Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan

tokyodev.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 232 posts

Re: The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan

#171

Post by qingcharles »

Pamar wrote: post #123
jhanschoo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who enjoys languages, I observe with irony that in terms of proficiency per unit of effort spent, at least formal ancient language education isn't a such a waste of effort that formal language education is, in the sense that immersion will teach you language more painlessly, and with more velocity and distance than formal modern language education will; but immersion is quite inaccessible for ancient langu…

Disclaimer: I am European AND Old, so I studied Latin for 8 years (Middle School + High School). I am not sure I really understand your comment here. If you are studying an ancient language you acquire zero fluency in it. At best you can read it, unless you were lucky enough to meet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Foster_(Latinist) (and this would apply to Latin exclusively). So it is a bit like saying, I dunn…

I'm also old enough to have been forced to study Latin for years at school, on equal par with Spanish and French. I'm sorry I didn't take it seriously. Latin underpins so many languages, and a basis in Latin can help enormously figuring out strange words.

Re: The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan

#172

Post by [deleted] »

SpecialistK wrote: post #65

I only speak English, but I have found and theorized that one's ability to learn and retain a L2 is heavily affected by your society's "need" to communicate outside of the national language. This article largely reinforces that theory. If people do not have a need to learn another language, it becomes an uphill battle. People in Finland report higher levels of English competency than people in France (despite French…

[deleted]

Re: The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan

#173

Post by qingcharles »

RandallBrown wrote: post #146
laurieg wrote: post #64

I've lived in Japan for over a decade and I think this article summarizes some aspects of English education well. I'd like to share a few of my thoughts and experiences too. English is often put on a very high pedestal. Speaking fluent English is associated with being "elite". A tech company in my city is slowly moving to doing all development work in English. I went to a casual tech talk event they held. Every talk…

> They sometimes modify their English pronunciation to sound "more Japanese" when they start English classes in school I saw a video where an American was trying to order a McFlurry at McDonalds in Japan and the worker couldn't understand "McFlurry" pronounced in English so they had to pronounce it in what (without context) would sound quite racist.

I've also had this happen in France and German-Swiss, so I don't think this is unique to Japan! :)

Re: The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan

#174

Post by autumnstwilight »

famahar wrote: post #129
germandiago wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been a couple of times in Japan, have some Japanese friends here in Vietnam, where I live. I am spanish. In my humble opinion, japanese society is very kind and well-behaved, but, if you cannot speak japanese and you live in one more-or-less big city, according to all the feedback I got, then, you are basically out. And anyway, you will never be a japanese. I mean, there is much less difference between foreign…

This strong need to be accepted by a whole country is something I see mentioned a lot by a particular group of people that have never really been "othered" in their life. Coming to Japan is quite a shock for them because they experience being a minority for the first time in their lives. I was born in Canada and have dealt with micro-aggresions and blatant racism my whole life there. Living in Japan I can say I feel…

I don't really get why people always say "no matter how long you live in Japan, Japanese people will never truly see you as Japanese." Yeah, okay, but also no matter how long I live in Japan, telling other people from my home country that I'm Japanese now would seem kinda ridiculous and probably not be taken seriously. I don't think of myself as "Japanese". Seems odd to single out Japanese people as uniquely discriminatory here. (Of course, "Japanese" meaning both a nationality and and ethnicity is significant factor here, I might have more complicated feelings if I was of Japanese descent).

I speak the language reasonably well and generally don't feel excluded or disrespected at work or socially. People acknowledge that I'm from a different cultural background because I am. I don't feel the need to "be Japanese".

Re: The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan

#175

Post by saithound »

riizade wrote: post #149
saithound wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> therefore making it a more valuable language to acquire for business, diplomacy and travel Learning a Chinese language for the business, diplomacy or travel opportunities is a stupid, stupid idea. In the English-speaking West, bwtween 1.6% and 5.0% of the population are native speakers of both some Chinese language and English. The business and diplomacy opportunities that require a Chinese-speaker all go to these…

> normally, you can visit the PRC for 15 days, you're railroaded throughout your whole trip, and you're required by law to stay in a select few hotels where the staff speak English anyway Huh? The tourist visa is I believe 90 days per entry (as it is for most countries), and valid for 10 years. There has been no foreign guest licensing requirement in the PRC since 2002, as far as I can tell, and even then it didn't s…

15 days is the duration for visa-free entry available to the citizens of the 54 "Western" countries. Only Singapore nationals get more than that.

The validity of a tourist visa is 90 days - it doesn't mean that presenting a 90 day itinerary is accepted upon application with a Chinese consular office. And as a general rule, it's not. If yiur itinerary includes any destinations outside approved areas, certainly not. As for hotels, see the following thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/17fe0p9/why_do_lots_.... The vast majority of hotels will not accept your booking.

Re: The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan

#176

Post by lmm »

sourcepluck wrote: post #138
lmm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost mentioned Hooters, I think they're the exception that proves the rule - they're seen as unusual and seedy, whereas in Japan that's pretty much the norm for a bar.

The norm for a bar in Japan is to be like Hooters? Eh, what? This wasn't my experience at all. I didn't conduct a study, but I was in a good few bars over there, in three different cities. Can you elaborate on what you're referring to here?

In my experience a bar (not a pub/居酒屋, a バー) will frequently be a place that always has female staff working, where those staff will be wearing makeup and at least somewhat attractive clothes and expected to converse with customers. Not always - there are definitely bars focused on music or some hobby or particular kinds of drinks - but often enough that it's what I'd expect if you just said bar.

Re: The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan

#177

Post by KTallguy »

tkgally wrote: post #2

I am the author of this article and will be interested to read HNers’ thoughts and discussion about the topic. I will also be happy to respond to questions.

Thank you for the article! I’m an American who’s lived on and off in Japan for around 10 years, currently in Tokyo working in game development. I related to many parts of your article, especially the later part about foreign devs working with Japanese executives.

My work environment aims to be multilingual (Japanese/English) but creative conversations are inevitably stymied by pauses for translation. Machine translation and AI is helpful but fails to capture nuance, and compounds normal, everyday communication woes. Japanese only speakers on our team feel lonely and left out despite best efforts. Japanese applicants are quite rare because of the stress of being in such an environment. It’s exhausting when people around you don’t share common cultural touchstones and every conversation is an unpredictable exchange.

On the other side, although many of my non-Japanese colleagues speak varying levels of Japanese, some have tried but are unable to (or don’t care to) improve further. Working proficiency is a high bar, and our “real work” is busy. You can get by in Tokyo with cursory Japanese, translation apps and online reservations. There is a large expat community, so you can ignore the “Japan for Japanese people” if you so choose.

I wonder how things will change as the native population continues to shrink over the years. Even in Tokyo, many businesses have responded to the tourist explosion by insulating themselves in various ways. There are recent incidents related to concentrated immigrant populations as well. I hope that we avoid the xenophobic trend that is sweeping the rest of the world but I do worry.

Re: The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan

#178

Post by j_timberlake »

autumnstwilight wrote: post #174
famahar wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This strong need to be accepted by a whole country is something I see mentioned a lot by a particular group of people that have never really been "othered" in their life. Coming to Japan is quite a shock for them because they experience being a minority for the first time in their lives. I was born in Canada and have dealt with micro-aggresions and blatant racism my whole life there. Living in Japan I can say I feel…

I don't really get why people always say "no matter how long you live in Japan, Japanese people will never truly see you as Japanese." Yeah, okay, but also no matter how long I live in Japan, telling other people from my home country that I'm Japanese now would seem kinda ridiculous and probably not be taken seriously. I don't think of myself as "Japanese". Seems odd to single out Japanese people as uniquely discrimi…

Meanwhile if you spent 15 years in Canada and got Canadian citizenship, no one would care if you started calling yourself Canadian, unless you're a really bad culture fit.

Re: The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan

#179

Post by autumnstwilight »

j_timberlake wrote: post #178
autumnstwilight wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get why people always say "no matter how long you live in Japan, Japanese people will never truly see you as Japanese." Yeah, okay, but also no matter how long I live in Japan, telling other people from my home country that I'm Japanese now would seem kinda ridiculous and probably not be taken seriously. I don't think of myself as "Japanese". Seems odd to single out Japanese people as uniquely discrimi…

Meanwhile if you spent 15 years in Canada and got Canadian citizenship, no one would care if you started calling yourself Canadian, unless you're a really bad culture fit.

I think it would be similar in Australia, where I'm from, but different in any country where "nationality" and "linguistic/cultural/ethnic background" are synonymous for most people. Most of us wouldn't call an American dude living in Thailand for 20 years "a Thai person" either. The "you can't become Japanese" thing often gets held up as an example of unique or unusually strong Japanese xenophobia, and I don't think it's particularly unusual, though we (humans in general) could probably afford to get more precise about our thinking with regard to nationality vs ethnicity.

Re: The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan

#180

Post by tmm84 »

ekusiadadus wrote: post #86

I'm Japanese. Speaking English in Japan is very challenging. All my friends and family speak Japanese, and everything from social media to news is completely accessible in Japanese. I'm an entrepreneur, and I use English when talking with international clients and overseas VCs. However, I lack confidence, and the communication tends to remain superficial, making it difficult to effectively do business internationally…

I work in various Japanese offices and I can say that some really dedicated Japanese bosses/leaders that spoke English as good as you if not better were great to do business with. I think a lot of the problem in doing business is that both sides think the other is playing by the same rules because of the language being used. Experience and time in Japan has taught me the rules of Japanese business that I didn't know (can't exactly list them all).

The secret my English teaching friends have tried to share with me when I ask them how do you get your students better is for the students to "try" more. All pro athletes never did their best initially and so language learning is the same thing.

The only thing I have against translation by AI is that it'll end up replacing thought if you're not careful. I think using it to double check your understanding is fine (like a calculator for math) but understanding nuance/culture is helpful.

Being that I am in Japan I wouldn't mind conversing in English (written or spoken) with you.

Post reply on HN