Nihonjinron #6945274, 6945275, 6945276...

[Charles]

Tadanobu Tsunoda, MD, 79, is the author of "The Japanese Brain" (now in its 38th Japanese edition)....

Japanese and Polynesians are similar because we give meaning to vowels. We have lots of syllables which are only vowels, and they are processed as words.

Japanese communication is more of an exchange of feelings than of information. Our conversation is more like animal sounds, like two birds singing to each other. Ours is not as logical a language as others...

Japanese-language brains get tired easily. They hear all natural sounds, from birds singing to raindrops, from howling wind to laughter and cries, in the left hemisphere. Apart from Polynesians, everyone else in the world processes them in the right hemisphere. So we use the left brain way too much.

Listening to Western instrumental music is excellent for tired Japanese. This is because we process it in our right hemisphere, creating a balance to our overused left side. However, neither Western music played by Japanese instruments nor Japanese traditional music are good for relaxing the Japanese mind, because they are processed by the left hemisphere. Even more fascinating is that Chinese musical instruments are processed the same way as Western ones and, therefore, provide relief to the exhausted Japanese brain.

Creative work is hard, and it is especially difficult for the Japanese. Creation is centered in the cores of the right and left hemispheres. The Japanese-language brain is too left-sided, which has a powerful and negative influence on creativity.

The Japanese-language brain confuses logic and emotions. When some Japanese, mostly from the so-called rightwing, hear my theories, they think it is good news for Japan, as if I were saying that the Japanese were special people. I have never thought that, and I have never said or written such things. Ironically, leftwing Japanese also misunderstand my theory, because for them it sounds like I am saying Japanese are unique, and leftwingers hate any idea that might differentiate them from others.

We are singers: No wonder we developed the karaoke machine.

Japanese are wasting their money and time learning foreign languages. It is inefficient and confusing for Japanese children to try a foreign tongue before the brainstem's switching mechanism is completed at about age 9. The best time to start is about age 10 to 12. Still, Japanese should master foreign languages from conversation first, not reading and writing as they are taught.

[Kanchou]

Japanese are wasting their money and time learning foreign languages. It is inefficient and confusing for Japanese children to try a foreign tongue before the brainstem's switching mechanism is completed at about age 9. The best time to start is about age 10 to 12. Still, Japanese should master foreign languages from conversation first, not reading and writing as they are taught.

Yeah, right

NO ONE learns language better than small children under the age of 8 or so. I don't see why he thinks Japanese kids would be any different.

Although I think what he really wants to say is "learning a foreign language is a waste of time"

*cough* xenophobe *cough*

[dimwit]

Yeah, right

NO ONE learns language better than small children under the age of 8 or so. I don't see why he thinks Japanese kids would be any different.

Although I think what he really wants to say is "learning a foreign language is a waste of time"

*cough* xenophobe *cough*

He seems to have what scientific reviewers euphemistically refer to as a 'different opinion'. I quick perusal of the scientific literature comes up with zero references to this guy or his Key Tapping Machine, which is interesting because one would think that if he were writing a book on a subject he would have published at least some articles on the subject. My guess is that it was problably written in a cocktail bar in Shinjuku.

The only reference I can find to this guy is from another who refers to him as 'Professor' Tadanobu Tsunoda attending a conference in Cuba in 1987.

http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~nippon/file/jog240e.html

[nullpointer]

Nice find Charles. Just when one thinks nihonjinron cannot get any more stupid.......

[Greji]

Nice find Charles. Just when one thinks nihonjinron cannot get any more stupid.......

Agreed! I can't recall where I read it (boke), but there was some female professor that espoused this theory on learning English at an early age was a waste of time. It was subsequently picked up by a couple of dingalings in the academy circuit and may well be the source of this clown's rantings.

However, as there is little ammunition to support his "theory", there is also little to outright blow it out of the water. One would think that just common sense and personal experiences should suffice to make the normal person realize this is the unique Nipponjin junk again. I would note that his claim that the unique Nipponjins supposedly operate with different brain lobes than everyone else, if true, could definately explain a lot!

I echo a "good find Chas"!

[dimwit]

Again looked for a reference in UNESCO, found a reference to a Tasaku Tsunoda who is working of endangered Austrailian indigenous language who is obviously not the same person.

I have found one comment about the 'science' of his work.

The study Hal refers to was from a book by Tadanobu Tsunoda, entitled "Nihonjin no no: No no hataraki to tozai no bunka" (1978), it was later translated and published as "The Japanese Brain, Uniqueness an Universality" (Translated by Yoshinori Oiwa, Tokyo, Japan: Taishukan Publishing Company, 1985). Tsunoda is an otolaryngologist who made up an odd "tapping method" to determine which hemisphere of the brain processes sounds and language. He claimed that Japanese process some sounds, especially music and natural sounds such as insect chips,
differently than Westerners, thereby making them more in tune with nature. He doesn't claim that the Japanese brain is superior, or that the difference is genetic, just that it develops in a different way because of the "unique" nature of the Japanese language. The book was
awful science, but the Japanese reading public loved it! It made the bestseller list and went through several reprintings. Tsunoda and his perplexing brain testing apparatus are featured in a short vignette in the film Sukiyaki & Chips: The Japanese Sounds of Music.

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0307a&L=linganth&D=1&P=1228

Okay, I actually have found the UNESCO reference. I guess this report is just another proud moment in the history UNESCO.

http://www.ph.emb-japan.go.jp/library/books.htm

[Greji]

Tsunoda is an otolaryngologist who made up an odd "tapping method" to determine which hemisphere of the brain processes sounds and language.

He probably used a ball peen hammer for his unique "tapping method" to develop the unique music of it striking the cranium!

[kurohinge1]

Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

As I understand it, when the brain is hardwired (around about the early teens), and unused neuropathways are discarded, it becomes harder for adults to learn new things - music, language, etc.

But, from the perspective of an English language school (and the many FG's relying on them for jobs), we should be promoting the notion that English should be learned later in life, as older humans will usually be independant cash cows who will make much slower progress and hence are milked by the system for longer, if suitably encouraged.

[Greji]

[quote="kurohinge1"]Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.
]


Good point Kuro. This clown is so wired into the unique Nippon grey matter that with a little stroking, we could probably get him to say that the optimum unique age for learning English is 42!

[dimwit]

But, from the perspective of an English language school (and the many FG's relying on them for jobs), we should be promoting the notion that English should be learned later in life, as older humans will usually be independant cash cows who will make much slower progress and hence are milked by the system for longer, if suitably encouraged.

Hey I'm a huge fan of lifelong learning. I just signed up for flower arranging class.

As for your bathwater, it depends on whether the babe is a or b

[cstaylor]

As I understand it, when the brain is hardwired (around about the early teens), and unused neuropathways are discarded, it becomes harder for adults to learn new things - music, language, etc.

I'm going to call B.S. on this statement. The biggest difference between children and adults is that children don't have to worry about where the next meal is coming from. Take those adult burdens away, and I'll bet an adult could keep up with, or surpass, the average child.

[jingai]

I'm going to call B.S. on this statement. The biggest difference between children and adults is that children don't have to worry about where the next meal is coming from. Take those adult burdens away, and I'll bet an adult could keep up with, or surpass, the average child.

What's your evidence for said statement? I bet a 4 year old Japanese child could spank you in Japanese language acquisition, even if that's all you did 24-7.

[cstaylor]

What's your evidence for said statement? I bet a 4 year old Japanese child could spank you in Japanese language acquisition, even if that's all you did 24-7.

Why do you think foreign sumo wrestlers speak some of the best Japanese? All they do is fight, eat, and study the language, and they aren't 4 years old.

[kurohinge1]

I'm going to call B.S. on this statement. The biggest difference between children and adults is that children don't have to worry about where the next meal is coming from. Take those adult burdens away, and I'll bet an adult could keep up with, or surpass, the average child.

No BS, CS.

Adults have some advantages, but for the purpose of my previous post I didn't wish to mention them. Namely, adults have better discipline and techniques for learning, which some argue will "even the playing field", if not put them slightly ahead, depending on the task being learned.

But my original point came from my recollection of a documentary by David Suzuki which explained how the brain in, say, an 8 y.o. has a cluttered arrray of neural pathways but is then hard-wired based on which ones are actually being used, with the unused being discarded. It is quite fascinating and explains a lot that we notice.

From: Brain Development and Mastery of Language in the Young Years

. . . When electrical signals pass from brain cell to brain cell, they cross the synapse between the cells. When synapses are stimulated over and over, that pattern of neural connections is "hard-wired" in the brain. It becomes an efficient, permanent pathway that allows signals to be transmitted quickly and accurately. Advances in brain-imaging technology in recent years have confirmed this process. New technology has allowed us to see that there are physical differences in a child's brain that has been appropriately stimulated, versus one that has suffered lack of stimulation. Those connections that are not stimulated by repeated experiences atrophy, or fade away. It is truly a use-it-or-lose-it situation . . .

Sadly, with potentially direct but unused pathways gone, to learn something new as an adult, it requires using existing (less direct) pathways, and hence is less efficient.

Think of a kid's brain as a myriad of dirt roads connecting everywhere. When it's hard-wired, the used ones are sealed & turned into freeways but the unused ones become overgrown and lost. Then later, when you now want to connect "X" to "Y", the old dirt road that used to be direct is gone, so you have to use the freeways to get there via a less direct route.

[cstaylor]

Good find, kurohinge, but I didn't see anything in there that mentioned adults were incapable of creating new neural pathways. Focus is required to commit short-term learning to long-term use, and adults just don't have the copious stress-free time for efficient learning.

[kurohinge1]

Good find, kurohinge, but I didn't see anything in there that mentioned adults were incapable of creating new neural pathways . . .

My recollection is that they said it is hard and slow.

But here's an interesting story from today, showing it can happen:

Victim's brain 'rewires itself'

A man who was barely conscious for nearly 20 years regained speech and movement three years ago because his brain spontaneously rewired itself, growing tiny new nerve connections to replace the ones sheared apart in a car crash, US doctors say they now can prove.

Terry Wallis, 42, of Arkansas, is thought to be the only person in the US to recover so dramatically so long after a severe brain injury . . . more