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

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

#91

Post by KineticLensman »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #45
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 exception that proves the rule" is such a terrible expression. I do not understand why people use it. At some point I thought that it absurd on purpose but I had some people explaining me the rationale behind it (there is no rationale - if there is an exception it at best weakens the "rule")

‘Prove’ was historically used as a synonym for ‘test’, which gives the phrase quite a different meaning. Like how ‘result’ is now sometimes used to mean ‘positive outcome’, as in a football fan saying ‘we got a result’

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

#92

Post by TinkersW »

cavok wrote: post #90
bitwize wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan was sealed off from the world by the Tokugawa Shogunate and only opened back up relatively recently (~150 years ago). So yeah, their culture is kinda built different to the rest of Asia, having evolved for centuries in isolation. They are still prone to exceptionalism: one story goes that European ski equipment manufacturers had difficulty exporting their skis to Japan in the 1960s because of a widespread belie…

Japanese snow is different, it’s predominantly powder. Different to ski on.

hardly unique..Colorado snow is also mostly powder

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

#93

Post by DrNosferatu »

sien wrote: post #27
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.

How do you think it compares to various European countries? Say, Germany, Spain, Italy (or any that you're familiar with). Northern Europeans seem to be fantastic at learning languages. It's surprising the rest of the world doesn't copy what they do.

Germany has very similar problems.

But unlike Japan, the education system is the antithesis of fair - as, if I understood correctly, your 4th grade teacher will decide which of the 3 tracks you will follow at 10(!) years of age. This obliterates the possibility of social elevator through education.

I wonder how it is in Japan? Is it common to have class movement between generations?

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

#94

Post by TinkersW »

bulbosaur123 wrote: post #44

I will get downvoted and hated for what I'm going to say. What's with the west's pathalogical obsession with Japan and Japanese? Is anime & JAV to blame here? Look, you have Chinese spoken by 1.35 billion people. Foreigners who speak Chinese are way more rare than those who speak Japanese, therefore making it a more valuable language to acquire for business, diplomacy and travel. China is the new emerging superpower.…

Japan has been exporting its culture for decades with games(Mario/Zelda/Final Fantasy..the list goes on). And nowadays anime is also very popular.

China has nothing really, can't think of a single interesting Chinese game/movie/TV show. If you include Hong Kong a few appear, but that isn't really China, and output has died since China forcefully took over.

Maybe it is just me but I also find Chinese really annoying in the way that it sounds, very harsh and unpleasant, something about the tones gives me a mild headache.

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

#95

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

tkgally wrote: post #12
rjrdi38dbbdb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I even wondered if it was a front for some other kind of business. Just curious what your suspicions were at the English conversation lounge and why it made you uncomfortable?

Partly it was the location: An upper floor of a building in a neighborhood full of bars and pachinko parlors, which seemed much sleazier to me then than it would now. But more it was, I think, that I didn’t understand yet why Japanese college students and office workers would pay money to practice English with me and a few other recent foreign arrivals. The fact that much of the conversation consisted of the customer…

I’ve only visited once, but my impression of their urban areas was that Japanese zoning laws and planning permit are very different to even UK ones, and worlds apart from American ones. I assume there’s some centuries-old historical reasons that I’m just not aware of.

There are residential houses sandwiched between restaurants, perfectly legitimate businesses built on top of some ‘perfectly legitimate’ businesses and underneath other even shadier businesses. This definitely means that any district with a focus on entertainment will often seem sketchier than it really is.

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

#96

Post by minebreaker »

card_zero wrote: post #82
minebreaker wrote: post #20

A few random thoughts from a Japanese programmer: (warning: not gonna be fun read) * As far as I can tell, most Japanese programmers can read at least some portion of English software documentations * English in Japan is always about the U.S. Not the U.K, not South Africa, not Singapore. I still remember my English teacher in the university, who was from South Africa, complained about that he was always assumed to be…

Heh, Slavoj Zizek. Why should the Japanese learn English? To understand a Slovenian, naturally!

I'm not sure you are being sarcastic or not, but it is absolutely the best aspect of having the lingua franca. In an ideal world where I had an infinite time, I'd love to learn Slovenian, but obviously I don't, and my life is too short to learn so many languages.

Some blame English for globalism and Americanization, and sure they deserve the blame, but I don't want to live in the world where the people stuck in their own language and cannot communicate.

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

#97

Post by expatjapan121 »

germandiago wrote: post #88
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 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…

> 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 think you answered yourself that if you _can_ speak Japanese, things are different. The reality is that if you can speak Japanese, it's quite easy to be well integrated with the people. In your example, I don't know if the Romanian learned Spanish or everyone is speaking English but there is likely a common language. Making the reason "traditional culture and habits" and just not a lack of a shared language seems wrong to me, at least I feel quite integrated. Please stop telling people "they will never be Japanese" since it's blatantly wrong.

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

#98

Post by euroderf »

minebreaker wrote: post #30
sien wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think it compares to various European countries? Say, Germany, Spain, Italy (or any that you're familiar with). Northern Europeans seem to be fantastic at learning languages. It's surprising the rest of the world doesn't copy what they do.

To be fair, it's much easier to learn English if your mother tongue is a variant of Indo-European.

My kid is being raised bilingual English-Finnish. I hope he acquires an interest in linguistics, because when he examines his own language facility he will find fertile ground - a car crash of deeply different languages.

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

#99

Post by olelele »

lmm wrote: post #67
sprobertson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan is also very small which makes it easy to "understand"

Japan is actually quite large - its land area is about the same as Germany, and it's the 11th most populous country in the world.

Except for that large parts are mountains and not inhabitable, there is a reason why so many people live in Kanto region.

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

#100

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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…

That sounds like a universal experience to be honest; a lot of English teachers (that aren't native English themselves) often over-estimate their own abilities.
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