Zgarbas Wrote:And there are most definitely no cases of people who are raised in bilingual environments which end up not being fluent in either language, and even if there were, it does not pose a problem in any way.

This isn't necessarily true, because non-diglossic bilingual environments hardly exist (if at all), so speakers of the language that has the tanks and the presidents tend not to become that fluent in the other language. I've seen it a lot IRL.

Stansfield123 Wrote:The best solution would be to name both Japanese and English as official languages, and teach English properly in public school, by giving it the same weight as Japanese, math and science, and expecting fluency by the end of middle school.

This should be done in every country, not just Japan, by the way. The benefits of bilingualism in general are massive for developing children's minds. Add to that that English is one of the most useful skills you can have, and that having an English speaking public administration (not to mention English speaking corporate leaders) is a huge advantage in the global economy, and nations that refuse to teach it seriously are doing a huge disservice to their economies.

I agree with your premise, but think it'd be impractical. In order for anyone to become proficient in English, they'd need to use it in many and varied situations, far surpassing the capacity of an English class, even over the entire school life of the child. One language will always dominate over the other in everyday use (think of Quebec, in an English speaking country, but using primarily French. Same with multi-language regions in the US, they speak primarily one language and the other is poorly developed).

I don't give two cares about 'cultural identity' and all that jazz (because somehow, speaking another language means I'm not descended from English and German born settlers anymore and don't have access to my family's knowledge? Or maybe being American means I just don't consider worthless things like the native land of people my grandparents and I never met to be part of my character), but it would seem to be disadvantageous to the local population to expect the average citizen to be fluent and literate in two languages, since that would leave at least half the population with poor skills in either or both languages.

Frankly, if different languages are to exist (which they will for the foreseeable future, because the amount of coordinated effort required to change would be too great), then I think the current model of having the majority of people being (functionally) monolingual and having certain individuals skilled at interfacing languages work in interlingual communication is best.

Zgarbas Wrote:Not like language is a huge part of one's identity or anything. All those people from countries where English is an official language and had their education entirely in English are totes happy with it and aren't complexed about the fact that they have trouble in their own language or anything. And they most definitely did not create pidgin languages which means that their English stands out in a way that is perceived as inferior. And there are most definitely no cases of people who are raised in bilingual environments which end up not being fluent in either language, and even if there were, it does not pose a problem in any way.

Ummm, if you have an issue, maybe you should just state it directly instead of giving these oblique references.

In point of fact, I don't believe that there is any significant problem with bilingual environments. I suppose it does happen that individuals with linguistic learning challenges do suffer in a bilingual environment, but by and large my understanding is that children raised in a bilingual environment grow up with bilingual skills and are seriously -advantaged- and not at all -disadvantaged- by such an upbringing.

Of course first language is part of one's identity, but does that challenge in any way teaching English as a second language in a serious way? Your oblique sarcastic references strongly suggest that you disagree with the trend of this topic, but they don't actually advance any argument or make clear any position.

[Zgarbas]

We have many countries where English was forcefully implemented and was kept around for people's 'own good', such as India or the Philippines. These people have their entire formal education in English. There are also a lot of them around; I would suggest asking them how they feel about it - and see how you would rate their English while you're at it. There are advantages to being raised bilingual, but there are also many disadvantages - you'll often hear people who were raised bilingual complain that they don't know their native language very well, and they're not being modest. At the same time, they are unlikely to be completely native-like in English. The extent of both languages vary by individuals; few of the Indians I know could take a class in Hindi. I have trouble keeping an intellectual conversation in Romanian since the higher part of my education was entirely in English, and often mix languages (Romglish, Hindlish, Spanglish...). Many nikkeijin in Japan fall behind in class because their Japanese is not perfect, but at the same time their Portuguese is also not that good - I don't think you can imagine the feeling of now having a language of your own. You'll find this phenomenon in diasporas around the world.

I'm sorry, but as a native English speaker I simply don't think you can fully understand it. Not being able to hear your language if you go abroad, consuming media in a different language because there is none in your own, being told that your language is inferior to 'more useful' ones, the shame and horror that you feel when you realise that you are not really fluent in your own language because 99% of all the media you've ever consumed was in a different language. I remember this one time when me and some friends were complaining about how irritated and stressed we are having to speak English/Japanese all the time, and how we keep having lapsus when we speak in our own language on Skype, and the one native English speaker among us was just... confused. It was simply something she could not even imagine. We were all fluent, so she didn't understand why we'd be stressed out about it. She also couldn't imagine forgetting her language, because English is something that you can't escape from.

More importantly ... It's one thing when someone decides to raise their kid bilingual, or they are bilingual as a result of their region/history/family status/whatever, and another when a dominant language is simply imposed upon a country. This creates all sorts of backlash and issues. There are many things that would need reforming in how Japan teaches English, but forcefully implementing English as an official language is an idea that is all sorts of terrible.

I actually did have a conversation with a Filipino woman here in Japan recently. She knew I was an English teacher, and began lamenting to me the state of Japan's English education system, and that her daughter was forgetting English since moving to Japan. In fact, she was really vexed that her daughter had begun to reject English in favor of Japanese. She seemed to be proud that the Philippines had a superior English education system than Japan, mentioning that most subjects were taught in English there. In fact, I'd say she was more gung-ho on the necessity of English than I am (I'd never want my students to feel they need to de-empashize their own language in order to learn English).

To be honest, it was kind of a difficult conversation, because while I didn't want to pour any cold water on her enthusiasm for teaching her daughter English, I also didn't really feel comfortable promoting the kind of "English uber alles" mentality I has hearing.

sholum Wrote:I agree with your premise, but think it'd be impractical. In order for anyone to become proficient in English, they'd need to use it in many and varied situations, far surpassing the capacity of an English class, even over the entire school life of the child. One language will always dominate over the other in everyday use (think of Quebec, in an English speaking country, but using primarily French. Same with multi-language regions in the US, they speak primarily one language and the other is poorly developed).

I grew up bilingual. Many people do. It didn't even seem difficult to me. I grew up in a Hungarian family (only spoke Hungarian at home), went to a Hungarian school, only had Hungarian friends as a little kid, but we had four Romanian classes each week.

I also had two German classes each week, by the way, starting third grade. The difference, however, was this: it was made clear, from the start, that Romanian was one of the top 3 most important subjects (along with math and Hungarian literature), and that, to get into a decent college, I would have to get good grades at Romanian, and that, by high school, I would be evaluated at exactly the same level native Romanians are. With German, on the other hand, all I was expected to know was a few vocab items and grammar rules from the previous week's lessons.

So, guess what: I paid attention in class, I studied my ass off at home, I started watching Romanian TV, and by the time I was in high school, I could speak to natives and they would have no idea it wasn't my first language. With German, on the other hand, I got absolutely nowhere. Those two hours each week, for a bunch of years, were the most useless time I ever wasted in my entire life. Not because learning a third language would've been impossible, but because it was clear that no one actually expected me to do it. So I didn't even try.

I think that in Quebec and among some Latin American immigrants in the US, there's a cultural/political resistance to English (it's group identity politics). So, often, kids aren't encouraged to speak it properly. I was lucky enough to grow up in a family that didn't think like that, so growing up bilingual was the obvious choice for me. It didn't even seem hard.

Zgarbas Wrote:...you'll often hear people who were raised bilingual complain that they don't know their native language very well, and they're not being modest.

...the shame and horror that you feel when you realise that you are not really fluent in your own language because 99% of all the media you've ever consumed was in a different language.

That's the first time I've heard such stories. They're a little scary. Thank you for sharing your experiences. Were most of your classes taught in English? How about literature courses?

Zgarbas Wrote:We have many countries where English was forcefully implemented and was kept around for people's 'own good', such as India or the Philippines. These people have their entire formal education in English. There are also a lot of them around; I would suggest asking them how they feel about it - and see how you would rate their English while you're at it. There are advantages to being raised bilingual, but there are also many disadvantages - you'll often hear people who were raised bilingual complain that they don't know their native language very well, and they're not being modest. At the same time, they are unlikely to be completely native-like in English. The extent of both languages vary by individuals; few of the Indians I know could take a class in Hindi. I have trouble keeping an intellectual conversation in Romanian since the higher part of my education was entirely in English, and often mix languages (Romglish, Hindlish, Spanglish...). Many nikkeijin in Japan fall behind in class because their Japanese is not perfect, but at the same time their Portuguese is also not that good - I don't think you can imagine the feeling of now having a language of your own. You'll find this phenomenon in diasporas around the world.

I'm sorry, but as a native English speaker I simply don't think you can fully understand it. Not being able to hear your language if you go abroad, consuming media in a different language because there is none in your own, being told that your language is inferior to 'more useful' ones, the shame and horror that you feel when you realise that you are not really fluent in your own language because 99% of all the media you've ever consumed was in a different language. I remember this one time when me and some friends were complaining about how irritated and stressed we are having to speak English/Japanese all the time, and how we keep having lapsus when we speak in our own language on Skype, and the one native English speaker among us was just... confused. It was simply something she could not even imagine. We were all fluent, so she didn't understand why we'd be stressed out about it. She also couldn't imagine forgetting her language, because English is something that you can't escape from.

More importantly ... It's one thing when someone decides to raise their kid bilingual, or they are bilingual as a result of their region/history/family status/whatever, and another when a dominant language is simply imposed upon a country. This creates all sorts of backlash and issues. There are many things that would need reforming in how Japan teaches English, but forcefully implementing English as an official language is an idea that is all sorts of terrible.

This is an honest question, if you are concerned with your lack of skill in a given language, native or otherwise, and if your concerned about being unable to keep an intellectual conversation, why not increase your media consumption of said language? Sure the connectedness of the internet has spread English but it has also spread other languages. I don't speak Romanian, but It didn't take me more than a few minutes to find a YouTube channel with around 50 audio books in Romanian ranging from things like Dostoevsky to Alighieri to Stephen King.

[Zgarbas]

bertoni Wrote:That's the first time I've heard such stories. They're a little scary. Thank you for sharing your experiences. Were most of your classes taught in English? How about literature courses?

Kindergarden was all-English, primary was all-Romanian (aside from English class), but by then my Romanian was already... strange. I would make calques from English where I wouldn't know the words. Romglish wasn't cool yet so this was just awkward, as I'd say words like factorie (from factory). My mom had to get me tutoring for about a year in Romanian so i could pass 5th grade entrance exams. I didn't get tutoring after that, but I always got Cs in Romanian class.

Most of my classes were in Romanian... until I got to Uni. But we were really all about English media, and Romglish is an acceptable sociolect where I'm from. Here's my latest Facebook message to see how Romglish looks like. I used to read a lot in Romanian, but reading in English was seen as 'better' so i kind of switched to English once we got into the EU and had easier access to foreign books. It's not like I can't hold a conversation in Romanian, but I will use a lot of calques and wrong collocations, and outright English terms. Vulgar language is ok. Everyday language is doable. I could not carry an intellectual conversation in Romanian for the life of me, though.

I moved to a more conservative area when I was 19, and a lot of the people I'd met were elitist and anti-Romglish, so I would try to speak Romanian-only to them... which is when I realised that I genuinely can't. Now that I live outside Romania I think that it's deteriorating at a rapid rate. I still feel the most comfortable when I talk in Romanian, but I have a lot of 'I forgot how you say...'s in my speech. A lot of the people I know in my situation just end up kind ashamed of their Romanian and switch entirely to English.

@RandomQuotes I used to read quite voraciously in Romanian, and I think i still could... but these days it's harder to concentrate =). I am much more comfortable in English/Japanese. I had actually signed up for a translations MA before I left Romania, for the sole purpose of improving my Romanian. But overall it's just kind of embarassing; I think that we have this idea of native languages as being something intrinsic, which you can't really lose, so it's unfathomable for many people. There's definitely a bit of cultural backlash going on, as many Romanians take pride in their English being better than their Romanian... especially the ones whose English is not really that good.

Again, my bilingualism was volitional, and it was in a Romanian-speaking area. I can manage most things in Romanian (sort of). I had really good education. It was more of a nitpick than a genuine problem before I left the country. It is a far more problematic problem when social inequality and politics are involved, but it is really common in forcefully bilingual areas.

@patriconia: parents aside, you will hear Filipinos themselves call themselves lucky for their education. Indians as well. I've even met someone from East Timor who said that 'she's lucky' to have gotten to learn Portuguese and Indonesian (spoilers: it's because of terrible reasons). I *am* lucky and get a lot of benefits from speaking English. But there are a lot of defense mechanisms leading to that conclusion, one of them being that you don't have a choice and complaining won't get you too far. And of course, there's the fact that you get exposed to the ones who have successfully graduated and were good enough to make it to Japan, which gives you a more biased sample.

@Zgarbas
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with bilingualism!! I'd never heard of things like that, but reading it definitely makes a lot of sense, and clarifies some things I've noticed.

Going into hardcore Japanese immersion when I was studying for the JLPT gave me a taste of what it's like to not know English. A lot of the Japanese-language translations of things seemed almost machine-translated (I learned if you see "日本の" in place of 日本語, go far away from that thing, otherwise it's a long slog trying to decipher Google translate Japanese), or they left random sentences in English.
Many things I used everyday had me trying to find a Japanese version in vain.

I've noticed that the language people sound native in is one they hear a lot &/or think in. When I was studying for the JLPT, I learned the hard way not to think in Japanese while I was talking in English. People would ask me where I was from. In my home country. My general English became a little odd as well, to the point where I was thinking "Does this sound natural?" a lot before saying something. I had no idea immersion could have such a big effect on my first language, even when I was taking classes and working in an English environment the whole time.

I've also met Japanese elderly women who have been in the US so long they've forgotten most of their Japanese, and would speak in English, even to other Japanese people...

Now that I've passed N1 I make sure to watch/read a certain amount of media in English, to keep my English normal. XD

Anyways, what I wanted to say was, thanks for taking the time to write those really interesting posts! I learned a few things.

@zgarbas
Thanks for sharing more information. I learned a lot about the potential downsides of a "bilingual" education. Other than two years of French in early high school, my education through the end of undergrad years was resolutely monolingual. Living in Ohio, USA, we didn't have much in the way of non-English-speakers around in those days.

Did I just resurrect a slightly older post? I did xD

I would like to give a reading suggestion:
Gottlieb, N. (2010) “The Rōmaji Movement in Japan”, Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society 20 (1): 75-88.

If you are interested in this topic, Nanette Gottlieb and Tessa Caroll
are the authors you want to check out I think.

From the abstract:
"supporters have made a case for its adoption on varying grounds, most notably those of education, democracy and office automation. Although such advocates have included influential scholars and bureaucrats, their combined intellectual gravitas has never been sufficient to allow their arguments for romanisation to outweigh the strong cultural traditions and ideologies of writing centred on the existing three-script writing system. Even today, in the face of pressures imposed by modern keyboard technology, discussion of the issue is not on the national agenda. "

"education", "democracy", "intellectual gravitas" vs. "cultural traditions and ideologies"

Biased much?

Not to mention that current keyboard tech (like word prediction) makes it much EASIER to use kanji in writing, not harder.

Lots of old kanji are coming back into usage by young people because of how easy it is to type half-a-word and then choose from a drop-down menu, in contrast with handwriting.

I don't see the bias there.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I don't see the bias there.

The bias is representing the entirety of the opposing idea to be 'cultural tradition and ideologies', while the idea they support is based on 'education and democracy'.
Yes, I'm sure it was a rhetorical question, but that's the answer. I won't say anything about the quality of the data presented (I haven't read it), but that phrasing is indicative of a strong bias.

Well, romanization doesn't even depend of a top-down "national agenda" to start with, advocates could start making websites and printing books in romaji on their own, and it is not like people will simply accept such big changes without some already existing evidence it brings some solid advantage or something they like. (Same for kana-only.)

Also, "office automation"?
Remembers me of the people that push STEM education combined with less Humanities, not because they like science or want people to better their lives, but because they want a bigger supply of technical labor that doesn't question their bosses.

(2015-11-12, 10:00 pm)visualsense Wrote: Well, romanization doesn't even depend of a top-down "national agenda" to start with, advocates could start making websites and printing books in romaji on their own, and it is not like people will simply accept such big changes without some already existing evidence it brings some solid advantage or something they like. (Same for kana-only.)

Also, "office automation"?  
Remembers me of the people that push STEM education combined with less Humanities, not because they like science or want people to better their lives, but because they want a bigger supply of technical labor that doesn't question their bosses.

I read somewhere that the only way you can implement a major change like switching to a different alphabet is if there is some huge upheaval in society.

An example given was when in the 1920's Turkey abandoned the Arabic script in favor of the roman alphabet.  This was right after the Turkish War of Independence.  Presumably when the people have other things on their minds you can slide in changes like the alphabet.

That seems to be true in general, because often there's no will to do it otherwise. It's not a coincidence that the modern Japanese writing system is a product of post-World War II reforms. Or that the simplification of characters in China happened when Mao took power, or that Vietnam's romanization happened after the communists took power.

I don't think it's that people have their minds on other things, it's just that a writing reform requires top-down action because writing is taught primarily through the educational system. So unless you have a government committed to pushing the writing reforms through the educational system, it's not going to happen. It tends to be new, revolutionary governments that want to do that, not established ones.

(2015-11-20, 7:47 pm)yudantaiteki Wrote: That seems to be true in general, because often there's no will to do it otherwise. It's not a coincidence that the modern Japanese writing system is a product of post-World War II reforms. Or that the simplification of characters in China happened when Mao took power, or that Vietnam's romanization happened after the communists took power.

I don't think it's that people have their minds on other things, it's just that a writing reform requires top-down action because writing is taught primarily through the educational system. So unless you have a government committed to pushing the writing reforms through the educational system, it's not going to happen. It tends to be new, revolutionary governments that want to do that, not established ones.

I think it's also no surprise that all of your examples were enacted by autocratic governments.  It's much easier to push through sweeping changes if one guy calls the shots for an entire country.  My favorite example of this is one day in 1970 that Ne Win decided on a whim with no prior notice that all cars in Burma should drive on the opposite side of the road, effective immediately.

(2015-11-20, 6:34 pm)john555 Wrote:

(2015-11-12, 10:00 pm)I read somewhere that the only way you can implement a major change like switching to a different alphabet is if there is some huge upheaval in society. Wrote: An example given was when in the 1920's Turkey abandoned the Arabic script in favor of the roman alphabet.  This was right after the Turkish War of Independence.  Presumably when the people have other things on their minds you can slide in changes like the alphabet.

[quote pid='229337' dateline='1448062453']
This is not valid for japan, because they are already using 3 alphabets at random where one of them is nonfunctional on its own.

So no changes are required,  very simple solution is just gradually decrease use of Kanji in japanese texts. 
Simply stop teaching people certain Kanji and this will force publishers to switch to Hiragana or add furigana.
eventually kanji will just die by itself.

Biggest problem for Japanese is lack of spaces in text, but this is typicaly solved in alternating Hiragana and Katakana.
I think since japan is in big economical crisis this will happen by itself because they will have no funds to waste on teaching people that nonsense.
[/quote]

(2015-11-23, 1:00 pm)Digix Wrote:

(2015-11-20, 6:34 pm)john555 Wrote:

(2015-11-12, 10:00 pm)I read somewhere that the only way you can implement a major change like switching to a different alphabet is if there is some huge upheaval in society. Wrote: An example given was when in the 1920's Turkey abandoned the Arabic script in favor of the roman alphabet.  This was right after the Turkish War of Independence.  Presumably when the people have other things on their minds you can slide in changes like the alphabet.

[quote pid='229337' dateline='1448062453']
This is not valid for japan, because they are already using 3 alphabets at random where one of them is nonfunctional on its own.

So no changes are required,  very simple solution is just gradually decrease use of Kanji in japanese texts. 
Simply stop teaching people certain Kanji and this will force publishers to switch to Hiragana or add furigana.
eventually kanji will just die by itself.

Biggest problem for Japanese is lack of spaces in text, but this is typicaly solved in alternating Hiragana and Katakana.
I think since japan is in big economical crisis this will happen by itself because they will have no funds to waste on teaching people that nonsense.

[/quote]


That is not accurate. All three make Japanese and are used everyday. They are written together or independently. Japanese have no difficulties in reading any material, as they can distinguish between words. Just like any language it take time to learn words and how they are written.

(2015-11-23, 1:00 pm)Digix Wrote: very simple solution is just gradually decrease use of Kanji in japanese texts. 
Simply stop teaching people certain Kanji and this will force publishers to switch to Hiragana or add furigana.
eventually kanji will just die by itself.

Biggest problem for Japanese is lack of spaces in text, but this is typicaly solved in alternating Hiragana and Katakana.
I think since japan is in big economical crisis this will happen by itself because they will have no funds to waste on teaching people that nonsense.

The simple solution is for 130 million people to voluntarily and gradually stop using kanji...? I don't think that's very simple to accomplish. Perhaps if some celebrities start doing it as some kind of fad.

..And alternating katakana and hiragana..? really? Why not just add spaces?

(2015-11-23, 5:36 pm)yogert909 Wrote: The simple solution is for 130 million people to voluntarily and gradually stop using kanji...?  I don't think that's very simple to accomplish.  Perhaps if some celebrities start doing it as some kind of fad.

..And alternating katakana and hiragana..?  really?  Why not just add spaces?

Further on this point, 'gradually reducing the number of kanji' is exactly where the Touyou kanji list came from. But rather than phasing out kanji, the Jouyou list that replaced it included more Kanji, and when that was revised it included even -more- Kanji.

Just because some Kanji had stopped being taught in public school.... they weren't phased out. They continued to be used in all publications that weren't textbooks, in shop windows and advertisements, in television captions and movie titles and subtitles, and of course in people's names. The lists were expanded largely because certain very common kanji had stopped being taught but -weren't- phased out, which was rather awkward.

And lets be honest here, if they weren't phased out when each character had to be handwritten or picked out from a huge array of typesetting bins... there's no way they are going to be phased out now, when they pop up on computer and cell phone screens with next to no effort (although selecting the correct conversion is a tiny bit of effort that is sometimes needed.)

(2015-11-23, 1:00 pm)Digix Wrote: Simply stop teaching people certain Kanji and this will force publishers to switch to Hiragana or add furigana.
eventually kanji will just die by itself.

Biggest problem for Japanese is lack of spaces in text, but this is typicaly solved in alternating Hiragana and Katakana.
I think since japan is in big economical crisis this will happen by itself because they will have no funds to waste on teaching people that nonsense.

This won't happen and I'm not sure if you appreciate everything that goes into making something like this happen.

Changing the writing system (or even just the language) of a country is, more often than not, a political maneuver. The government stepping in and scaling down the amount of kanji taught would be seen as "UnJapanese" which no politician or political group wants to be labeled as. Making minor modifications isn't a huge issue, but even doing that causes some degree of backlash from the public.

Japan is doing badly economically, but that's more an issue of getting money for the entire economy and not just some government budget issue. Also it's not like cutting kanji learning time is going to free up loads of money from the educational budget either. They'll simply move over to doing other things.

Quote:The simple solution is for 130 million people to voluntarily and gradually stop using kanji...? I don't think that's very simple to accomplish. Perhaps if some celebrities start doing it as some kind of fad.

You do not need to accomplish anything by force it will just happen on its own, some propaganda on TV may speed up that process.

Quote:..And alternating katakana and hiragana..? really? Why not just add spaces?

I dont klnow why japanese people can uses paces, But so far they use alternation of katakana and hiragana to simulate spaces.

Quote:That is not accurate. All three make Japanese and are used everyday. They are written together or independently. Japanese have no difficulties in reading any material, as they can distinguish between words. Just like any language it take time to learn words and how they are written.

Yes they are used all but this is mostly random choice random and  proportion.
all what needs to happen is gradual shifting.

Quote:They continued to be used in all publications that weren't textbooks, in shop windows and advertisements, in television captions and movie titles and subtitles, and of course in people's names. 

this is not a problem, the main idea is that if significant portion of people will not be capable to read those kanji, publishers will not use them because their goals is to make text readable.
there is no need to get rid of kanji system the goal is simply to reduce number of kanji in text.

Quote:And lets be honest here, if they weren't phased out when each character had to be handwritten or picked out from a huge array of typesetting bins... 

This is just political issue of strong nationalism. 

Quote:This won't happen and I'm not sure if you appreciate everything that goes into making something like this happen.

It does not need to happen today, but it will happen eventually it is already hapepning
I think it is even likely that japan will disappear from earth by itself
they will likely be forced to import lots of workforce and that will make them to abandon kanji 

teaching children is one thing but teaching adults is another, and if there will be lots of "iliterate" people around they will be forced to adjust accordingly.