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Japan has changed in important and visible ways

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Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#221

Post by haspok »

sho_hn wrote: post #109
hogepiyo wrote: post #92

It's difficult to take the author of the article being repudiated (Wingfield-Hayes) seriously when he has lived here for over 10 years and doesn't speak the language. Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. Idk, say what you like about how journalists operate but living somewhere for a decade and not speaking the language doesn't…

> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. I'm German, living in Berlin, and have wonderful friends who fit that description. They live full lives, and I couldn't care less about their German levels. They do enough good things with their time they put their energy into instead. People should learn languages if they feel a reason t…

Are your friends journalists whose job is literally to understand and translate what is happening around them?

There is a guy working for the BBC in Budapest, Hungary, who learned to speak Hungarian quite well in the past ~3 decades. That shows dedication and enthusiasm, because Hungarian is one of the most useless languages to learn (in terms of the number of people you can speak with). Compared to that, learning Japanese even on a basic level is a no brainer... if you happen to live there for a decade!

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#222

Post by notch656c »

Aaronmacaron wrote: post #214
_benedict wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are really bad at language, and depending on the context it’s probably fine to let them off the hook. I once participated in a French class in Paris with a guy whose wife was French, and he was utterly hopeless. I’m not sure he was ever going to develop the skill, even though he tried. Though I hope I’m wrong about that. I think a journalist writing about a country is a special case though, that doesn’t g…

I don't really believe this. Of course some people have more of a tendency to be good at languages than others but I think the guy from you story probably didn't try hard enough or maybe had a completely wrong approach. There are many countries where virtually all people speak a foreign language which shows that it is possible for almost anybody to pick up another language.

There is a theory that children have a "language acquisition device" that goes from muscular brawn to a flubby dough-boy with age in most people. IDK if that's accurate but there does seem to be something to it.

The countries where everybody is multi-lingual this almost assuredly happens in middle to early childhood.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#223

Post by djtango »

petodo wrote: post #207
djtango wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I find a language hard to learn, I always remind myself that the vast majority of every population can speak their own language. "Chinese is hard" -> 1.5B people figured it out. More recently, on observing my niece and nephew, something we take for granted is how exhausting it is being a child. You are learning 247 non stop for best part of 2 decades. Can't understate how hardcore it is. No wonder why we adu…

> "Chinese is hard" -> 1.5B people figured it out. Yeah and at least 90% of them were immersed in it since birth at home. Learning mother language while growing is very different from learning foreign language as adult. > Can't understate how hardcore it is. No, it isn't for kids, my kids are trilingual without any issues and much effort, kids are like sponges absorbing new information/languages easily, if you start…

>No, it isn't for kids, my kids are trilingual without any issues and much effort, kids are like sponges absorbing new information/languages easily, if you start early.

My point isn't that it's hardcore for children to be trilingual. My point is that the way of life of a child is exhausting - learning 247. If you try it later in life, eg doing a masters/bootcamp/intensive hobbies you realise how hard work it is trying to learn.

Having met people who have replicated learning like a child in adulthood, I posit that some of it is that children don't have responsibilities and also don't have a choice in the matter. The upside is also considerably greater - learning to walk + communicate.

> Btw. you won't be fluent in Chinese without living in China

I have lived in China before so this is very apparent to me. When I was there, my brain was always processing the language in the background. Remembering new vocab, trying to recognise new characters. Thinking about how to express specific ideas. That is worth so much more than any class or course can teach - and time spend learning like that really compounds. A week in a country like china can be worth months of study for me. And that style of learning is also how I imagine children are - constantly processing consciously and unconsciously...

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#224

Post by djtango »

_benedict wrote: post #203
djtango wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about making the effort to assimilate with your host country. Embracing and empathising with their way of life which begins with learning their language. I've always found it frustrating whenever I meet people who don't try to integrate with the country they're living in - both when I've lived at home and in foreign countries...

Some people are really bad at language, and depending on the context it’s probably fine to let them off the hook. I once participated in a French class in Paris with a guy whose wife was French, and he was utterly hopeless. I’m not sure he was ever going to develop the skill, even though he tried. Though I hope I’m wrong about that. I think a journalist writing about a country is a special case though, that doesn’t g…

Tbf to my original parent comment, a close friend fits the description of someone who wields English extremely well and is hopeless at foreign languages so I'm not completely unempathetic to people who struggle

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#225

Post by petodo »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #217
petodo wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German is not lingua franca spoken by people all around world, so yes, this comparison is ridiculous comparing lanugage taught everywhere in world with niche language, which is less popular than Chinese as foreign language.

English is spoken by people all around the world, but not all people around the world speak English. Also, those expats living an English life in Berlin etc. are doing themselves a huge disservice — you learn a language if and only if you are forced to hear and speak it. By attending meetups and softly forcing your language onto the group, you are never going to break out of your bubble. It’s a lose-lose situation fo…

You are working with assumption people don't live in their bubbles even when living in home country speaking mother tongue and that not breaking bubble is something bad. Many people voluntarily choose to live in bubbles which overlap with other bubbles.

For instance I live in bubble where in general I avoid having conversation with obese people, since these people have complete lack of self control. It would be also quite odd to me to have (deep) conversation with person not speaking English (even if we both talk to each other in different language), since that shows ignorance to learn basic necessity to exist in present world and lack of education and world views (I mean how the heck can you learn anything about the world not speaking English just from limited local sources). I'd probably for various reasons avoid talking to people with dreadlocks and/or large amount of tattoos. You may think I am doing disservice to myself by living in bubble without talking to all these people, but I am fine with that and have my reasons for that.

How do you know it's disservice, if they are happy with their choice, you know better than them what's good for them?

Only thing I agree with you it's forcing 90% of local language speaking group to speak English because of just few people who don't wanna learn language, this will get tiresome pretty quickly, so they better find group with larger percentage of local language non-speakers or just make smaller groups or talk one on one (personally I prefer this option than some big group conversations even in my mother tongue, because there you end up fighting for word).

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#226

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

petodo wrote: post #148
woahitsraj wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent about half my year in Japan and half my year in Sweden and I speak both languages. It's always shocked me how many expats feel it's not necessary to speak the language but the justifications are totally different. In Sweden they say "Everyone here speaks English anyway" In Japan they say "All of my friends are expats anyway" I think if people don't want to learn a language they will come up with any excuse.

> I spent about half my year in Japan and half my year in Sweden and I speak both languages. Yeah, I really doubt that you can move to Japan with zero Japanese and in half year learn enough to hold normal conversation and be able to read/write Japanese, all that while working full time and not being immersed every day in Japanese language course.

It's perfectly possible to learn a language in 6 months if you spend a lot of your time conversing in it, avoiding English as much as possible. They also said "speak", not "write". It's possible and even natural to learn one and not the other.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#227

Post by [deleted] »

f5ve wrote: post #108
woahitsraj wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent about half my year in Japan and half my year in Sweden and I speak both languages. It's always shocked me how many expats feel it's not necessary to speak the language but the justifications are totally different. In Sweden they say "Everyone here speaks English anyway" In Japan they say "All of my friends are expats anyway" I think if people don't want to learn a language they will come up with any excuse.

you spent half a year in japan and speak the language?

[deleted]

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#228

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

petodo wrote: post #204
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not verbose but it seems pretty self-evident to me. In Europe most people speak only the local language and little English, if you don't speak the language you're not integrated. Your local businesses won't speak English, your baker, the cab drivers, the people working the public transport, at your local convenience store, the government officials, the deliverymen, your child's school-teacher, other parents at s…

> Your local businesses won't speak English, your baker, the cab drivers, the people working the public transport, at your local convenience store, the government officials, the deliverymen, your child's school-teacher, other parents at school, 90% of the people you will cross path with on the street, most written and recorded information about local events... And why would I wanna speak with baker, cab driver, publi…

90% of people on the street won't speak English in big European cities, no. I'm sure you can find some cities where they do like Stockholm, but that's the exception not the rule.

The rest of the things you said only confirm you have no intention to integrate and to be a pleasant addition to the community you live in. Your comments about people who don't speak English, and your attitude towards local workers are pretty vile.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#229

Post by rockbruno »

woahitsraj wrote: post #103
rullelito wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. You haven't been to Sweden then.

I spent about half my year in Japan and half my year in Sweden and I speak both languages. It's always shocked me how many expats feel it's not necessary to speak the language but the justifications are totally different. In Sweden they say "Everyone here speaks English anyway" In Japan they say "All of my friends are expats anyway" I think if people don't want to learn a language they will come up with any excuse.

Weird way to generalize the problem. The difficulty of learning Swedish is not the language itself, but because Swedes default to speaking English with you if they see you struggling. If you want to truly become fluent in Swedish you have to constantly ask them not to do that, and most expats get sick of it by the 10th or so time.

(First point) https://www.thelocal.se/20180817/the-signs-youve-mastered-th...

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#230

Post by epups »

noch wrote: post #147
sho_hn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. I'm German, living in Berlin, and have wonderful friends who fit that description. They live full lives, and I couldn't care less about their German levels. They do enough good things with their time they put their energy into instead. People should learn languages if they feel a reason t…

> They live full lives, and I couldn't care less about their German levels. They do enough good things with their time they put their energy into instead. What an odd mindset. Anecdotally, prior generations of Europeans (and expatriates) valued being multilingual. Having a working knowledge of German, Italian, French, English was fun, valuable, and normal especially when doing business in diverse countries and with d…

Prior generations of Europeans were also xenophobic as hell, to the point of going to war with each other. I really don't understand which idyllic past you refer to here.
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