Why do the Japanese not speak better English?
It’s an age old question, and obviously, being humans, 250 people writing on a subject means at least 250 different opinions. Here anyway are my personal favourite theories- maybe not the most important reasons, but certainly among the most neglected explanations:
1. The world’s worst self study materials
My father in law has given up on English after buying a book specifically marketed as for beginners that includes ten pages of English proverbs- who can blame him??
2. They don’t need it
In fact, spending time abroad studying English could permanently set back a Japanese employee’s career due to everything they do being taken as proof that they are no longer properly Japanese (in a similar way to everything you could possibly do in a mental hospital being proof that you are really insane). Same thing for going to Harvard instead of Tokyo University. And anyway, all projects are given to whoever has the right level of seniority and who happens to be handy, leaving the translation to be done by someone with a Pre-Intermediate level of English because telling their boss that the person at the next desk is near native wouldn’t be showing the right kind of can-do spirit.
3. Articles like this one and that Japan Times one telling the Japanese that they can’t speak good English and giving them excuses for it
Lucky I don’t still have any readers in Japan! To be honest, Japanese English isn’t that bad (hence the title of this post not being what you are probably remembering it as- take another look!) Most Japanese are more comprehensible than the French (even in writing), less shy than the Finns and better listeners than the Spanish, and that seems good enough to me.
April 3rd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I dont think these problems are limited to Japan. Many Mexicans in Mexico dont speak the language very well either, despite the fact that many spend years studying it. Bad educational materials … check They dont need it…. check… there is distrust of those who arent “Mexican” enough, but basically because they are afraid that foreign influences are superior, not inferior and Excuses… check….Plenty of those
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:13 pm
I have no problems believing that- so do Mexicans have almost weekly newspaper articles comparing their TOEFL scores to the Guatemalans (for example) and trying to explain the (meaningless) differences in stats with Freudian analysis of the national psyche? I would imagine not
April 4th, 2009 at 8:37 am
I once taught a group of Japanese students in London, probably about 10 or 11 years ago. They were in their late teens or early twenties, studying there for about a year, and I taught them for most of that. They were a good bunch, and keen on becoming hairdressers (yes, I kid thee not). Their main ambition was to work in a top-notch hairdressing salon (presumably in Japan, but i was never too sure), and they looked upon their year in the UK as a sort of rites-of-passage experience, I guess.
They weren’t spoilt rich kids wasting Daddy’s money (I met a few of their parents), and I enjoyed teaching them, despite the slow progress. Where are you now, Yuko, Shinjo, Sakura, etc? The best thing was that they gave me free haircuts – I was dead trendy that year!!
April 6th, 2009 at 7:40 am
The same reasons could apply to many Americans.
April 6th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
They just don’t take it seriously enough. They dream that they can become fluent by spending a day a week staring at some blue eyed white guy.or gal. or should I say clown in disguise.
April 7th, 2009 at 4:37 am
I learned to speak French pretty well in my late 20s to early 30s. I went to class 3 hours a week for the best part of 4 years. I did all the homework set plus up to 8 hours of vocabulary work each week. I read everything I could find in French and listened to the radio most days. Still, when I arrived in France to live I was not very fluent and made masses of mistakes when speaking. After about a year of living there, I felt very comfortable and could even correct French natives’ grammar on occasion..One day I was walking through a forest and the French girl I was with asked me what they called the little animals that dug tunnels and made little hills – so I told her – in French!
So – I always tell students it takes about 2 years of hard study to get fluent in a language – minimum. And French is a lot easier for English speakers than English is for the Japanese.
The Japanese are not better because they are not really trying. Shane has it right.
Also – most of the people teaching in Japan are neither qualified nor serious about teaching. It’s just a job for them.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:00 am
Mexicans dont try to analyze anything. Things have always been so. They dont compare themselves with Guatemalans (or should I say when they do they say that the Guatemalans are worse then they themselves) but rather with the US, always unfavorably. Before that it was the French and before that it was the Spanish.
We humans are wonderfully creative for coming up with excuses for not doing stuff. (That includes us Americans) Anything to avoid saying that we just didnt want to do something we know we should.