Do they know english?

frmain · 15 Jul 2007

My friend Emiri came over to New Zealand a year ago, she couldn't speak very much English before that. She studied hard every day and she tries really hard to speak in English. She's gone back to Japan now and has decided to learn Chinese instead - but every Japanese person I've met has always been very interested in English and how to speak it. I doubt it would be the same if I went to Japan - where a lot of people don't ever need to speak English.

JerseyBoy · 15 Jul 2007

It seems your friend Emiri may not be able to learn Chinese either as she was not able to learn English despite her hard work. Some people are not cut out well for learning foreign languages, I believe.

gaijinalways · 15 Jul 2007

Hmm, I still know some Spanish sentences and I never formally studied it. I think most Japanese don't see the connection between learning a language and using it for communication and broadening your horizons. Then again, many other people don't see the communication/cultural connection, so the Japanese are not the only ones who fail to make good use of what they learn linguistically.

diceke · 15 Jul 2007

briareos said:
I was always under the impression that many young japanese these days know some english, but a recent trip to Japan seemed otherwise.

Previously, english was compulsory in school, right? So that would mean many Japanese in their 20s or younger should know english. But I did encounter some in this age group who couldn't speak a single word of it. Were there any exceptions to the regular school subjects?

In addition, was there a recent policy change to stop english from being compulsory in school?

Most Japanese are proudly monolingual. ☝

Actually, the question should be: "Do you know Japanese?"
Or are you one of those victims of linguistic imperialism?

JimmySeal · 15 Jul 2007

frmain said:
My friend Emiri came over to New Zealand a year ago, she couldn't speak very much English before that. She studied hard every day and she tries really hard to speak in English. She's gone back to Japan now and has decided to learn Chinese instead - but every Japanese person I've met has always been very interested in English and how to speak it. I doubt it would be the same if I went to Japan - where a lot of people don't ever need to speak English.

JerseyBoy said:
It seems your friend Emiri may not be able to learn Chinese either as she was not able to learn English despite her hard work. Some people are not cut out well for learning foreign languages, I believe.

I think anyone can learn a language if they go about it the right way, but I doubt anyone would have an easier time learning Chinese as a second language rather than English. What was the end result, frmain? Did Emiri's English improve? Why did she stop studying English?

crouk · 17 Jul 2007

When I was there, I found a lot of Japanese who adress us to speak english. But they didn't know that our english was VERY bad!!

Do they know english?

frmain

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JerseyBoy

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gaijinalways

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diceke

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JimmySeal

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crouk

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