Permanently not learning Japanese!

[Cinnabums]

During my many years in Japan I occasionally bump in to foreigners speaking next to no Japanese even after 10, 15 or as much as 20 years in the country.

I always wondered what's the reasoning behind this?
Opinions?

 

[kirayamato]

面倒臭い

I think people doing the bare minimum just to get by.

Actually I dont really need to speak japanese at work, but I should be able to make effort trying to speak japanese in many situation. but between easy (also faster) and hard (also slower), easy way always win.

For example, when I was sick, knee jerk reaction would be finding english speaking doctor. Doing that, I will never need to learn japanese.

Anyway I am assuming many of those people you bumped into has personal interpreter aka japanese partner?


one more example, was looking for ED drug, opted for english speaking clinic in shibuya. after a while I shop around and use japanese speaking clinic...

 

[TAG Manager]

During my many years in Japan I occasionally bump in to foreigners speaking next to no Japanese even after 10, 15 or as much as 20 years in the country.

I always wondered what's the reasoning behind this?
Opinions?

From my own personal experience, this usually applies to foreigners here that have English as a first language. And, they usually stay within their comfort zone or their English bubble, where they don't really need Japanese.
The second group would be those with a Japanese partner, who probably don't feel like they need to learn Japanese if they communicate in English (or other first language) or with a hybrid Japanese+other language style.

Now, you throw smartphones & pocket translators into the mix, even less motivation to learn the language.

 

[Gina]

I saw a guy not speaking Japanese in the office in Tokyo.
He doesn't need Japanese during his work.
Though he lives in Japan over 30 years and his spouse is a Japanese, I seldom see when he speaks fluent Japanese.
He gets the news from FOX, he watches the American movies and TV programs, he eats American style lunch in his room, cooked by his spouse. His spouse handles all daily house keeping matters among the Japanese. I wondered if he remembered how to greet someone in Japanese or not, although his job was required the interpreter skill.

 

[Kevt]

At least for US Americans... I think there is often a belief that other people with accommodate them. Like expecting shops, restaurants, signs,...etc to already be translated to English to cater to them. Thus no need to really learn the language when English options exist.

Interestingly, when the situation is flipped (ie.. foreigners in the US), It's common for Americans to proclaim that anyone that moves to the USA should learn English as a requirement.

Double standards being set

 

[Sudsy]

I've met a couple for whom it seems to be an odd flex of sorts... they don't NEED to learn Japanese because they have a secretary to take care of the day to day routine business tasks, a wife to take care of things at home, and they only go to high end hotels and the like where they can get service in English.

Essentially, "I don't learn Japanese because I'm rich and powerful."

These days I run into so many younger people who don't learn Japanese because they have Google Translate in their pocket. In about ten years we're going to have a serious shortage of people to fill positions in our Japanese operations - Google Translate won't get you through a customer meeting.

 

[MikeH]

I know several people whose mother tongue is not English but have spend over 20 years in Japan without learning the local language. To me it seems that requires a constant and dedicated effort not to learn. As other have said you then need to be working in all-English environment and have someone at home who takes care of the daily life with kids and all. Sometimes this person aka wife is not even Japanese but has learned the language at native o near-native level.

Well to each of his own and that just leaves more girls for us who manage to communicate with them girls at ease.

 

[TAG Manager]

What's wrong with that? The point of coming to Japan isn't always to find a locally born partner.

It's certainly easier to build a relationship with easy (or easier) communication and at least some cultural connection through language.

 

[watchinforfun]

During my many years in Japan I occasionally bump in to foreigners speaking next to no Japanese even after 10, 15 or as much as 20 years in the country.

I always wondered what's the reasoning behind this?
Opinions?

Sometimes it's just a difficultly learning languages I suffer from a mild form of dyslexia. You can notice it from my horrible spelling and grammer. Always been told I wa just lazy hard to explain I just don't see the mistake my brain just automaticly makss the corrections. It makes it very difficult for me to learn another lamguagt . I have been with a Japanese partner for 15+ years 5 years living in Japan. I can ask a bunch of simple questions. Understand more than I speak but I am honestly at my limit. Would love to have your guys speaking level, I have tried Rosetta stone, duolingo, classes it's very hard for it to stick.

 

[qcryp]

Maybe they never intended to stay in Japan for so long, is my guess. Working professionals who use English in the office I can sort of see how it happens too.

Ultimately no one learns a language without proper motivation, and for some people even being in Japan is not motivation enough because they can get by without it these days.

I can't imagine not trying to learn though, if I lived in another country that is the best opportunity possible to become bilingual due to constant immersion. I especially cannot imagine it if your spouse is Japanese.

 

[Tabanico]

I try not to judge anyone for anything, especially their Japanese because mine is so bad. (Although that does give my daughter a few unintentional laughs - the other day I called her my little lottery instead of my little treasure...) But I am sometimes blown away by the people who deliberately make no effort like sudsy pointed out.

 

[Fukuoka Jones]

I'm probably N3 after 25 years here...

1) I thought I would just learn it by being here, never applied myself to systematic study.

2) Career completely focused on international business. It's all about English communication all day every day.

3) Realizing that in a Japanese corporate environment, not speaking Japanese gives you a superpower called "sho-ga-nai."

4) Japanese wife and Japanese friends speak English well (and professionally) and are eager to improve it.

5) Japanese wife takes care of anything that might be complicated.

6) Only speaking English in the home so that kids will become fully bilingual (achieved!!)

7) This is a society where it is really easy to get by just by following a few scripts and being pleasant. Even when I do need to interface with some public or private system on my own, my Japanese counterparts are invariably and instinctively eager to smooth out the bumps, as opposed to other countries--even ones that are English speaking--where your counterpart is just as likely to instinctively or even consciously choose to amplify the bumps.

I think that about covers it for me. Regarding Japanese friends, I am finally in a social situation after all these years feeling a distinctive pressure to improve my Japanese. I recently joined a friendly soccer team and can barely understand all the sporty, jocular chatter all around me. It’s time to rectify the biggest problem and really apply myself to systematic study.

 

[requiemmorrow]

That pillow made him the happiest man alive. Hell, forget the girlfriend—I want a waifu too!

 

[requiemmorrow]

To stay on topic though, I have been fluent in Japanese for most of my life here. I studied it like I would die if I didn’t know it.

When I see people who live here decades that cannot even say kon’nichiwa I feel a little broken hearted, but as I said above i put my heart and soul into learning it; so I don't judge people who didn't have the burning desire to learn it like I did. In the end we as humans will always just do what we want.

 

[Danbo]

To stay on topic though, I have been fluent in Japanese for most of my life here. I studied it like I would die if I didn’t know it.

When I see people who live here decades that cannot even say kon’nichiwa I feel a little broken hearted, but as I said above i put my heart and soul into learning it; so I don't judge people who didn't have the burning desire to learn it like I did. In the end we as humans will always just do what we want.

I also don't understand it. If your center of life is Japan you really should be able to communicate.
My life was too much of an inconsistent mess to get to get to an amazingly fluid level....but at least it is good enough for daily life and to watch and read the stuff I enjoy. I know that I should invest a lot more time to get better, but in the case of Japanese it is a lot harder to learn it on the go. There is no way around sitting down and studying. That's of course no fun, but no way around it.

 

[doctorkokujin]

It's kind of a paradox if you ask me. For a country infamous for not learning a second language, they seem to be quite accommodating to those who can't (in many times won't) speak their language.

 

[Cyrus79]

I studied Japanese for a while before I came here so that I could talk with my grandma in Japanese. I passed the N3 here and I'm planning on taking the N2 this year. Maybe.

I think a lot of it is old English teachers that at work don't really have the opportunity to use Japanese. Either they're told not to by the company or the staff so that it can be an all-English environment. Even if you speak Japanese, if you work at a shitty eikaiwa job and teach kids, they would prefer that you pretend you don't speak Japanese at all so that the kids are forced to use English anyway. Not like that plan works at all anyway because kids are kids.

It can be a bit annoying though with every new contract at my job where I have to go through the same steps of reading off directions, room numbers, building wings, etc. in Japanese to a poor Japanese staff member who is surprised I can read kanji. She just thought all foreigners were illiterate.

I'm very bad at French but I think living here motivated me to also learn French because there were so many French-speaking tourists here as opposed to my hometown.

 

[requiemmorrow]

It's kind of a paradox if you ask me. For a country infamous for not learning a second language, they seem to be quite accommodating to those who can't (in many times won't) speak their language.

I agree, but they do have one defense: They actually do study English and quite seriously from a young age. Most Japanese have little issue being able to read English because the model student “learning time” involves sitting at a desk with a pencil and writing shit repeatedly. That is what they traditionally confirm as studying.

Spoken language and actually retaining it has virtually NOTHING to do with that. To actually study spoken communication one has to actually open their fucking mouth and communicate. Given that Japanese culture embraces silence as a beauty and necessity (the word shizuka, 静か, means “quiet” but also infers “tranquility”) to outward express yourself using words and sounds you can barely understand is practically backasswards of how they think.

Add to it a fact that tends to get ignored on this and many forums about Japan: Many Japanese aren’t even adept at communicating in their native language. In modern Japanese education, children finish mandatory education through the end of junior high school. Even if they consistently fail several subjects and show zero ability to retain information, provided that they show up at school and have recorded attendance it is still possible for them to graduate. They can float along and learn practically nothing and still move into becoming a functioning member of society before high school if they choose to.

I’ve seen the results of this firsthand: My lady managed to graduate high school, but barely. She just couldn’t focus in class but didn’t want to give up after junior high, yet now as an adult she struggles with a lot of lingual issues due to her poor understanding of Kanji.

Society here has seriously bent itself over backwards to be accommodating, which is why it is so easy to live here without understanding a lick of the native tongue (well certain kinds of “licks” can be understood regardless…)

 

[DragonSlayer]

Last year I failed to be cuddled as a tourist in English, actually the Nihonjin really made me sweat on my 15 set phrases and very rudimentary grammar aside from very obvious exceptions (ie tortuous english at a premium business hotel). And when I left Tokyo all bets were off. I'm actually amazed at people's ability to AVOID learning conversational Japanese, how???

Add to it a fact that tends to get ignored on this and many forums about Japan: Many Japanese aren’t even adept at communicating in their native language. In modern Japanese education, children finish mandatory education through the end of junior high school. Even if they consistently fail several subjects and show zero ability to retain information, provided that they show up at school and have recorded attendance it is still possible for them to graduate. They can float along and learn practically nothing and still move into becoming a functioning member of society before high school if they choose to.

I’ve seen the results of this firsthand: My lady managed to graduate high school, but barely. She just couldn’t focus in class but didn’t want to give up after junior high, yet now as an adult she struggles with a lot of lingual issues due to her poor understanding of Kanji.I

I've read about the history of Japanese script reforms and I was just baffled by it all. Probably thanks in part to MURICA these morons half-assed the simplification of Kanji so bad that many ideograms became meaningless with simplified radicals while the derivative Kanji stayed with their older pre-war forms because they were supposed to be phased out, but didn't anyway. And while many smart people recognized how retarded their situation was, when computer assisted writing came about they really gave up on phasing out less frequent Kanji, after all everyone can write them now. Just add furigana if the kanji is very infrequent and fuck 'em. Can't be helped...

Not surprised adults can grow up to be barely functional in their own language at all. Instead of the script being a tool to conciliate spoken and written Japanese, it's a goddamn mess.

 

[requiemmorrow]

Last year I failed to be cuddled as a tourist in English, actually the Nihonjin really made me sweat on my 15 set phrases and very rudimentary grammar aside from very obvious exceptions (ie tortuous english at a premium business hotel). And when I left Tokyo all bets were off. I'm actually amazed at people's ability to AVOID learning conversational Japanese, how???

I can understand the passion here, but some people have circumstances that make it unnecessary for them to try. Even in America, a Cantonese ex-girlfriend of mine has had her parents living there for 14 years now and they still speak zero English. Everywhere they go and everything they do is crammed into a Chinese neighborhood in the Inland Empire; and if they ever need to leave it either she or some friend will translate for them. They are all happy and they don’t bother anyone, so as much as it makes my red white and blue American heart rage that they refuse to learn English I will take peaceful illiterate over non-peaceful literate 10 out of 10 times.

I try not to judge anyone anywhere for their circumstances, but it goes without saying that society here cordons off parts of itself to those who do not study their language. For reasons that don’t need to be stated again, I am totally okay with this.

 

[quizmaster]

Lots of people I know have spent their whole adult lives associated with the US military in Japan. They need basically zero Japanese since most people in the bubble (including restaurants, shops, and even government buildings) have some English level or provide the information in English forms and letters. Or like people have said, they have a Japanese spouse to do all the talking.

 

[MikeH]

5) Japanese wife takes care of anything that might be complicated.

All totally understandable reasons but this one is a gamble I would not be willing to take. What happens when she decides to kick you out and you have no idea where your towel is?