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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

#411

Post by apelapan »

epups wrote: post #275
izacus wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the new generations will increasingly become xenophobic again as arrogant foreginers with no will to learn local language move in. It's a massive trend in Europe again and it will not end well for the expats.

Yes and then maybe expats will go contribute their skills elsewhere, in a clear loss to the arrogant locals who think speaking language X is more important than living peacefully and contributing to the social welfare that depends on a young workforce that Europe can no longer produce.

It will be a three-way loss. For the natives who lose out on services, for the expats who clearly actively chose being expats in a particular location over all other options available to them and finally for the natives where the expats relocate who have to suffer those assholes (in exchange for services).

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#412

Post by petodo »

HKH2 wrote: post #407
petodo wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having a working knowledge of German, Italian, French, English was fun, valuable, and normal especially when doing business in diverse countries and with diverse peoples. That's nice with all these very similar languages using latin alphabet and now try it with Chinese characters and tones in China or at least kanji/hiragana without tones in Japan. Characters are huge barrier when learning the language, because you…

> I really wish Chinese switched completely to pinyin That's like wishing English would switch to IPA because English spelling is wildly inconsistent - which English would you choose? People who speak different dialects can still understand each other using written Chinese, whereas Pinyin is for Mandarin only.

almost everyone using smartphones and computers already use pinyin anyway when they are inputting Chinese characters, it's just redundant at this point, part of tradition without practical meaning

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#413

Post by Tainnor »

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'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.

I know many people like that too (also in Berlin), and they usually get stressed out whenever they have to deal with their landlord, or any government agency, etc. In addition, there are still areas even in Berlin where the baker or shopkeeper will not speak English well enough. Finding doctors could also prove more difficult, and so on. And what if you have children at some point and they go to school? Unless you can afford some fancy private school, everything will be in German.

Sure, you can get by without German for a while - especially if you have friends who can deal with certain things for you. But you'll just really be very dependent on others and their goodwill instead of being in charge of your own life.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#414

Post by worik »

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…

Your wonderful friends are not reporting on German society back home. (An assumption I know)

I agree it is outrageous that the BBC correspondent could not speak Japanese

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#415

Post by Tainnor »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #235
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…

Berlin is full of people with attitudes like that (both local and foreign), and that's part of the reason why the city is in such a sorry state. It's funny, in addition to those expats who only speak American/British you get a ton of immigrants who speak neither English nor German in a way that any sort of meaningful conversation would be possible. But it doesn't matter because no one cares, not even the government.…

That seems rather confused. The circle of English-speaking expats doesn't really intersect much with the circle of people responsible for local politics, all of whom speak German.

Blaming expats for the fact that Berlin's politicians are incompetent (which they are) makes no sense to me.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#416

Post by Tainnor »

ubercore wrote: post #356
radiator wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could answer their English in Norwegian, or even some other language, e.g. French. If you have started the conversation in Norwegian, they should not assume you can speak English anyway.

True, but politeness feels like continuing in English, because I have no idea if they care to struggle through a conversation with me, and asking people that 5 times through the course of every day starts to wear me down.

Yeah you have to get over the "politeness" hurdle if you want to seriously learn a language.

When I go to Spain, I will always try to speak Spanish and if they reply in English (which they often do because I make mistakes and/or have an accent), I just keep replying in Spanish. That may be seen as "rude" or inefficient by some (although others probably appreciate the effort), but it's really the only way you can keep making progress. (Of course, if it really gets too complicated you can still switch - but usually people switch way before they've reached the end of their skills.)

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#417

Post by Tainnor »

soraminazuki wrote: post #370
eloisant wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Retro Japanese games displayed text in all katakana because of technical limitations. But it didn't stick, for good reasons. It's incredibly hard to read. Like, imagine reading an ASCII text in hexadecimal representation. That's how it feels when reading a sufficiently long text in all hiragana or katakana. Abolishing kanjis might've worked for the Korean language, but Korean isn't Japanese. They're entirely differen…

It would work fine. Japanese people can read Kana-only text - foreigners often can't because they aren't as used to it, but Japanese children read books mostly in Hiragana and they know what things sound like because they speak the language long before they know how to read it.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#418

Post by Tainnor »

petodo wrote: post #375
anthk wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah because nobody listens to American music and watch American TV shows/movies to start with. I find it much more enjoyable when you can actually understand what they say.

You seem to live in a bubble. There's plenty of people who don't care much for these things as, say, the German market for movies, books, etc. is big enough (if you include dubbing).

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#419

Post by now__what »

throwuxiytayq wrote: post #348
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 somethi…

Impractical as it may be, the imaginary world where people are paid a living wage to stand on the sidewalk reciting poetry sounds lovely. Imagine being able to sit on a public bench with your neighbors any given day and listen to someone's creative writing! And if this also implies that more people are paid for other artistic endeavors... sign me up :)

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#420

Post by Tainnor »

petodo wrote: post #225
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…

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…

> 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).

My parents' generation learned Latin and French instead of English, and there's an argument to be made that you also can't really understand a lot of the world without at least some passing familiarity with both of these languages. In the GDR, people used to learn Russian, for obvious reasons, and that's not so long ago - many of these people are still in the workforce.

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