Comments on: Why do the Japanese not speak better English?

By: Leigh Thelmadatter

Leigh Thelmadatter — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 02:00:18 +0000

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.

By: Andy Mallory

Andy Mallory — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:37:27 +0000

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.

By: Shane

Shane — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:48:30 +0000

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.

By: David V.

David V. — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:40:38 +0000

The same reasons could apply to many Americans.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 08:37:30 +0000

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!!

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:13:23 +0000

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

By: Leigh Thelmadatter

Leigh Thelmadatter — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:58:23 +0000

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