What about English?
Well, almost two months without writing... Does anyone still read this blog?
I am stuck with many things to do and not much time to write, and that's the main reason I've been away for so long. I hope I can at least write regularly from now on.
This time, I'll (try to) be brief.
One topic that comes every once in a while is if Japan is opening or closing itself to the world.
On one hand, the government tries to estimulate tourism and increase the number of international students (I have to admit that there other motivations in those measures: tourists bring money and students bring knowledge, but I'll just leave it at that for now), on the other, parts of the population don't seem too keen to look outside Japan. (The article from the link suggests that Japan should look into itself to find the path to follow, reason why people are looking less abroad. Again, I won't touch this issue now.)
One common issue when it comes to "internationalization" is the ability to speak English, the current international language. On that point, stories about Japanese people English proficiency are almost legendary. I was even impressed one day to read on one message board at the university that Japanese people had the lowest average scores in TOEFL test. (Just in case, I've looked into that data myself and Japanese are not the lowest average score. They do rank quite low, though.)
On that issue, many blame the differences between the two languages ("as a native Portuguese speaker, I have more common points with the English language than Japanese do, which makes it easier for me to learn it", for example); others blame the foreign words imported to Japanese (the Japanese word "tsuaa" means "tour". So there's a some likelyhood that the average Japanese will pronounce the word the Japanese way, even when speaking English); and others blame culture (Japanese culture values the "communication without words")...
My own personal opinion aside (it might be somewhere in this blog, though), I've just read an article that blames the Japanese government for it.
... Yeah, you read it right.
The reasoning goes into the conspiracy theory. Basically the government wanted Japanese people to understand English enough to be able to understand information from abroad, but not enough that the best members of society would leave Japan to work in other countries. Even if you don't believe a word of it, it's interesting just for the different line of thought. You may even start to believe it... heh!
Original in Japanese here. Translated to English here.
I am stuck with many things to do and not much time to write, and that's the main reason I've been away for so long. I hope I can at least write regularly from now on.
This time, I'll (try to) be brief.
One topic that comes every once in a while is if Japan is opening or closing itself to the world.
On one hand, the government tries to estimulate tourism and increase the number of international students (I have to admit that there other motivations in those measures: tourists bring money and students bring knowledge, but I'll just leave it at that for now), on the other, parts of the population don't seem too keen to look outside Japan. (The article from the link suggests that Japan should look into itself to find the path to follow, reason why people are looking less abroad. Again, I won't touch this issue now.)
One common issue when it comes to "internationalization" is the ability to speak English, the current international language. On that point, stories about Japanese people English proficiency are almost legendary. I was even impressed one day to read on one message board at the university that Japanese people had the lowest average scores in TOEFL test. (Just in case, I've looked into that data myself and Japanese are not the lowest average score. They do rank quite low, though.)
On that issue, many blame the differences between the two languages ("as a native Portuguese speaker, I have more common points with the English language than Japanese do, which makes it easier for me to learn it", for example); others blame the foreign words imported to Japanese (the Japanese word "tsuaa" means "tour". So there's a some likelyhood that the average Japanese will pronounce the word the Japanese way, even when speaking English); and others blame culture (Japanese culture values the "communication without words")...
My own personal opinion aside (it might be somewhere in this blog, though), I've just read an article that blames the Japanese government for it.
... Yeah, you read it right.
The reasoning goes into the conspiracy theory. Basically the government wanted Japanese people to understand English enough to be able to understand information from abroad, but not enough that the best members of society would leave Japan to work in other countries. Even if you don't believe a word of it, it's interesting just for the different line of thought. You may even start to believe it... heh!
Original in Japanese here. Translated to English here.
3 comments:
Really interesting...
I've suspected that Japan had more difficult in learning english than people like us, brazilians but I never suspected the reasons. The fact of 'importing' the english words to the japanese word really make confunsing for them when speaking in english.
But I think it's the same idea for us brazilians when we 'import' foreign words like
"hamburguer" we read "ãmburguer", although, in english we can read it with the right speech "hambburguer" itself!
Bom cara,
Voce esta falando de varios motivos que levariam ou nao levariam o povo japones em geral (como uma unica entidade) a aprender ingles. Mas voce tambem pode tentar ver a coisa pelo lado do individuo.
Se for comparar com o Brasil, sempre houve uma ideia de que aprender ingles era um passo importante na ascencao economica e social (quantas vezes voce ja ouviu falar de que "saber ingles abre portas"). Aqui eu nao tenho essa impressao. Japoneses individuais aprendem ingles por que querem "viajar" (mas para isso existem tours, ou nego que eh nacionalista, como no BR.) ou entao para se "internacionalizar" (algo tao vago que nao serve de motivador de verdade). As unicas pessoas que realmente sabem ingles por aqui sao pessoas que precisam fazer negocios no exterior - ou seja, que mexe no bolso.
Abracao!
Leo,
It is true that WE can say it "hamburger" correctly. But what's the percentage of Brazilians who can? I have to concede that at least people in high social levels usually can...
Claus,
Agora que voce mencionou, eh verdade. No Brasil ja se tem a nocao ate que so ingles nao eh mais suficiente, uma terceira lingua ja eh necessaria. Mas no Japao o ingles ainda ta comecando a tentar ser necessario...
Bom, o artigo generaliza, entao eh complicado nao generalizar baseado nele. Mas minha experiencia pessoal me diz que os japoneses que falam melhor ingles tiveram um motivo "palpavel" pra aprender: negocios (como voce disse), ficaram naturalmente proximos de um grupo de estrangeiros...
No final, talvez tenha a ver com a questao: "por que voce quer aprender ingles?" Mesmo alunos do "deficiente" ensino publico no Brasil conseguem se sobressair caso estejam motivados a estudar (e ir alem do conteudo do colegio)
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