November 4, 2007

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    Recently, I wrote a bit about how English is difficult for many Japanese. I thought I'd respond to some of the (edited) comments I received.

    There are so many different shades of "fluent" that the more proficient I become at Japanese, the more I know what I actually don't know.  If I were to just transplant myself and live here forever (Japan), I think I would need my wife to translate things for me, too (even though I could function quite well on my own, as is the case with your wife, it's the juicy drama that kills me).
    Posted 10/26/2007 2:58 AM by Smart_Bad

    Ah, the intelligent man. Indeed, I've been trying to learn Japanese since 1972. That's, what? 25 years? And I swear, I too feel as though the more I learn, the more I realize how much more I have to go. Japanese is wide and deep. As for your Japanese, understanding the juicy dramas will come in time.

    there is the research on how we have trouble learning languages after about age twelve or so. or do you think it is more than that?
    Posted 10/25/2007 1:02 PM by lightpinksheep

    Yes, I think the two hemispheres of the brain completely separate--except for the corpus callosum that connects them. When the brain is still one big lump, information is freely and rapidly exchanged throughout the brain, so language learning--or rather acquisition--is easier. I think that's the explanation. But as far as Japanese are concerned, learning English goes beyond this. I've know people from Japan who have lived in the states for over 50 years and they still never learned English. It is definitely a mystery to me.

    My mother has lived in the United States for over thirty years now and has spent most of it working as a registered nurse in the South. Her English is reasonable, but she still has difficulty understanding movies. I'm not sure if it's accents, slang, uncommon vocabulary, or just listening comprehension, but she has trouble keeping up. The only exception is when we turn on English subtitles in which case she has no problems (I think her reading comprehension is much better and faster than listening). Oh, and she has no problem with medical dramas as well.
    Posted 10/25/2007 1:55 AM by SunJun

    My wife is not Japanese but her first time in the US was after she
    married me.  When we rent DVD's, we enable the English subtitles
    function.  When there are no subtitles I translate for her.  I'm not
    sure why English is so hard for Japanese.  My mother has been here for
    40 years and she still has trouble once in a while.
    Posted 10/24/2007 11:15 PM by SammyStorm2

    I think working in the US would make a significant difference in one's speaking abilities. My mother had virtually no English skills until she went to work in an environment where she had to use English everyday. While it was far from perfect, she could understand much more than before. Or at least she seemed to. It was hard to tell if she really understood the Cosby Show, but she laughed at all the right moments. As for M, she also uses the subtitles function, I have learned. When I was running on the treadmill in the basement, the Captions were always on. I'd get off and turn off the Captions because it blocks the lower part of the screen. Can't read the box score, you know? But the next day, the Captions were back on. What gives? It took me a while to figure out that M was turning it on to watch the Food Channel, or Travel Channel as she exercised. After we catch up on last year's Heroes, I'm hoping to use the Captions function for this years show. Then I could be a pinch hitter, so to speak. I would explain the parts that were particularly fast or slangy (read: difficult), but leave the rest to the Captions.

    Wait a minute...you're married? Wasn't it a few months ago that you were infatuated with PW?
       Oops,
    sorry...forgot to introduce myself. I'm a new reader; didn't mean to
    jump into the fray with such an accusatory opening, but I just got
    curious.
    Posted 10/26/2007 12:38 AM by amazngrace

    New readers are always welcome! So its no big deal if you get mixed up a bit at times. It probably has to do with my writing style and many readers know a lot about me, so I might skim past a lot of the details. Anyway, Yes, I'm married, and have been for seven years. In fact, this is my second go-round. PW was a young lady many of my peers had a crush on back in the 1980s when we were in college. When I first saw the model/TV personality, Marianne, I immediately thought of PW. They don't look exactly the same, but that's who I'd point to as a referent. I think Marianne is taller, but I'm pretty sure PW is much smarter.

    2007.11.02--1:15, 6.53
    2007.11.03--0:46, 3.95

Comments (9)

  • I had no idea English was so difficult for Japanese people. We don't get a whole lot of Japanese people in Texas. A lot of Koreans, and they seem to pick up English pretty easily...something to do with their original dialect that makes the transition easier, I think. That also includes Shanghai-nese people, whose language sounds a bit like Korean.

    Second go-around? Second time marriage? What happened with the first one? (Sorry for being nosy; I really like to know personal details about a person's life. Heh.)

  • Grad school is tough....but I wouldn't expect it not to be.

  • okay, so I've returned... seems this morning's sessions were all pre-registered and I couldn't get in. *bleh*

    As I live in Japan (now coming up on 2 years!), I do find, sometimes, that the linguistic barrier can be difficult.
    Not in the everyday sense, as everyone assumes I am Japanese until I tell them my middle name. I'm rarely corrected in my writing, and I happen to speak better "polite" Japanese (keigo/teineigo) than most 20-somethings.

    That aside, though, are certain words (rarely used terminology, but useful ones), phrases (mostly kotowaza/4-moji-jukugo), and truncated English words (often used by young people) that confuse me.
    The last of the bunch, is completely useless to me, so I don't worry about that part much, but the other two... well, you either learn them or you just don't know them.
    The only relief I get is that most people in my age group seem to be on the same boat, regardless of where they are from.

    There happens to be an individual at work, whose wife is Japanese, but he himself began learning Japanese during college. Aside from the minor accent (and very minor, at that), he speaks absolutely fluently. Amazing. But as with myself, his difficulties are in similar things--he's even picked up regional dialects, which is pretty crazy.

    While we discuss these things on occassion (in Japanese) we do find that there are expressions in English that don't exactly match in Japanese, and vice-versa... thus, there are times when we cannot fully explain ourselves to a Japanese counterpart.

    This week, while in Vegas, I've come to feel that English is obvioulsy not foreign to me, but much of the accented English (as in non-Californian) is becoming a bit difficult for me to decipher. I can make it out, but I find myself asking many people to repeat what they have just said. My "ear" for the language has diminished... significantly. British and Southern accents, I can still handle...

    So "being" somewhere, where you're forced to hear and speak the language will definitely develop one's understanding of it, but can have adverse effects on the language you may stop using on a regular basis.

    Interaction and the actual use of the language on a daily basis... I think that's what it really boils down to.
    Because after 2 years, there's no way in hell anybody's going to mistake me for being a non-native Japanese... my co-workers often forget that I'm actually American. Neat, huh?

    Okay, that was long.

  • ah... I'll have to come back to this one. I have my own tidbits about "language"! :)
    shall write again in approx. 12 hours. *bleh*

  • thanks for responding to my comment! i feel special! haha...

    some additional related thoughts:
    1. i've taught college writing courses in the midwest that include international students as well as african american students (and euro american, chicana/o, and asian american as well). some of my international students (and most are korean or mandarin-speaking--i'll always have a few of these, but only once in awhile students from other parts of asia, the middle east, or africa) have told me that they have trouble understanding the african american students. i'm sure it is because their experiences in english language classes (in their home country or the u.s.) don't support african american language. i bet it is similar to SunJun's mother's experience living and working in the southern U.S.

    2. in my language and culture course, we've talked about how humor is one of the hardest things to understand in non-native languages. idk if these programs are generally humorous though... but maybe it is a similar issue...

  • It' always hard to pick up another language. In college I learned that your brain's ability to pick up language (speaking, listening, etc) will decrease after the age of 25. It's prob part of the reason why my mom still has a slight accent even though she speaks fluently and been here for 25+ years. I have the opposite problem, sometimes my parents have to explain the Cambodian movies to me in English. Hahahahah

  • I agree that having an actual job in whatever foreign country will help to speed along the language acquisition.  After I finished up working at a high school (where at least some of the teachers spoke English and most of the students had at least three years of exposure to English), I started at the Elementary where no one speaks or understands English.  Typically, I don't notice when I make improvements in my Japanese, but this time it was apparent to myself and those around me as well.  Without the safety net of English, having to rely solely on Japanese has really helped me to speak and listen better faster.

    Conversely though, my English is suffering.

  • it is harder for adults to learn a second language. i deal with the whole retention issue thing... wait, didn't i know that yesterday. plus... by the age 18 months, children throw away sounds that aren't reinforced in their environment so you have to work to regain them. the research shows that emersion in the culture and language help a lot for adults (which is why i should be learning spanish right now and not chinese), and emersion is difficult to maintain. a good language coach will accelerate the process as well. but it takes years to understand the nuances- the idoms, the jokes, the obsure references. and if you come to new mexico, we'll drive the 83 miles to the original burger place...

  • hmm, yeah, when I did language exchange with my Japanese friends, they would really get frustrated pronouncing certain words. I think it's easier for some people to learn English because their native language already contains a lot of similar sounds. Some people, like my mom, just have a knack for mimicking sounds and pick up new languages quickly.

    anyway, thanks for your encouragement. i really appreciate the kind thought...I think I am feeling better already! i just need to hang on to this feeling before it goes away again.

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