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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

#311

Post by petodo »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #269
petodo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also starting to happen in Prague city center, though the real reason is those overpriced tourist traps are not frequented by locals so there is no need for staff to speak local language, it should be enough warning for you (as local) that you are in tourist trap.

I've been to prague every few years for decades now, and the whole city center has become just a giant tourist trap. Sadly the same is happening to many other old european capitals to the point where they all look and feel the same... some old buildings, a river and tourist traps and scams.

That's what happens in 4th most visited city in Europe, I can certainly relate to locals from Barcelona and Venice.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#312

Post by rcme »

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…

It's fine to live somewhere for many years without learning the local language. Even learning a relatively "easy" language, like German for a native English speaker, takes about a year of full-time dedication. Not everyone has time for that.

It's definitely not ok, however, to act as if you're an expert about the local culture. There is so much you can't grasp unless you speak the native language. Talking to people is important, but equally important is consuming native media and the news.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#313

Post by defrost »

izacus wrote: post #260
robocat wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is referring to English colonisation of Australia a few hundred years ago. The English did not learn the indigenous languages there, and they brought English law with them. It also refers to the fact that a lot of convicts were sent to Australia. Joke: An Englishman gets off the plane, and immigration asks him if he has any criminal convictions. He replies “I didn’t know you still needed one”.

Yeah, not sure if attitude of english speakers toward natives in Australia is something to be widely joked about or satirized.

Bit late for that now, don't you think?

    "There's nothing I would rather be
    Than to be an Aborigine
    And watch you take my precious land away.
    For nothing gives me greater joy
    Than to watch you fill each girl and boy
    With superficial, existential shit.

    Now you may think I'm cheeky
    But I'd be satisfied
    To rebuild your convict ships
    And sail them on the tide.

    I love the way you give me God
    And of course the mining board,
    For this of course I thank the Lord each day.
    I'm glad you say that land rights wrong.
    Then you should go where you belong
    And leave me to just keep on keeping on."
~ Jimmy Chi, Bran Nue Dae, 1990

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Nue_Dae

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTiXSmQET2E

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#314

Post by modo_mario »

epups wrote: post #240
ManuelKiessling wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It’s a lose-lose situation for everyone involved, really. The German speaker is limited in what she or he can express, the German audience is limited in what they can understand, the English audience doesn’t progress in learning the language of their new home country. Maybe, but by not learning German they expats miss out on access to about 40 million Germans/Austrians/Swiss who don't also speak English (and they a…

So I take it you took it upon yourself to learn Mandarin and perhaps also Spanish?

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#315

Post by petodo »

tsukikage wrote: post #295
petodo wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you lived in country with completely different language with characters instead of simple It's one thing to see everywhere words you can memorize when seeing it every single day in shops and online and very different thing when you see just bunch of strokes. I lived in China for 5+ years and didn't learn the language because the characters are huge barrier. In a few weeks with Duolingo I learned more Spanish wit…

> It's one thing to see everywhere words you can memorize when seeing it every single day in shops and online and very different thing when you see just bunch of strokes. They become much, much easier to grasp once you notice they're nearly all composed of the same hundred or so radicals and you can break them down and memorise them that way. > and honestly I was not really interested in people who don't learn at lea…

> That may be the real issue here. Mandarin has nearly as many speakers as English.

Completely different league, English has by magnitude more speakers than Chinese.

> Why should anyone be interested in people who don't "learn at least" Mandarin?

Because not learning any foreign language is quite sign of ignorant character, while English is foreign language in most of the world and most of the world English speakers are non natives including me who learned 2-3 foreign languages besides my mother tongue. But you are right Chinese not speaking any other language besides Chinese is less ignorant than me...

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#316

Post by eloisant »

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…

I don't think we should shame people for not speaking the language of the country they live in, however it's important to stress that you're really missing out when you don't speak the local language.

It will vary a lot by countries, because in some of them (i.e. northern european countries) everyone will be able to speak English so not only you have less incentive to learn the local language but it will be very difficult to practice because the local won't make the effort of speaking to you in their language until you're good enough (which you're not because you lack practice).

Speaking of Japan, as someone who lived there for a few years and reached a decent Japanese level, the English proficency of locals is not great so if you don't speak it you'll be stuck in your bubble of foreigners + Japanese people used to hang out with foreigners. I've seen a lot of foreigners not speaking Japanese after living several years in Japan, and most of them were wonderful people but they were like permanent visitors in the country they live which I thought was really too bad.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#317

Post by valenterry »

midoridensha wrote: post #132
diebeforei485 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having a culture that just says "we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here" isn't really a good sign for long-term integration. It depends on what living on a visa acually means in practice. Under what circumstances can you lose your visa? If it can happen overnight if you lose your job (like the H-1B in USA) that is bad. On the other hand, if renewal is pretty much guarante…

Losing your job on a HSP visa means you need to find a new job in 3 months. For a regular work visa, there's no such requirement; you have until the visa expires, whenever that is (which could be less than 3 months, or much more). The regular work visa is also not tied to an employer (HSP is though). It's not nearly as bad as the US. And yes, from what I've heard, renewal is pretty much guaranteed unless you badly fu…

> For a regular work visa, there's no such requirement; you have until the visa expires

That's wrong. The same rules apply. After 3 months immigration can (but is not required to) force you to leave the country. Both for HSP and e.g. specialist visa types.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#318

Post by michaelscott »

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 were more likely to remain in a specific geographical area (eg. central or western Europe) and so taking the time to learn these specific languages made sense. Learning other European languages as a European is also not that far of a leap (unless we're talking Hungarian or Finnish).

Modern generations are constantly on the move in a globalised world. It's not uncommon for that European to end up working in Asia nowadays, where their knowledge of other European languages is useless.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#319

Post by eloisant »

tsukikage wrote: post #309
skhr0680 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vietnam and Korea have mostly dispensed with Chinese characters and are doing fine

Strangely enough, the official languages there are Vietnamese and Korean respectively, not Chinese or Japanese.

I don't know about Vietnamese but you can really make a parallel between Korean and Japanese.

Korean was using kanji the same way Japanese are using them now, and Japan could totally switch to hiragana only like Korea went for hangul. I've had some Japanese friends who were advocated for hiragana only, and were writing (on Twitter or blog posts) in hiragana only.

Yes, once you know kanji it's easier to read that full hiragana, but there is a point to be made about how learning kanji is difficult. Not just for foreigners, but also for Japanese students from first grade to high school.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#320

Post by petodo »

luckylion wrote: post #308
petodo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> And why would I wanna speak with baker, cab driver, public transport workers, convenience store workers, deliverymen, etc.? Yeah, why would you ever want to speak to people who aren't important. Fucking serfs, they should stay in their place and silently serve you. I agree, that kind of person's opinion on the country around them can safely be ignored, because it's based on ignorance.

>> And why would I wanna speak with baker, cab driver, public transport workers, convenience store workers, deliverymen, etc.?

> Yeah, why would you ever want to speak to people who aren't important. Fucking serfs, they should stay in their place and silently serve you

Seems like you are projecting some of your own issues into what I wrote, because I didn't write anything about "fucking serfs" or these people not being important.

I don't see reason why would I wanna speak with them while they are doing their job, same as I don't expect anyone speaking to me, when I am doing my job (unless your job is speaking to people in call centre). We can all speak happily together after work in our spare time (in which case they cease to be bakers, cab drivers, etc. and they are just people), during work time you should work instead wasting time on small talk, so I see nothing wrong with expecting people providing services for money to provide me service I am paying for without annoying small talk wasting everyone's time including them.

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