Are japanese capable of learning English?

[Carnal Porridge]

"Even now, students study English for six years, but in no other country in the world are English students as poor after six years of study as they are in Japan," Shiodome says. "Put another way, there's no country on earth where English language instruction is as bad as it is in Japan. How can we possibly expect better results just by extending the mediocrity so it grows to encompass the elementary school years?"

I blame it all on that tampon Aru Debito!

[Big Booger]

You notice that Japan is the second largest economy in the world too.. why should they learn Engrish?

Also, Japan is one of the few places never to have been colonized by an invading force... unless you call US occupation a semi-colonization after WWII.

I think those other countries have a leg up because they were influenced by an outside force, mainly European countries, specifically the UK. Surely that must have an effect?? Maybe I am wrong here, but that is my take on this.

[devicenull]

um, exactly what need do they have for english? english is a horrible and fucked up language. it is the lingua franca for international trade, but other than that, there is no need.

[cstaylor]

um, exactly what need do they have for english?

it is the lingua franca for international trade, but other than that, there is no need.

Ask yourself the same question, but replace "english" with "japanese", and I bet you can't even come up with a good excuse for learning it.

[kamome]

english is a horrible and fucked up language.

WTF??

[Carnal Porridge]

english is a horrible and fucked up language.

Well, yours is anyway.

[Big Booger]

english is a horrible and fucked up language.

Well, yours is anyway.

muwhahahaha,
Now that is the FG spirit

[tonikoro]

Actually, I'd figure that next to Arabic and the Chinese language as a whole, English is one of the most complex languages of the world. It also is quite wide spread in world/international use. lingua franca? -I think not.
I'd say then it might be followed closely by french and spanish, two other forces from the old world that got a good grip on colonization.

*On a side note. Booger, Funny Sig-Quote!

[plaid_knight]

I think learning foreign languages is a good way to make more friends, something we can't get enough of.


Where is the statue this medal fits into?

[devicenull]

english is a horrible and fucked up language.

WTF??

you have never really looked at it, have you? there are 14+ vowels, as well as sounds that appear in virtually no other language. we have 2 completely different types of /l/ and our spelling in inconsistant. we have interdental fricatives. and dialects often change things that they really shouldnt. idioms are all over the place, and im not even going to get into the pragmatics of english.

japanese has 6 vowels, one of which is high, back, devoiced, unrounded... this is the only odd one. grammar has few exceptions, and apart from mora timing, it is incredibly easy for even a beginner. phonetically, it is very easy, grammatically it is very easy as well. this leaves the lexicon and pragmatics, which are difficult in just about any language one is learning.

hell, Swahili is easier to learn than english.

[quote="cstaylor"]:lol:
Ask yourself the same question, but replace "english" with "japanese", and I bet you can't even come up with a good excuse for learning it. ]

i enjoy it, and my current plans require me to learn it, and learn it well. im also planning on adding some mandarin this summer in mainland.

[devicenull]

Actually, I'd figure that next to Arabic and the Chinese language as a whole, English is one of the most complex languages of the world. It also is quite wide spread in world/international use. lingua franca? -I think not.
I'd say then it might be followed closely by french and spanish, two other forces from the old world that got a good grip on colonization.

*On a side note. Booger, Funny Sig-Quote!

when two non-americans from completely different countries meet each other and dont speak each other's native language... the odds are very high that they will use english.

spanish is used in shitholes that spain created
french is used in shitholes that france created

and french is not spreading.

arabic has harmony and relies on a ptk root structure. it is complex, but it is consistant and the phonetics are not really difficult. chinese has tones, that's about it as far as difficulty goes.

you might want to check again what 'lingua franca" means

[devicenull]

also, the point of studying english in japan is not to learn english, it is to develop study habits at an early age.

[Ptyx]

English is one of the most complex languages of the world

Are you sure about that ? I'm not an expert in langages but i know that i am not a native english speaker and i tried to learn several foreign langages. English is clearly easier than french, german and spanish, there are a lot less irregularities in english than in those.

On the other end, kanjis put aside, english might be more complex than japanese, i think the main reason ithat we (westerners) struggle with japanese is that it's totally different from the latin greek based langage family we're used to.
It's all upside down and there no common root for any word except the katakana ones. If you consider only the gramatical part of japanese it's really easier.

[Lethain]

It seems simple minded to say that studying english is not to learn english. If English was studied purely as a mental exercise in futility, I suspect they would rather be memorizing the names, dates, and locales of concrete blocks.

I guess I would call your dismissal of French and Spanish a bitch trick, its not really connected to the topic but still a sketchy comment.

Both languages are widely spoken, both by signifigant populations and in a signifigant range of countries. French may not be spreading, but at the moment the world is losing hundreds of languages each year as the last native speakers of small languages die, so even holding steady isnt quite as negligible as it seems.

[Frost]

"Ask yourself the same question, but replace "english" with "japanese", and I bet you can't even come up with a good excuse for learning it."

To score with asian chicks...duh!!!

[AssKissinger]

What's an interdental fricative?

[Taro Toporific]

What's an interdental fricative?

[Caustic Saint]

What's an interdental fricative?

Interdental - Pronounced with the tip of the tongue between the teeth, as (th) in that or (th) in thumb.

Fricative - A consonant, such as f or s in English, produced by the forcing of breath through a constricted passage. Also called spirant.

My favorite linguistics term? "voiced bilabial fricative" It sounds almost obscene....

[Taro Toporific]

My favorite linguistics term? "voiced bilabial fricative" It sounds almost obscene....

D'oh! I'm slipping. "Voiced bilabial fricative" is raspberries and interdental fricative is gay lisping.

[Alcazar]

They actually have serious names for all those funny sounds?

You learn something everyday......

[devicenull]

What's an interdental fricative?

Interdental - Pronounced with the tip of the tongue between the teeth, as (th) in that or (th) in thumb.

Fricative - A consonant, such as f or s in English, produced by the forcing of breath through a constricted passage. Also called spirant.

My favorite linguistics term? "voiced bilabial fricative" It sounds almost obscene....

and to top it off, english has 2 interdental fricatives. a voiced "th" and an unvoiced "th" this is due to the latinization of the language. from Runic we lost 2 letters
"Thorn"

and

is voiced... and remains in use in the IPA
is what we use in IPA for unvoiced.

[mercutio]

"Ask yourself the same question, but replace "english" with "japanese", and I bet you can't even come up with a good excuse for learning it."

To score with asian chicks...duh!!!

yeah but mandarin would be alot more efficient...

50%*125 million Jappanese=62.5 million Japanese women
50%*1.2 billion Chinese = 600 million Chinese women


besides... Chinese is easier than Japanese IMHO. Once you get used to the tonality of the language, the grammar is much simpler than English but uses the same sort of logic (it is another SVO language) so it should in theory be easier for an english speaker to deal with than Japanese (a SOV language)

[Taro Toporific]

8O They actually have serious names for all those funny sounds?

You learn something everyday......

Using the IPA (The International Phonetic Alphabet) the standard student joke was describe-out automobile noises for your motorhead linguistics professor.

[Alcazar]

What's an interdental fricative?

Interdental - Pronounced with the tip of the tongue between the teeth, as (th) in that or (th) in thumb.

Fricative - A consonant, such as f or s in English, produced by the forcing of breath through a constricted passage. Also called spirant.

My favorite linguistics term? "voiced bilabial fricative" It sounds almost obscene....

and to top it off, english has 2 interdental fricatives. a voiced "th" and an unvoiced "th" this is due to the latinization of the language. from Runic we lost 2 letters
"Thorn"

and

is voiced... and remains in use in the IPA
is what we use in IPA for unvoiced.

Using the IPA (The International Phonetic Alphabet) the standard student joke was describe-out automobile noises for your motorhead linguistics professor.

OK, FG has some serious language experts. Taro, that site is freaky. And runes, OMFG, that is getting into hardcore cultural knowledge .

[cstaylor]

japanese has 6 vowels, one of which is high, back, devoiced, unrounded... this is the only odd one. grammar has few exceptions, and apart from mora timing, it is incredibly easy for even a beginner.

I think someone's been drinking the kool-aid. Easy? Let's here your "tsu" and "su", and see if we can hear the difference. How about getting that small "tsu" in there, like "yappari"?

Japanese is easy for a beginner, but you'll sound like an overly cautious OL in your conversations. Try dropping subjects... like all of them, and then figure out where the hell the sentence went. Who are you talking to? Damn, change the grammar, can't use certain sentence constructions (English does this too, but not in such an extreme way).

For a country that's never been forcibly invaded, the language sucks pretty bad. English has the excuse of having three fathers: celtic, latin/french (from two different invasions), and german.

[cstaylor]

i enjoy it, and my current plans require me to learn it, and learn it well. im also planning on adding some mandarin this summer in mainland.

I think the Japanese government is looking at the goal from a practical standpoint: beyond the shores of these fair islands, Japanese is as useful as pig-latin.

[devicenull]

[ramchop]

I'm still a beginner, but I don't think the tsu is difficult.

The one I have most problems with is saying things like 7 o'clock.

[mercutio]

[Taro Toporific]

the charts are by no means comprehensive and only reflect standard speech. the japanese vowel chart is missing it's devoiced, back unrounded

Ok. For extra points, how does Yakuza "r" differ from Spanish rolled "r"?

Harro? Nandarrrrrrro!