February 4, 2009
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Speaking Japanese
When speaking Japanese, non-native speakers need to remember to be polite.
Most languages have at last two levels of speech. In general, they are formal and informal. In the US, this is especially true in business. You call people Mister, unless told otherwise. You speak and act politely, unless you become very familiar with your superior. Do you slap you boss's back and tell him "Good job, dude"?
In Japanese, the line is even more pronounced. Unfortunately for most Japanese learners, a Japanese speaker will not correct a non-native speaker when they speak informally. Many Americans will come back from Japan thinking their Japanese is all that. I certainly have many students like that as well. And for the most part, their confidence is well founded. Their Japanese is relatively fluent and unobstructed by the fear of using the wrong word.
However, if they are too informal with me, I will always correct them. I don't mean to be a hard-ass, but someone needs to correct them because if and when they return to Japan for work or graduate study, they cannot talk informally when talking to a business colleague or professor. They have to learn to turn the formality switch on and off in any given situation. And the level familiarity rarely has anything to do with it. I worked at a Research Center for two years in Japan and became very familiar with my bucho (division chief). We often drank together, and he is the one who dubbed me the "American who speaks English". But one night while drinking, I spoke to him a bit too familiarly. Now, in Japan, drinking often excuses an error in judgment, and most will laugh it off the next day. But my error in being too familiar with my bucho put me in his doghouse for two weeks. He literally did not speak to me during that time, relaying messages to me through others.
The bottom line is--been there, done that. So I tell my students to speak to me formally whenever they decide to speak to me in Japanese. If they think I am a hardcase, then so be it. I take it upon myself to be their practice partner, their opportunity to learn how to turn that formality switch on and off.
Comments (9)
お久しぶりです。おにぎりまんさん。おにぎりまんの失敗談はいつも興味深いですね。
言葉って難しいですね。確かに敬語は大事で、中国人はとても上手く身に付けています。でも、こんな事いっていいかどうか分かりませんが、素晴らしい言葉
と裏腹に、職場では無礼だという評価をよく聞きます。Lang-8でも私は同じような印象を受けています。これは、言葉だではないんです。考え方（文化）
の問題のほうが大きいと思います。
おにぎりまんの場合も、言葉の問題ではなく、相手は明らかに怒っているので、怒るような何かを言ったのかも知れません。人はよく分からない理由でしばしば怒りま
すから、おにぎりまんが悪いとは限りません。それとも、何か言ってはいけないラインを超えたのかもしれません。酒を飲むと本音が出るんです。^^;;
日本人同士でもよくある失敗ですよ。夫も何度か経験しています。
とはいえ、言葉遣いの指導が出来る先生は素晴らしいです。マンガではビジネスは無理ですし、仕事に敬語は絶対必要ですから。
おにぎりまんさん、いつか一緒にお酒飲みましょうね。無礼講で。
Sorry.
English teachers → Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ ｔｅａｃｈｅｒｓ
I am a Japanese.
I read a lot of diaries or essays in Japanese written by non-native speakers.
Some are formal and others are informal.
As far as they write them hard, it matters little.
Generally speaking, those written by Chinese people are formal or polite.
I think that they study Japanese for their business, so they are careful not to be impolite.
Some people begin to study Japanese because they are interested in Japanese anime or manga.
They read them, so their Japanese are tend to be informal or casual.
I think it matters what they say, not how they say.
But good English teachers should correct their students' too informal Japanese.
I think it's great that you do that.
Regardless of being a foreigner or not, I think it's important that people learn the proper language etiquette. If they have enough admiration and respect to learn the language in the first place, they should go the whole nine yards, no? Especially in cultures where respect and hierarchy are built in, and the language even separates into the informal and formal categories.
You care so much about the language and your students.. I would love to be your student!
Interesting, though not sure it applies equally to foreigners. My boyfriend worked in Japan and he wasn't good with the keigo at all, but all his buchos and bosses loved him, cos he's half and looks foreign. Do you think there's a different standard for foreigners?
Thank you SO much for posting this! I had no idea that the teacher would not want to correct the student, even though my teacher was very Americanized. There was a girl in my class that whenever she asked how to say something, should would always ask it informally, such as ~は何と言う。 For me, as soon as I hear that, I cringe.... I always thought you had to speak formal Japanese to your superiors, including professors of course, but I started questioning myself!
The thing about Japanese from the point of a foreigner is that there's so much involved with the language- the casual speech, the normal/polite speech and then the super polite speech. For us students, while we understand that there are levels of speeches, we often mix up everything while speaking either because we are trying to be understood or our brains are trying to react as quickly as possible when speaking to not lag behind during a conversation. I'm not contesting at all what you wrote here, but in my opinion, let's say if I heard a foreigner try to speak Chinese with me in let's say China, I would really be impressed with his efforts to speak and try to be understood rather than be offended if he was speaking in a rough manner.
I have to say, I try my best to speak polite (broken) Japanese when the situation arises. Though, I've been fortunate with friend's friends who don't mind it when I speak whatever formulates in my mind to be understood.
True story. It's something I'm always afraid of doing, and sometimes when I get nervous I switch back and forth on accident. I do try to err on the side of being too polite, but it doesn't always work out that way. I guess people overlook it because I'm a foreigner and obviusly not fluent in Japanese.
I think I have a different brain when I speak Chinese.
They are compartmentalized so when I speak Mandarin it's a different tone and I have never messed up
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