Completely Useless or Confusing Things in Tokyo

[Wwanderer]

Very few Japanese are willing or able to speak their language properly. Particularly in business and professional meetings most Japanese prefer to speak office slang. I think it's sad.

Imo, the way most Japanese speak Japanese in any particular situation is the way Japanese is properly spoken in that situation by definition. It might not be the way it was spoken properly at some time in the past or according to some books or by the standards of some language scholars or whatever, but consensus native speaker usage is the ultimate authority for any living language.

This is just @User#8628’s point put differently. They created the language and are its primary users, so they get to decide how it is used and how it changes with time.

-Ww

 

[AMcguyver]

Oh i love them.

Doesn't each station have its own unique jingle so that people can recognize their station without taking their eyes off whatever they're reading (or off their phones in the modern world) or even if they are half asleep?

I’ve got all of them on my phone. Use them for alarms and reminders.

 

[ShowaJidai]

Imo, the way most Japanese speak Japanese in any particular situation is the way Japanese is properly spoken in that situation by definition.

This is true.

But that doesn't escape the fact that it is a lazy way to express oneself and results in ambiguous, imprecise communication. It results in a language that too often is nearly useless and generally confusing.

 

[MongerInAStrLnd]

There must be a dozen shops in my neighborhood which are real head-scratchers. One trendy-used clothing place I am convinced must be run by the son of the building owner. Otherwise I doubt he could pay the rent even if he sold the entire inventory in a single month.

My understanding is that the presence of an active commercial shop provides a tax break to the building owner.

 

[User#8628]

Very few Japanese are willing or able to speak their language properly. Particularly in business and professional meetings most Japanese prefer to speak office slang. I think it's sad.

Office slang? Keigo is the more high end of the language spectrum.

Japanese is such a beautiful language with the the different nuances for casual and formal and boy and girl language. Definitely takes effort and time to do correctly.

The things that do weird me out about Japanese are spelled out katakana English, and those times they say a word double and it sounds like children language, like “nuru nuru” or “tokidoki” .

But fascinating language none the less and any from of slang like gyaru slang adds only more interesting stuff to the mix. You surely never stop learning in Japan.

 

[MikeH]

so they get to decide how it is used and how it changes with time.

Except for the word gaijin, obviously. Americans get to decide it is racist and must not be used.

 

[ShowaJidai]

Office slang? Keigo is the more high end of the language spectrum.

In the almost 30 years I've been working in Japanese speaking environments Keigo was all but never spoken. And my experience goes from small/medium sized Japan-capitalized places to Japan-branches of huge global firms. Been to hundreds of sales calls on major Japanese companies where I'm the only non-Japanese in the room. Proper Keigo was a distinct rarity.

 

[Ken1988]

They are not useless at the end of the song the door closes.

No exactly. At the end of the jingle, there's always an announcement "doa ga shimarimasu. gochuui kudasai", followed by the doors closing warning chime. The jingles let people know a train is about to leave, but not exactly when. The length of a jingle is also irregular. Some train conductors cut the jingle short, others put it twice. People usually keep on rushing to the train even after the jingle ends. They know there are extra few seconds till the doors closed. I always feel the jingles are redundant, useless and confusing.

The jingles used to be a "departure bell" (Shinokubo station still uses this) which was turned off in the late 80s as people complained "it's noisy." and "no other countries do it." It's unbelievable now but there was a time when those JR platforms were much more sound-free. It just didn't last. JR came up with the jingle, or "departure melody (hatsu-mero)" and put it first in Shinjuku in the early 90s."Hatsu-mero" quickly spread over and it's become something essential in most Japanese train stations.

 

[rob040188]

Platform train jingles. They are useless, confusing, driving me nuts

I like the astro boy theme at takadanobaba station

 

[Troilist]

The no eating in public is a bit strange and kinda an uptight rule imo. Also the fact that there are no tables or any sitting available for eating in any of the food halls I’ve been to in Tokyo. I understand Japanese people make the purchase and bring the food home to eat but as a tourist, I don’t always want to bring the food back to my hotel room due to the smell and the lack of reheating options. I would be happy to have the option to eat it there and bring the trash back to my hotel!

 

[MikeH]

bring the trash back to my hotel to be exposed!

I have never understood modern art.

However it's OK to eat in parks etc., just not in public transport.

 

[Wwanderer]

@ShowaJidai - My Japanese isn't remotely good enough to comment or even have an opinion, but I have been amused over the years to hear native speakers I know complain that keigo gets in the way of clear and efficient communication (usually younger people) while others (older people generally, and when I say "old" I mean OLD) say that it allows one to be clear and efficient. I always wonder if they are trying to communicate the same sorts of things.

In any case, it is my definite (but anecdotal) impression that most keigo is on its way out (gradually, over generations, of course) of the language as it is normally spoken, for good or ill or both.

-Ww

 

[Sudsy]

I do agree that there should be more public trash cans, though. If there are going to be so many vending machines and food stores, they should provide someplace to throw the trash away.

Yokohama used to have a municipal bylaw that any vending machine had to have its own trash bin of the appropriate type. Not sure if that law survived the sarin attacks, I don't get to Yokohama much anymore.

 

[Sudsy]

Particularly in business and professional meetings most Japanese prefer to speak office slang.

Haven't sat in on a business meeting in English lately?

"Let's look at the big picture. If we leverage some outside the box thinking, we can incentivize some of our rock star staff into getting on board with the road map, which will help us reach out to the customer base and with our market leaders create synergy that will drastically increase our bottom line and prevent us from having to downsize. I call that a win-win, what's your takeaway? I think we should fast track this innovation and make it part of our game plan."

 

[ShowaJidai]

Haven't sat in on a business meeting in English lately?

Listening to that kind of hokey, rah-rah blather from pencil-necked, chairborne dweebs is just one of many reasons why I stay on this side of the pacific. Reading that string of biz-jargon - I imagine myself loading an AK magazine, with every buzzword I snap one more bullet into the magazine.

 

[Sudsy]

Reading that string of biz-jargon - I imagine myself loading an AK magazine, with every buzzword I snap one more bullet into the magazine.

You and me both.... the use of "leverage" as a verb drives me insane.

 

[Wwanderer]

the use of "leverage" as a verb drives me insane.

NASA engineers like to say, “We verb nouns.”

-Ww

 

[emiliapoesy]

The no eating in public is a bit strange and kinda an uptight rule imo. Also the fact that there are no tables or any sitting available for eating in any of the food halls I’ve been to in Tokyo. I understand Japanese people make the purchase and bring the food home to eat but as a tourist, I don’t always want to bring the food back to my hotel room due to the smell and the lack of reheating options. I would be happy to have the option to eat it there and bring the trash back to my hotel!

I notice people eating on the subway all of the time though!

 

[impish]

The no eating in public is a bit strange and kinda an uptight rule imo.

Which is rarely followed these days. I see so many people eating wherever they want. As for not being able to eat in the food halls, well you can always take your food to a nearby park.

 

[warubuta]

I'm sure wWanderer and the other brianiacs here will have an au contraire comment, but in my simplistic view of things, you could argue that katakana, rather than original language spelling in roman letters, is uselsss and confusing most of the time. What's the point of it? Sure, it makes it easier for Japanese people to say foreign words, but it also often makes them unintelligible. マクドナルド． What the fuck? They think they are speaking a foreign word, but they are not! If everyone learned the basics of how to read and pronounce words spelled in English or French or Spanish or whatever, my guess is that communication would improve greatly, and we could eliminate Evil Katakana.

Please put this on the list of things to get done before the 2020 Olympics.

 

[TAG Manager]

I notice people eating on the subway all of the time though!

Really? I rarely notice anyone barely drinking something. If someone is eating, they get the death glare... haha.
Seriously though, eating on the train is A) gross and B) rude....

 

[Wwanderer]

I'm sure wWanderer and the other brianiacs here will have an au contraire comment, but in my simplistic view of things, you could argue that katakana, rather than original language spelling in roman letters, is uselsss and confusing most of the time.

Actually I agree with you on this one.

-Ww

 

[Wwanderer]

As for not being able to eat in the food halls, well you can always take your food to a nearby park.

I've heard this observation/suggestion many times, but it ignores two little inconvenient facts of life: weather and (limited) time.

A fair fraction of the time, the weather does not allow one to eat (or hang around) outside at all comfortably. And for many of us, the walk to and from that (not always so) "nearby" park takes far more time than we can spare in our overloaded schedules.

-Ww

 

[MikeH]

you could argue that katakana, rather than original language spelling in roman letters, is uselsss and confusing most of the time. What's the point of it?

I believe it is used so Japanese people wouldn't be able to learn how to pronounce foreign words properly. If they did then they would go abroad and get detrimental influences.

Though the only people complaining about katakana are usually those foreigners who then use romaji to learn Japanese.

 

[impish]

I wish Katakana was easier to learn, too many of the symbols look the same, that's where I get confused. I have no issue with hiragana at all. My kanji sucks, but at least I can identify a few of the more common ones.