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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

#341

Post by lmm »

petodo wrote: post #174
ManuelKiessling wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the one thing where I’m That Old White Man by now. My favorite is user groups meetups in Germany where there are one or two people who don’t speak German, and then request the talk to be held in English. Imagine me attending a meetup in London as the only German and requesting to have the talk held in German. It would be ridiculous.

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.

There was a time when German was the language of science and widely studied in many countries. (Japanese has disproportionately many loanwords from German, for example).

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#342

Post by astrange »

vintermann wrote: post #307
haspok wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ja…

The US State Department classifies Japanese as a category IV language, "Super hard languages", languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers. They estimate that you need 88 weeks, or 2200 class hours, to reach professional working level in it. That's if you're young, well-educated and very motivated. By comparison, they estimate Romanian, Swedish and Spanish take 24-30 weeks, or 600-750 clas…

That's including reading and writing skills, presumably. Spoken Japanese is not a hard language IMO. Reading and writing it without a dictionary on hand is much more difficult.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#343

Post by lmm »

valenterry wrote: post #317
midoridensha wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For a regular work visa the requirement to engage in activities appropriate to your status of residence can be covered by job seeking etc., whereas for HSP (i) there is no way to satisfy it except working for the specified employer.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#344

Post by Tade0 »

wnscooke wrote: post #168

In my own experience, being a foreigner who (seemingly) doesn't speak a local language actually does open doors to unique insights - the people who do speak English are quite ready to tell all the ins and outs, pros and cons, ups and downs, subtleties, gripes, concerns, cultural tidbits exactly because they think I won't go around talking about what they said.

As someone who often finds himself on the other end of such conversations that's not my worry at all.

My worry is that those who normally don't speak foreign languages will get to you first and instill in you a vision of my country that has little to do with reality and a lot with delusions of grandeur.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#345

Post by nmcela »

izacus wrote: post #258
nmcela wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm finnish and work with a lot of international people, many of whom have lived here for decades. None of them speak Finnish, and I, and all the other Finns I know, would never expect them to speak it. It's not that big of a deal.

That's great, but you also wouldn't expect them to write a relevant critique of society and culture since they can't even read the local news paper much less understand the living mindset of people. Everyone here keeps anectoding about their trip to other places when the issue is not daily living but writing an opinion piece about a society they don't understand enough to live in.

Yeah, I get your point. Of course their point of view about the culture and society is unique and important and absolutely worth listening to, but it is true they will certainly miss a lot of the cultural nyances for exactly the reasons you described.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#346

Post by astrange »

rayiner wrote: post #336
epups wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I live in the country for 10 years, then it is my country too. Perhaps it is in my interest to learn the language, and perhaps it isn't. There are plenty of countries in the world where people get by perfectly fine without even having a unifying language. Do you guys know how every language came to be? It was through the interaction of people from different cultures, and it is an ongoing process. Germany was not e…

> If I live in the country for 10 years, then it is my country too Lol no. You’re not a sovereign individual. You’re part of a society, and every society is the product of people who have a culture that’s been cultivated over generations. Japan is a creation of the Japanese—the fruit of generations of Japanese people building a society according to their culture—not some foreigner who’s lived there for a fraction of…

Strong statement about a country that completely reinvented itself in 1868 (largely by copying the West) and then was forcefully reinvented (again by the West) in 1947.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#347

Post by anthk »

petodo wrote: post #291
varnaud wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you write feels like English isn't your first language. Sorry if I'm wrong, French is my native language. But in case you had to learn English, you need to understand that you had the time, resources and intelligence to learn it to a very proficient degree. This isn't true for everyone. The parents you're calling obese and ignorant, they might be a bit like you in that they don't want to use their time to lea…

I mean it's quite obvious I am not native English speaker and I don't bother to perfect my language. > you need to understand that you had the time, resources and intelligence to learn it to a very proficient degree. English is taught on this level for decades already, so it would be odd if you were in productive age and didn't experience it. > The parents you're calling obese and ignorant, they might be a bit like y…

Except for corporations, tech related jobs, science and academia, high range politics and tourism, English is useless for the 90% of Europe.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#348

Post by throwuxiytayq »

Johnny555 wrote: post #64

Wingfield-Hayes is also right to decry the low-productivity menial jobs that Japan has in abundance. Hiring 6 people to do the job of 2 is sadly common in Japan I’ve always felt this was a strength of Japan since it ensures employment of even unskilled workers. I remember one time walking near my hotel along a sidewalk in a construction zone, in the USA there'd be a “caution” sign (probably facing the wrong way), but…

> almost certainly better for efficiency and productivity, but probably not better for the people that would have done that job otherwise.

I can’t help but think that giving people jobs that are entirely pointless is to the detriment of everyone (and not even just those involved).

You might as well pay those people to stand on the sidewalk and endlessly recite poetry, and then at least they’re getting good at something.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#349

Post by marcinzm »

bloak wrote: post #252
YouMeWeThem wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common misconception. The reason you don't hear more about English-speaking westerners gaining Japanese citizenship is because they don't recognize dual citizenship. Renouncing your non-Japanese citizenships is a prerequisite to gaining Japanese citizenship, which is understandably too big a hurdle for many.

Is Japan any different from the USA in that respect? From what I've heard it goes like this: British person applies for US citizenship. He has to "renounce" his British citizenship and hand over his British passport to the US authorities, who shred it. The next day he goes to the British embassy, tells them what has happened and asks for a new passport. The British authorities give him a new passport and, of course,…

This is not true.

>U.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one nationality or another. A U.S. citizen may naturalize in a foreign state without any risk to his or her U.S. citizenship

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-lega...

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#350

Post by anthk »

petodo wrote: post #242
zirgs wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many countries governments are only allowed to communicate in the official language. So stuff like tax forms or whatever will not be available in any other languages. You'll have to get a translator yourself.

> Honestly only place where you need to speak local language is communication with gov officials That's what I wrote. But how often you deal with gov officials and various forms, on average once or twice a year? Is it worth learning whole new language to fill bunch of forms, which can be filled with help of friend within few minutes? Btw. officials are not allowed LEGALLY communicate with you in other than official l…

>which can be filled with help of friend within few minutes?

Good luck with Spanish and French tax-related forms. In case of Spain, the documents are full of legalese jargon not even a native can grasp it at 100% without a gov website in an aside tab reading twice or trice the legal terms.

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