Surprising Japan Speakers

[Mulboyne]

I was reading an interview with the manager of the England rugby team during the current World Cup and was surprised to learn that he speaks Italian. There's always a chance that he was just taking the mickey out of the interviewer but it set me off on another tangent wondering which celebrities might have a surprising smattering of Japanese either because they spent time in Japan or else studied the language.

Several articles testify that Jimmy Osmond apparently speaks good Japanese. That seems possible because he had some hits in Japanese as a boy and he was the right age to be influenced by the bubble era.

The actor Edward Norton also picked up a bit of the language. Wikipedia says "Norton worked in Osaka, Japan, consulting for his grandfather's company, Enterprise Foundation. He also appeared in an ESL textbook, Only in America, used by Nova, a major Japanese language school". There's more detail in this Metropolis interview. Here he is giving it a thrash at a press conference:

[YT]rUR0JftX4CU[/YT]

Anyone got any other ideas? I also recall reading that the actress Mira Sorvino studied Mandarin as her major so there might also be a few hidden Japanese speakers out there. It's probably not that easy, though, since few Westerners will have been in Japan without at least some of us knowing about.

[amdg]

Enterprise Foundation website

http://www.enterprisecommunity.org/about/what_we_do/

But what do they do in Osaka? Interesting find Mulboyne.

[Takechanpoo]

Edward Norton's face look like typical weird gaijin's timid fidgety one.
His next job deserves weird gaijin English teacher in Japan.
I wholeheartedly think so.

[GomiGirl]

I heart Edward Norton. Even more now.

[AssKissinger]

I heart Edward Norton. Even more now.

I like him too. My Japanese sounds a lot like his as well. Especially the 'uh uh uh' part.

[sublight]

Anyone got any other ideas? I also recall reading that the actress Mira Sorvino studied Mandarin as her major so there might also be a few hidden Japanese speakers out there.

You can hear her speak a little Mandarin in Too Tired to Die, playing Death opposite Kaneshiro Takeshi.

Trey Parker (of South Park) also majored in Japanese. The Japanese he uses in the Chinpokomon episode isn't great, but at least it's actual Japanese.

[Mulboyne]

Trey Parker (of South Park) also majored in Japanese. The Japanese he uses in the Chinpokomon episode isn't great, but at least it's actual Japanese.

I didn't know that. According to this site, "this episode featured the voice of an old buddy from college named Junichi Nishimura".

[sublight]

The company president in that episode sounded like a native speaker, but the kids also speak some Japanese.