Japanese Lost For Words

[Mike Oxlong]

One in five university freshmen has the reading level of a 13-year-old

Thursday, Nov. 25, 2004 THE GUARDIAN

With its phonetic symbols and complex vocabulary, Japanese can defeat even the most talented linguists. Now it seems to be baffling native speakers, too.

Nearly a fifth of the students at Japanese private universities have the reading ability expected of 13- to 15-year-olds...more

[CLOWNPUNCHER]

That has to suck big time

[Charles]

This raises a question: are adults any more literate than 13 year olds? I suspect not, unless they're like 80 and were adults before the post-WWII language reforms.
Adult literacy levels is a heated topic amongst some of the linguistic circles. The official Government line is that Japan has 100% literacy. Of course this is 100% bullshit. Linguists who have looked into it claim that rates are much lower, but their research is weak, some claimed that the government stomps down hard on any research that would contradict their official figures. So there is no real quantitative data on the subject, just a lot of educated guesswork based on anecdotal data.
But one big question remains, what is the average level of literacy of an educated adult? The general conclusion of the linguists I know is that it isn't all that high. I'd tend to believe this. I'll never forget one meeting I went to, a woman was reading a newspaper article aloud, sitting behind her was an 90 year old woman, who would quietly correct her when she misread words. And the corrections came quite often. This was a liberating experience for me as a language student, we all had a strange belief that nihonjin were the paradigm of perfect Japanese language users, but quite the contrary, nihonjin make mistakes too!

[Taro Toporific]

This raises a question: are adults any more literate than 13 year olds? I suspect not!

I wonder if they can institute flogging for high school engrish teachers who cannot speak English?

Osaka education board dismisses teacher lacking kanji knowledge
Kyodo /Nov 26

[Charles]

I wonder if they can institute flogging for high school engrish teachers who cannot speak English?

They should start with the ozzie JETs. They should be flogged on general principle, not just because of their inability to pronounce English words properly. I'll never forget seeing an AM show teaching English, and an ozzie woman came onscreen on a bicycle, and declared, "Oi loike ta roide ma boike!" It's no wonder nihonjin can't learn English, with such crappy teachers.

But damn, that article! A 56 year old nihonjin who doesn't know half the kyouiku kanji? Hell, that puts him on about the level of 4th grade student.

[Taro Toporific]

I wonder if they can institute flogging for high school engrish teachers who cannot speak English?

... A 56 year old nihonjin who doesn't know half the kyouiku kanji? Hell, that puts him on about the level of 4th grade student.

"Half the kyouiku kanj"? That was about my Chinese level in college (I never took Japanese).
As far as Aussies go---yeah, it's fun to tease 'em-. But face-to-face I gotta have horrified the Gomis and Kurohige with my Chicago-ben full of "dats" and "dohs." No telling how poor Mulboyne puts up with me after the second bottle red plunk (hey, I owe ya one Mulboyne).

[Charles]

Well, surely clipping a few labiodental fricatives isn't bad as mangling every vowel, and an inability to speak words more than one syllable long. I've spent long hours with nihonjin exchange students demonstrating subtle vowel differences, the really hard one is "flour/flower." Our local university's ESL program is pretty well regarded, since the Iowa accent is supposedly the most neutral, with no accent. People often hear me speak and ask where I'm from, and they can never guess.

But anyway, 500 kanji is about the level any gaijin 3rd year Japanese student should be at, which should give some pause to students when they realize they're about as competent as nihonjin 4th graders (or illiterate 56 year old nihonjin, for that matter).