Question to anyone from Japan

[Bobtheduck]

I found this in my internet searches: (and despite the overuse of elipses, this is not me... I just found this today)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Che

Okay.. japanese girls, or anyone who has any experience with this... please shed some light.

A friend of mine (Japanese girl) told me that her and most of her friends think that gaijin guys who speak japanese very well are " kimochi warui" (gross). She said that it is much better for a foreign guy to speak english and maybe only a few japanese words with a japanese girl. According to her, even if he can speak japanese well, he should pretend that he doesn' t. She mentioned that this is probably true mostly for girls that speak at least a word or two of english. Maybe not true for girls who don' t speak any english... Either way.... I' m a bit confused by this... i wonder if it' s just her and her group of friends or is this pretty common? what do you think....

Is this true? I understand that Japanese have a harder time understanding non-native speakers than most americans do because there just aren't as many foreigners coming into Japan as into the US, but is there really this hatred for non-Japanese to speak Japanese? I mean, I was under the impression most Japanese people loved that you try to learn their language because Japanese culture views knowing more than one language as an admirable trait...

I just want to know what it is going to be like for me, A European-American, going into Japan... Is the racism that strong, even to the point that people would think it was sickening that I speak Japanese?

I am part of an international missions (dis)organization called YWAM. I was told that the racism there can be bad even among Christians... Since the structure of the Mission is so loose, it makes it possible for a YWAM base in Osaka to only accept staff of Asian origin (which would include Korean, CHinese, Thai, Laotian, etc...) I thought that was a bit unsettling, but just how widespread is this? It must be rather prevelant for a YWAM base director to be like that...

[Heed]

Ok, I am not JApanese, but I have alot of JApanese friends... some that are older, others that are around my age group.... I am actually leaving for Japan tomarrow..

Anyway, I have been told by all my friends from Japan, in all age groups that Japanese people are usually very impressed if a gaijin tries or even attempts to learn their language. It is usually very flattering. The view expressed by these girls seems very different, but of course, you cannot catagorize any group of people, eveyone is different.

But like I said, usually they are very honored that you have tried to learn their language because it is so difficult for us Americans.... due to the HUGE difference between our languages... (English is the hardest laguage in the world to learn)

Anyway, that is my 2 cents.... if you don't like it then you can have a refund :p

[shooraijin]

This is going a little OT, but while English *is* a difficult language to learn, I think making assertions about which is the most difficult is probably hard to ground. English has a lot of rote memorization and its orthography is bizarre, but then Chinese characters are an awful lot of memorization also, and other languages have their own quirks (Russian can be quite disasterous). Also, for people learning a language in a totally different language family, tenses, cases and moods not present in their home language family can make even the most simple grammatical inflection seem obscenely difficult.

[SpikeSpiegel306]

Well let me see if I can shed some light on the subject being as how I am a Japanese raised "gaijin" if you will. The fact of the matter is, in my opinion, that its not the fact that a foreigner can speak the language well that makes the girls not care for them. Its the fact that while the foreigner may be able to speak the language well, he/she refuses to acknowledge Japanese customs and courtesy that they might just out right not know of, but since they know the language so well it is expect that they should know the customs and stuff well also. Therefore, you have to be more than just a smooth talking gaijin and you have to know how to live the Japanese life. If you just speak English then they wont expect as much from you in the culture/customs area.

Well thats my two cents. Hope it helps! ^_^

[Heed]

Note *English is the statistically hardest language due to how many words change everyday.. ((e.g. Cool means temperature or neat or awesome...Neat can mean tidy or cool @_@.... Bad can mean aweomse or bad tempered or poor behaviour)) I am sure you catch my drift... but I don't wanna get too far off topic..)

Also, I myself have stuied as many of the customs of the culture as I can... I am pretty much a Japan freak.... I am hoping to permamnently live there some day so this trip will be good practice...

[shooraijin]

Note *English is the statistically hardest language due to how many words change everyday.. ((e.g. Cool means temperature or neat or awesome...Neat can mean tidy or cool @_@.... Bad can mean aweomse or bad tempered or poor behaviour)) I am sure you catch my drift... but I don't wanna get too far off topic..)

I don't want to either, but lots of languages do that. That's not a fair marker of language difficulty either. English demonstrates the phenomenon in a much more magnified way because it's a language in wide use, but that sort of fast diachrony is not unique to it. My point is that you really can't say "language W is the most difficult because of x, y and z" because all language is based on speaker perception, and x, y and z will therefore always be relative.

To Bob, I have a native Japanese speaker in my parents' church who married one of the regular attendees; she's lived in the States about eight years. She doesn't really seem to have a bias against that, but on the other hand, she was raised in a Christian household and might not be your typical Japanese girl or have the same sorts of biases for that reason.

[ShiroiHikari]

You can't really generalize what a whole nation of people thinks. If you want to go there and speak Japanese, then...just do it. Some people will probably like it and some won't. Can't please everyone.

[GhostontheNet]

Also, on a totally different note, taken exclusively from my experience in America my birthplace and homeland, I will say this. I have always made it a habit to listen in on any conversation within my earshot if I am able to, though this is bad manners. However, the thing that has gotten me the closest to quitting is not the very rare person catching on and complaining/reacting, but all manner of of extreme stupidity and worthless opinions, and things in general that made me think "arggh, I wish I had never heard that!"

Closer to the topic at hand, it seems to me the original context of this quote must have related to relationships, perhaps even casual sexual relationships (where it is concievable that excessive words are not that necessary). If this context is true, perhaps she thinks that to use the language very well would be to step out of one's identidy as a gaijin, perhaps similar to the repulsion of some for the black people who abandoned what has become subculture of that race in favor of white people's subculture. This I think though fits under the former bracket of "worthless opinions" among teenagers. Among several of the honor and shame societies you can end up with with a nationalistic superiority complex among individuals, or sometimes much of the nation, to the point of hatred of outsiders (Perhaps Israel in Paul's time is a good example - at the mere mention of YHWH's saving actions for the Gentiles the crowd tried to kill him). I can't speak for your mission organization, but for the actual staff at their base I would definately use peoples that stand much less of a chance of falling into cultural pitfalls that we westerners can be much more prone to fall in.