Also, might as well throw my statistical sample into the ring for what it's worth. My fiancee speaks little English, so Japanese is our default language. She's learning English, but is fairly embarassed to try speaking it with me, so everything is in Japanese.

And yes, it's had a beneficial impact on my speaking ability. My other Japanese friends and colleagues have all commented on how my speaking has improved in just the past six months since meeting her.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:Also, might as well throw my statistical sample into the ring for what it's worth. My fiancee speaks little English, so Japanese is our default language. She's learning English, but is fairly embarassed to try speaking it with me, so everything is in Japanese.

And yes, it's had a beneficial impact on my speaking ability. My other Japanese friends and colleagues have all commented on how my speaking has improved in just the past six months since meeting her.

I had an experience on the other end of this deal. Years ago when I was first studying Japanese I had a Japanese exchange student girlfriend who was quite good at English. So good, in fact, that I was embarrassed to even practice the most basic Japanese around her...

Needless to say, her English got even better!

...and all of my speaking ability came from elsewhere.

Things didn't work out in the end and I have a different girlfriend now (also Japanese- from Osaka) who speaks zero English. The only comment she's ever made concerning my Japanese is, "It's weird hearing other foreigners speak Japanese now because I'm so used to your Osaka-ben." I'll consider this a good thing.

Being in a situation where you *have* to converse 100% in Japanese is certainly where it's at (with two turntables and a microphone) when it comes to quick progression. I created this environment for myself on the interwebs. Long live awkward broadcast/chat sites!

REH94 Wrote:I went to Japan with beginner-intermediate level Japanese and met my future wife. She didn't speak any English so Japanese became our default language. While we've been together my Japanese skills have gone through the roof without ever really lifting a pencil to study. So yes OP, as long as your L2 is better than her L2 then you can make big progress in your language learning.

kapalama Wrote:But it is entirely doable. (I did it, with my then SO, not that that has anything to do with what other people can do, but. I know how hard it is.)

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:And yes, it's had a beneficial impact on my speaking ability. My other Japanese friends and colleagues have all commented on how my speaking has improved in just the past six months since meeting her.

Just wondering if any of you ran into the problem where you pick up female(assuming you are male) speech patterns? I understand this is very common when foreigners learn Japanese from their Significant others. Either way, did you do anything to combat the effect?

yogert909 Wrote:Just wondering if any of you ran into the problem where you pick up female(assuming you are male) speech patterns? I understand this is very common when foreigners learn Japanese from their Significant others. Either way, did you do anything to combat the effect?

I think the problem is exaggerated. Not too many guys run around going "kawa~iiii" For the most part, it's pretty easy to spot feminine speech patterns and avoid them, just like you did with English. You'll certainly get exposure to male speech through videos, TV, and men around you, and your brain will put two and two together.

A far bigger problem is that, honestly, most foreigners sound plain horrible. The accent, intonation, and Christ-knows-what-else is completely off. Rather than worrying about sounding like a member of the opposite sex, folks should worry more about sounding butt awful. Videotaping yourself helps. God invented the iPhone for a reason.

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:

yogert909 Wrote:Just wondering if any of you ran into the problem where you pick up female(assuming you are male) speech patterns? I understand this is very common when foreigners learn Japanese from their Significant others. Either way, did you do anything to combat the effect?

I think the problem is exaggerated. Not too many guys run around going "kawa~iiii" For the most part, it's pretty easy to spot feminine speech patterns and avoid them, just like you did with English. You'll certainly get exposure to male speech through videos, TV, and men around you, and your brain will put two and two together.

Agreed. In hundreds of hours of conversation and lessons, I've had a teacher correct me on using a "feminine" form of speech only once - and the vast majority of my language exchange partners and teachers are women.

I think this fear/legend started primarily from American GIs who picked up some Japanese from their girlfriends. Since that was the Japanese they were most directly exposed to, that's what they learned. Like JRO7 says, if you're employing comprehensive input like a good modern Japanese learner - listening to podcasts and TV shows, reading lots of books and online articles, etc. - then this shouldn't be an issue.

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:A far bigger problem is that, honestly, most foreigners sound plain horrible. The accent, intonation, and Christ-knows-what-else is completely off. Rather than worrying about sounding like a member of the opposite sex, folks should worry more about sounding butt awful. Videotaping yourself helps. God invented the iPhone for a reason.

This. I've met people whose Japanese speaking ability is objectively more fluent than mine, but listening to their thick American accents is like listening to someone who can't sing interpolated with the sound of nails scratching a chalkboard.

Clearly I need to get an SO from Osaka. Almost had one but messed things up. Would really improve my speaking/listening. Wish it wasn't so hard meeting Japanese people in my area.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:This. I've met people whose Japanese speaking ability is objectively more fluent than mine, but listening to their thick American accents is like listening to someone who can't sing interpolated with the sound of nails scratching a chalkboard.

And yet, weirdly enough, Japanese people are not nearly as thrown by this. A recent development is Japanese guys coming on vacation with their Russian wives. Everyone else is congratulating Russian women on their speech, and I simply cannot understand them. Simple questions like how long have you lived in Japan were responded to with 文字化け to my ears at least. An yet the Japanese all had no problems with this.

So at least know that Japanese will not feel the pain the way we do.

yogert909 Wrote:Just wondering if any of you ran into the problem where you pick up female(assuming you are male) speech patterns? I understand this is very common when foreigners learn Japanese from their Significant others. Either way, did you do anything to combat the effect?

For me, I already spoke before the SO, (because the Japanese only company I was working for was going to fire if I could not speak Japanese in a decided time) so I already had strong patterns in place. It flexed towards how she spoke, but since she was speaking outside of her natural accent anyway it only flexed towards her adopted for Tokyo speech patterns. But I also have constant input from tourists from all over Japan so, I hear and copy all kinds of speech. Probably the person I pattern my speech after the most is a TV comedian I have watched from when I first started learning.

>>>>

On the other hand, I am surrounded by foreigners speaking Japanese, or trying to, and the most fluent speakers I know do have pretty hilarious affects, with guys saying アタシ and the like. But those people have the best accents also, since they clearly have good ears and learned by mimicking.

I have said it else where but the Japanese tourist market is dominated by women, on the worker and on the customer side, so if people learn by copying, they are probably learning frm patterning after women.

My fiancé is Japanese, and I regularly end up using female speech patterns because of it. She much prefers to speak in Japanese than English, despite mine being nowhere near fluent, and her English is excellent.
It's not a bad thing, since 90% of the Japanese people who I speak to are her female Japanese friends anyway, but it does get giggles occasionally.
I honestly couldn't give a crap about it though. Until you are fluent, worrying about whether you're expressions are female or male is splitting hairs.

I've found Japanese women are selfish. They want English, sex and sometimes potatoes. When I speak in Japanese most of them would only reply in English. And if they misunderstood what I said in Japanese they would usually make no effort to figure out what I was trying to express. I've had a couple of good Japanese lovers when it comes to Japanese, but the vast majority have been sucubi!!

juniperpansy Wrote:I've found Japanese women are selfish. They want English, sex and sometimes potatoes.

Wait a minute. Japanese women want English, sex, and sometimes potatoes? These are three character traits I can provide in abundance! (Well, the middle one might be questionable...)

But in all seriousness, I can imagine how frustrating (and maybe even hurtful) ignoring your attempts to converse in Japanese would be.

juniperpansy Wrote:And if they misunderstood what I said in Japanese they would usually make no effort to figure out what I was trying to express.

Usually we leave it up to the speaker to say what they want. If reading minds worked, we would not need to study Japanese. Also known as "you weren't actually speaking Japanese if Japanese people could not understand you."

juniperpansy Wrote:I've found Japanese women are selfish. They want English, sex and sometimes potatoes.

Women sense my power and seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake. But I do deny them my essence.

kapalama Wrote:

juniperpansy Wrote:And if they misunderstood what I said in Japanese they would usually make no effort to figure out what I was trying to express.

Usually we leave it up to the speaker to say what they want. If reading minds worked, we would not need to study Japanese. Also known as "you weren't actually speaking Japanese if Japanese people could not understand you."

This is good advice for dealing with customers, clients, and co-workers. But I don't know, if we're talking about someone with a vested interest in you, if it were me in the situation, I'd hope they'd make at least a minimal effort to nurture a hobby of mine...especially if it's something they are deeply knowledgeable about already. hrug:

CreepyAF Wrote:I can imagine how frustrating (and maybe even hurtful) ignoring your attempts to converse in Japanese would be.

Lol many Japanese just seem to exist. They don't really have any motivations. They are almost like living statues. Chinese women on the other hand are overflowing with personailty hahaha

CreepyAF Wrote:

kapalama Wrote:

juniperpansy Wrote:And if they misunderstood what I said in Japanese they would usually make no effort to figure out what I was trying to express.

Usually we leave it up to the speaker to say what they want. If reading minds worked, we would not need to study Japanese. Also known as "you weren't actually speaking Japanese if Japanese people could not understand you."

This is good advice for dealing with customers, clients, and co-workers. But I don't know, if we're talking about someone with a vested interest in you, if it were me in the situation, I'd hope they'd make at least a minimal effort to nurture a hobby of mine...especially if it's something they are deeply knowledgeable about already. hrug:

It's not like they are willfully not understanding the noises being made at them, it's that the noises do not correspond to anything meaningful.
Quoting myself:

Quote:(Man, I am still running through my head all the times I left someone with "2 years of College Japanese" with, say, a group of Japanese people and bentos, and come back two hours later to see the guy over in the corner talking to the one girl who can put two sentences of English together, and a bunch of flies buzzing around the cardboard box with all the untouched bentos still in it. It's work, dude! Or come back to a pissed off American saying "They won't listen to what I am telling them" and a bunch of confused Japanese people who cannot figure what the deal is with the 八つ当たり gaijin. Aren't gaijin supposed to be フェミニスト?

In that sense, people who know essentially no Japanese are sometimes more effective because they focus on the result of getting things done, and stop thinking about "I AM SPEAKING JAPANESE!" I have seen people do briefings completely in English get more across than some "College Japanese" people.)

キレてる？ キレてる？ちょっとね.

This belief that people around us should be able to understand what we say simply because we think we are speaking Japanese is not sensible, or productive. Or to put it another way, who should you treat better: a co-worker or a life partner?

Japanese is not a hard language to speak at all. It's insanely hard to read and write. But speaking is easy, as long as you treat it as something you need to learn to do.