wccrawford Wrote:My second language partner, despite me telling her that I understand quite a bit of Japanese, started out saying really basic things, REALLY slow, and ALSO typing them in hiragana in Skype. lol

Wow! Amazing! Fancy that!

A Japanese person acting in exactly the same way that Americans do when they encounter someone whose English is believed to be a bit suspect.

lol I've had this exact experience in Taiwan.

My girlfriend's parents were visiting us, and they were curious how my Chinese studys were going - so I decided to show them my Remembering the Hanzi practise notebook. When they saw it they freaked, I mean properly freaked - they couldn't understand how a white person could possibly write all these Chinese characters? Recognise a few easy ones maybe, but WRITE? ABSOLUTELY NO F##KING WAY!

Anyway rather than explaining Hesig system, I just lied and said I knew all these hanzi because I'd studied Japanese in the past and that's why I could write them but not pronounce them yet.

Things is, the stereotype of white people not being able to learn reading/writing is a stereotype because it's pretty much true; every foreigner I've met, no matter how good their speaking ability, has been functionally illiterate. A few can read some simple characters, but it's rare to find anyone who could handle a newspaper or write with any degree of skill.

It's easy to forget that this site / forum is an anomaly - 99% of foreigners who are learning Japanese or Chinese give up on kanji early on, as they believe it's pretty much impossible for Westerns to learn them all. So yeh.

mezbup Wrote:From what I've seen a ridiculous amount of Japanese that go overseas to learn English go to language schools (as u do) and make friends mostly with other Japanese or other non native English speakers and proceed to find work at a Japanese restaurant whilst barely ever talking to a native.

From my experience, this is a sort of circular situation. How can you make friends with native speakers if you don't speak the language fluently? But how can you speak the language fluently if you don't make native friends?

Round and round..

In my experience, the Japanese who move abroad and become fluent (it's possible, I know 2 who since arriving now speak with such a perfect English accents that they are often mistaken for British-Born-Chinese natives) are the ones who already have significant language skills before coming to Europe, and are using the trip for advanced practise. Those who move to Europe hoping to suddenly learn English from scratch are the ones who end who end up retreating into a Nihon bubble (yep, met quite a few of those too).

haha - guys, you force me to be a magnet at the bottom of the pendulum:

mezbup Wrote:he was like... you can READ Japanese???... it's like... OMFG... YES FFS! HOW ON EARTH ELSE DO YOU GET ANY GOOD AT A LANGUAGE???????????????????

Thora Wrote:I think you know that people have been learning to speak Japanese well without learning to read for a long time.

aphasia Wrote:the stereotype of white people not being able to learn reading/writing is a stereotype because it's pretty much true; every foreigner I've met, no matter how good their speaking ability, has been functionally illiterate. A few can read some simple characters, but it's rare to find anyone who could handle a newspaper or write with any degree of skill.

It's easy to forget that this site / forum is an anomaly - 99% of foreigners who are learning Japanese or Chinese give up on kanji early on, as they believe it's pretty much impossible for Westerns to learn them all.

okay, my turn again: Well, all of the non-Japanese I studied with could read and write Japanese well. Many of the non-Japanese I work with can read well and have varying skills when it comes to business writing.

Folks here may focus on kanji/reading first to a greater extent than many others, but they aren't the only Westerners to learn to read well...

...my neck's starting to hurt... ;p

Thora Wrote:okay, my turn again: Well, all of the non-Japanese I studied with could read and write Japanese well. Many of the non-Japanese I work with can read well and have varying skills when it comes to business writing.

When you say "write", do you mean write by hand, or type in a PC IME and let it convert to correct kanji (basically a form of recognition)? I'd say there's a huge difference.

Honestly though, the only foreigners I have met are English teachers, who have no need to use Chinese at work, and concentrate solely on learning to speak so they meet women. For this reason, my situation is probably significantly biased.

I definitely have experience with this :/
The experience that sticks out the most is when I read the name of something off of a menu and got the "omg, you can read katakana?!" reaction from an acquaintance who I had met several times and had spoken at length with. I had gotten that reaction with kanji before from other people (which I can somewhat understand...), but katakana? Seriously? I was shocked that she was shocked...苦笑

It occured to me, though, that your average Japanese person knows nothing about how Japanese learners go about studying Japanese. They've never been in a classroom, have (likely) never seen any textbooks... so they simply don't know that your average class/textbook teaches hiragana/katakana/kanji early on, or that Japanese homework involves a lot of writing/rreading practice. I mean, it sounds obvious, but I think it's not something they've ever thought about before, and so it surprises them.

I had a version of this happen to me that could have ended badly. I work in an office where I am the only foreiger, and I'm new. Not many of the office people know that I can do Japanese at all, and the ones that know I can speak and understand assume automatically that I cannot read at all.

So they were going to wax the floors in our office, and so they put a memo on everyone's desk. Except, my desk did not get one. They just assumed I wouldn't understand so they never gave it to me. Instead, they tried to tell me verbally what I had to do(not the complete story though). I barely understood what they wanted. Then I stole the memo off my neighbor's desk, skimmed it, and understood perfectly.

I then mentioned to that nice man later in Japanese that I could understand written Japanese far better than spoken Japanese and if there's any material like the one he handed out in the future that I would appreciate getting a copy of it. Nothing like that has happened since, but there hasn't been an opportunity yet for it to happen again. I hope eventually they will learn to assume that I can read Japanese, but the stories in this thread make me worry.

It's not so much the interpersonal relationships I'm worried so much about as it is the tremendous hassle of everyone automatically choosing the least efficient way to interact with me.

Though, there is a silver-lining to this. At the welcome enkai I had to make a small speech, and when I said at the beginning of my speech that my spoken Japanese was not very good...it got a big raucous laughter from the crowd. It was nice to get that kind of reaction rather than the more typical Japanese reaction to that kind of statement. I also had one of the office ladies mention to me how glad she was that I could understand her instructions to me in Japanese because she does not speak English at all.

jessui Wrote:It occured to me, though, that your average Japanese person knows nothing about how Japanese learners go about studying Japanese. They've never been in a classroom, have (likely) never seen any textbooks... so they simply don't know that your average class/textbook teaches hiragana/katakana/kanji early on, or that Japanese homework involves a lot of writing/rreading practice. I mean, it sounds obvious, but I think it's not something they've ever thought about before, and so it surprises them.

With this in consideration, the average Japanese would rely on their own experiences of literacy in school as a child using inefficient rote based memorisation techniques and drills, of course their expectations of foreigners gaining literacy in Japanese would be low. How can they even consider a foreigner to be normal that they were able to learn all the Joyo Kanji readings and meanings, with perfect recognition and production within one to two years effortlessly compared to the average Japanese putting in 12 years of blood and sweat into learning their own language? Then if you further consider those were have this level of literacy being the minority, illiterate foreigners foully misrepresenting foreigners as a whole, and even the possible Japanese-like minded thinking of the "Japanese brain" being special, it's clear where all type of thinking stems from.

What I'm interested in is the Japanese's perception of Chinese being literate and fluent in Japanese. Then again, Japanese people sometimes can't tell the difference between themselves and some other Asian countries and on a general level, would assume them to be Japanese.

I've got to thank everyone for their posts on this subject. I've been in Japan for about 3 1/2 years now and I still get this same BS. I've come to believe that Japanese people are not the sharpest tools in the human race, but it could be just that island mentality.

I now only speak Japanese to anyone I meet here unless they tell me they are a native English speaker. The Japanese will automatically switch to their bad English, so I continue in my bad Japanese. If they start doing this fake politeness, I make it extremely difficult for them to contact me a 2nd time. The ones who don't do the fake politeness and come across as genuine will have every opportunity to contact me again.

BTW, Japanese people say everything is difficult so I just agree with them that whatever is difficult and not say anything else. I find it easier just to lie to them and make them happy than actually give my honest opinion.

untmdsprt Wrote:I've got to thank everyone for their posts on this subject. I've been in Japan for about 3 1/2 years now and I still get this same BS. I've come to believe that Japanese people are not the sharpest tools in the human race, but it could be just that island mentality.

I now only speak Japanese to anyone I meet here unless they tell me they are a native English speaker. The Japanese will automatically switch to their bad English, so I continue in my bad Japanese. If they start doing this fake politeness, I make it extremely difficult for them to contact me a 2nd time. The ones who don't do the fake politeness and come across as genuine will have every opportunity to contact me again.

BTW, Japanese people say everything is difficult so I just agree with them that whatever is difficult and not say anything else. I find it easier just to lie to them and make them happy than actually give my honest opinion.

Since nest0r has been reluctant with articles, I'd like to share this Wikipedia page.

Today I went to Japanese Discussion group at church and I was talking for about 15 to some people and they asked lightly can you read kanji? N I was like yeah no probs... It was interesting because I noticed I wasn't bothered by it at all because they we're just trying to gauge where my level was at in relation to other skills aside from speaking... so it wasn't patronizing at all. So it's not always annoying but it's definitely annoying when it is assumed that I cannot read.

Also, I only talk to the Japanese in Japanese. Never in English. Not since that 2 year point where I hit fluency and could talk my way around things I couldn't yet spout out off the top of my head. Even then it's always been as much Japanese as possible. I dunno, I just know a lot of people who like "exchanges" or are "learning Japanese" but always sit and talk nothing but English with Japanese people. Doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

Sometimes it's really nice to be thought of as a genius/special. In fact, the whole "wow, you're Japanese is awesome you must be a genius! You can read kanji too!??" helped to change my life I think. So it's not all bad. For example, being told you're smart/a genius on a weekly basis by nearly everyone you meet kinda makes you believe it after a while. I don't think I'm a genius but from the last 2 years of my life being like that... It's given me fantastic self confidence in my ability to learn. Which is a beautiful thing.

The above posters example of not getting the note on the desk would REALLY get to me if it happened to me. That's the sorta thing that generally makes me mad... but the good stuff farrr outweighs the bad to be fair. I guess if you want people around you to know you're capable of at least more than the average foreigner then it's best to talk to them. In the work place for instance, at least say hi to everyone and make yourself known to put you on their radar as someone who does actually know Japanese.

I have to admit when I was in Japan and I saw a white foreigner I just assumed they knew no Japanese and would have been surprised if they could use chopsticks. I then proceeded to get annoyed at myself haha. So I know where they are coming from...

mezbup Wrote:I dunno, I just know a lot of people who like "exchanges" or are "learning Japanese" but always sit and talk nothing but English with Japanese people. Doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

I had put an ad up on a local website for language exchanges. BIG mistake!!! I got all kinds of self-centered people who wanted me to travel xxx minutes by train to a place right next door to where they lived, or someone would email me in romaji AND translate for me even when I asked them not to do that but to write in normal Japanese. I quickly added their emails to the "spam" list.

Another time I was trying to enjoy my lunch and read one of the nearby signs when I get an older woman start chatting at me in English about how she loved Americans and everything about America. O.o I continued with my lunch and that sign until she'd ask me a question. Once it was answered she then go into another monologue about something until she realized I wasn't paying attention to her. She asked me if I was even interested in doing a language exchange and being friends when I politely but firmly told her that I have to teach English all day long so my free time is only for Japanese, and no I do not want a language exchange.

I've had to tell others this same thing that no I will not practice their English as I have to teach it and I want to get away from my work.

Jeez, white people are so sensitive!

Kill The White People

untmdsprt Wrote:I had put an ad up on a local website for language exchanges. BIG mistake!!!

I HATE being put on the spot where someone introduces a person to me and be like so and so is studying English, you two should do an exchange and of course the other person is enthusiastic about it and I'm sitting there thinking of the fastest way out of this situation. Really bugs me because I have 0 interest in it.

One night recently it was quite funny because we'd had a few to drink at home and we went out to some place to meet up with a friend of a friend at which place I met this one girl who (because this is an English speaking country) was fairly keen to practice her English with me (and to her credit her English was passable) but I was just sitting there minding my own business n what not. Anyways... she's like do you have a lot of Japanese friends? I'm like yup. She's like I can be your Japanese friend and then you can teach me English. I was just straight up and said, if I'ma teach you English お金出せ. This went for 5 mins before she got the idea. It was funny because never before have I been so brutally honest like that... nor do I want to make a habit of it. Still...

aphasiac Wrote:My girlfriend's parents were visiting us, and they were curious how my Chinese studys were going - so I decided to show them my Remembering the Hanzi practise notebook. When they saw it they freaked, I mean properly freaked - they couldn't understand how a white person could possibly write all these Chinese characters? Recognise a few easy ones maybe, but WRITE? ABSOLUTELY NO F##KING WAY!

Same! It's cool when your notebook contains some kanjis nobody knows, like I had practiced writing 閻魔 lawlz I never knew they could open up their eyes like that O.O!! I thought she had an infarct or something and went for the kitchen to get a glass with water lol

vileru Wrote:Since nest0r has been reluctant with articles, I'd like to share this Wikipedia page.

I've seen a lot of that nonsense in the southern US states. Race wasn't the biggest issue, but what church you belonged too. Not religion, but the actual physical building you went to on Wed night, Sun morning and evening. Oh, you also had to read an approved version of the Bible by the church. Needless to say, I wasn't very popular among my coworkers since I'm not a Christian. I'm just too un-American for their tastes.

vileru Wrote:Regardless of your opinions about the culture, "patronizing compliments" are a standard part of the dialogue.

Oh, i'm fully aware of this. Jokes at other people's expense are fine. Mocking a classmate whose maths skills are bad by calling them a genius when they complete a basic problem is one thing (still a pretty mean-spirited thing to do, mind you). But when it becomes a pattern, it's racism. Like if a certain person patronises *every* gaijin they meet who can say こんにちは. The insult itself is more or less irrelevant as far as i'm concerned, it's what it shows about that person's view of westerners. I've noticed a distinct correlation between the wankers who make those sorts of comments and those who generally expect us to be useless at our jobs too (i'm *not* an english teacher).

aphasiac Wrote:lol I've had this exact experience in Taiwan.

My girlfriend's parents were visiting us, and they were curious how my Chinese studys were going - so I decided to show them my Remembering the Hanzi practise notebook. When they saw it they freaked, I mean properly freaked - they couldn't understand how a white person could possibly write all these Chinese characters? Recognise a few easy ones maybe, but WRITE? ABSOLUTELY NO F##KING WAY!

Anyway rather than explaining Hesig system, I just lied and said I knew all these hanzi because I'd studied Japanese in the past and that's why I could write them but not pronounce them yet.

Things is, the stereotype of white people not being able to learn reading/writing is a stereotype because it's pretty much true; every foreigner I've met, no matter how good their speaking ability, has been functionally illiterate. A few can read some simple characters, but it's rare to find anyone who could handle a newspaper or write with any degree of skill.

It's easy to forget that this site / forum is an anomaly - 99% of foreigners who are learning Japanese or Chinese give up on kanji early on, as they believe it's pretty much impossible for Westerns to learn them all. So yeh.

That's pretty sad(the percentage) but it's true as not much people learn to read or write to high-level of fluency. But I've found reading to be the easiest to learn and yet can be the hardest to get far in(because there is no instant you can learn a lot of characters, it's all about long-term)

I remembering telling me jp friend I aim to learn 3000 characters. He said you don't even need to know that much, just focusing on speaking. 2 years, I come back and he says "How the hell did you learn so much characters?".

Tori-kun Wrote:

aphasiac Wrote:My girlfriend's parents were visiting us, and they were curious how my Chinese studys were going - so I decided to show them my Remembering the Hanzi practise notebook. When they saw it they freaked, I mean properly freaked - they couldn't understand how a white person could possibly write all these Chinese characters? Recognise a few easy ones maybe, but WRITE? ABSOLUTELY NO F##KING WAY!

Same! It's cool when your notebook contains some kanjis nobody knows, like I had practiced writing 閻魔 lawlz I never knew they could open up their eyes like that O.O!! I thought she had an infarct or something and went for the kitchen to get a glass with water lol

haha

zigmonty Wrote:

vileru Wrote:Regardless of your opinions about the culture, "patronizing compliments" are a standard part of the dialogue.

Oh, i'm fully aware of this. Jokes at other people's expense are fine. Mocking a classmate whose maths skills are bad by calling them a genius when they complete a basic problem is one thing (still a pretty mean-spirited thing to do, mind you). But when it becomes a pattern, it's racism. Like if a certain person patronises *every* gaijin they meet who can say こんにちは. The insult itself is more or less irrelevant as far as i'm concerned, it's what it shows about that person's view of westerners. I've noticed a distinct correlation between the wankers who make those sorts of comments and those who generally expect us to be useless at our jobs too (i'm *not* an english teacher).

I think you missed the part where I said that Japanese people do the exact same thing to each other as well. If one Japanese were to see another speaking even the most basic English to a foreigner, most likely the Japanese watching would lavish praise onto the one speaking. Even when someone makes food that tastes horrible, everyone says「美味しい～！」since that's the standard way to react. I see nothing patronizing or condescending about with it, since they're just following the cultural norms.

In fact, I think it's helpful to compare a Japanese complimenting someone (whether regarding language ability or not) to a British person talking about the weather. Obviously, everyone is more than capable of noticing what the weather is like. Does that mean British people are patronizing and condescending because they don't think we're able to determine the current weather conditions? No, of course not! It's just a cultural script that people follow, nothing more.

If it were the case that Japanese people only gave such compliments to foreigners, then perhaps there might be some racism brewing. However, they compliment each other in the exact same way as they compliment foreigners, i.e. they exaggerate. Therefore, I see no reason to believe all the various conspiracies discussed in this thread.

As for erlog not receiving the memo that the rest of the employees received, let's wait and see until the next time they hand out memos. It's likely that they didn't give one to erlog as a courtesy. If it had been the case that erlog actually couldn't read Japanese, it would be considered a mistake on the company's behalf to give the same memo. If erlog were unable to read it, it would be a big problem. Appearing incompetent in front of your coworkers, especially in a Japanese company, has a strong effect on how your coworkers perceive you. Anyway, I admit that I think it was rather unthoughtful of them not to give the same memo translated in English. Nevertheless, since erlog's example is the first such incident erlog has experienced, it'd be haphazard to assume racist undertones.

Oh god

I hope you all seriously don't speak like he does

You know you're getting better when they stop complimenting and start criticizing you.

Oh, very recognizable. Had an experience like that today too.

Received not even a single 「日本語が上手！！」 yet she was (pretending to be?) surprised that I could actually read kanji. Does indeed sound like some sort of drilled-in belief from the other Japanese.

I'm now thinking this is all down to the breaking of deep-rooted cultural exceptions..

For example, a week or so ago for the first time I got a "OMG, HE CAN USE CHOPSTICKS?!" comment, about me directed at my girlfriend in Chinese. This is basically the same as "HOLY CRAP YOU CAN TALK!" or "WOW YOU CAN READ KANJI", but at an even more basic level.

I mean think about it logically - 1) I'm a white guy living in Asia (the guy didn't know how long for - could have been years), and 2) chopsticks take maximum an hour, or maybe 5-10 meals, to master. So why on earth *wouldn't* I be able to use chopsticks? Why did this person find it so amazing that he needed to comment on it?!

If we think about it rationally, it's got nothing to do with him believing chopsticks are hard to use, or him remembering his experience of learning to use chopsticks. Nor has it to do with a cultural belief that only chinese people can use chopsticks. Really it comes down to:

1) He's been taught his whole life that Asian people use chopsticks, whilst white people use knives and forks.
2) He's never seen a white person use chopsticks correctly before.

His expectations were massively shattered, and delight / hilarity ensued.

This exact phenomenon can be seen regularly on youtube, where anyone posts a video of a white person speaking an Asian language with a good degree of fluency. Without fail this type of video always generates 1000's of OMG comments, despite it being completely logical - of course a white kid brough up in china can speak good Chinese! Would a Chinese kid speaking with an American accent get the same responses?

Interesting I remembered I had the same feeling when I saw this video of a Japanese girl speaking with a Northern-English accent. It's hilarious, a pure WOW moment and not sure why. Chinese-Brits are common, and many of them speak with various regional accents - so why is this video surprising?

I think it's because I associate the Nottingham accent and slang she uses with rough white Northern people - so having a Japanese student learn it breaks expectations and creates a weird (and funny) image. I'm guessing other Brits will on this forum will also find the vid delightful and be like :O, whilst Americans will be like "meh", kind of reinforcing the point.

Yeah, my jp-gf's Australian accent often gives me 違和感.

Also, the school president for 関西外国語大学 sounds exactly like John Wayne. The entire auditorium burst out laughing when he started his welcoming speech.