiding the spread of congenital mental deficiencies. Edited by hombre gordo on 14 September 2009 at 3:55pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5464 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 6 of 25 13 December 2009 at 1:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, hombre gordo, I know you wrote this a while ago, but there is some seriously offensive stuff here.
I've met the kind of people you are talking about here too, and yes they can be terribly annoying, but don't you think it's more important to understand than condemn? Japanese kids are constantly told they have to become more "international", but because there are so few obvious foreigners here (excluding the Koreans, Chinese, and many Nikkei South Americans who are more or less indistinguishable from native Japanese), they have no idea how to go about this. Add to that some clueless teachers who give homework assignments to "speak to a foreigner" and the ridiculous treatment that foreigners receive on TV and you can understand why some people don't realize how rude it is to come bounding up to a random white person to say hello. As for "erotic stimulation", this is just downright offensive. I would say that in many cases, the opposite is true, what with the hordes of idiotic fat ugly white men hanging around the Roppongi bars desperate to pick up a Japanese woman using their pitiful Japanese skills. Having read several of your posts, you appear to have a very superior attitude to Japan and its people. You are not unique - many Westerners come here with fixed prejudices, determined to change the entire country to ways which they believe are somehow inherently better. I think you might be better off studying the language of a country you respect. 14 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5469 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 7 of 25 26 December 2009 at 1:40am | IP Logged | ||
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Did that man really go to Japan?
I was in Japan for 1 week last year and of the perhaps ~50 people I came into contact with in various shops, cafés, tourist resorts, etc, only about 4 or 5 even attempted to speak English! And they were either from my hotel, or working behind a tourist desk. We were approached once, but it was done kindly and respectfully by an woman of around 60 who said she had been following English evening courses for a few years, and her English was surprisingly good! We still have a meishi (business card) she gave us, even though we only spoke for a short while! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 8 of 25 26 December 2009 at 2:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I live in Japan, and maybe once or twice a year someone tries speaking English to me.
3 persons have voted this message useful |
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