Job Discussion Forums

[furiousmilksheikali]

[Sherri]

While in Japan I had to bring my young children to regular health checks run by the ward office. My Japanese ability is terrible, but I have to say that the nurses there were great at explaining things to me in simple Japanese. Sometimes there was a questionnaire or a survey to fill out which I could not read. So a nurse would sit with me and read it to me, and explain all the words I didn't know (in Japanese).

I used to work in a translation and interpreting school in Tokyo and the ability to do that kind of work is not based solely on language ability. It is a talent and to a certain extent, to do it well, either you got it or you don't. The key is not to translate word by word, but think about the overall message of the speaker (or writer).

Sherri

[furiousmilksheikali]

[johanne]

The inability to simplify language is not limited to Japanese. My sister in law, who is a lawyer in Canada, has never been able to simplify her language when speaking to my Japanese husband. His English level is high intermediate, but he could rarely understand her, as she always seem to feel the need to speak as if she were given some graduate school lecture.

It's a bit unfair, IMHO, to compare the average Japanese person to an ESL teacher, who needs to develop the skill of adjusting language level to do his or her job properly. I think those Japanese who on a regular basis need to simplify their language develop that skill. My mother in law is a master as this. In 10 years of knowing me she has developed a really knack for explaining almost anything in Japanese that I can actually understand, and I've only passed the 3 kyu test, so I'm not at all fluent in Japanese.

The clerk at the store, or bank teller is speaking to Japanese people 99% of the time an doesn't have enough exposure to non-Japanese speakers to feel any need to learn how to adjust their language. It's not something that happens naturally, especially in such a homogenous country.

[6810]

[SeasonedVet]

6810 wrote:

[SeasonedVet]

gaijinalways wrote:

[lanems]

On the flip side, how many foreigners do you know who go to Japan because they heard of some Eastern philosophy, or because they want to try and catch a glimpse of "wabi sabi"? I think a lot of Western thinking contributes to this belief that the Japanese language is somehow unobtainable to non-natives. People look at the East as how it differs from the West, and suddenly everything is fantastic and oriental.

English is a lingua franca, everyone can speak it because it doesn't belong to any one country or culture. I think the number of non-native English speakers outnumbers the number of native speakers quite significantly. There are hundreds of Englishes out there, and nobody can really claim ownership of any form of authentic standard English. Japanese is more or less spoken in Japan by ethnic Japanese. I think in this sense it's hard to compare English and Japanese or say that a Japanese person learning English is going through the same process as a foreigner learning Japanese.

As a lot of us are English teachers, do you think your job is to teach culture when you teach English? I know a lot of schools want to hire teachers to do this, but it's really silly to think you need to teach culture and English together. The majority of Japanese speakers who learn English will use it with other non-native speakers. However, Japanese teachers always believe they should teach culture and Japanese, and it makes sense because the only place you'll ever use Japanese is in Japan.

Well maybe I went off topic there...

[kdynamic]

[SeasonedVet]

furiousmilksheikali wrote:

[SeasonedVet]

kdynamic wrote:

[SeasonedVet]

So to continue I asked my friend to explain ryoshusho and then I asked the thought processes that went into it and why the delay in coming up with the answer. Here is what I found out:
When asked about ryoshusho my friend automatically started thinking about the kanji. And word like azukaru (sorry I made a mistake earlier when I said atsumeru or something like that) and another word osamaeru which have to do with receiving and giving. Why? I asked did you do that. You know the word receipt and so do I. So why did you go into so much detailed translation in your head to finally weed out "azukaru and osameru?
The answer was to find the correct meaning for the correct situation.
Also my friend thought about the particular meanings of the kanji for Ryo and the meanings of Shu.
Ok so I am thinking that this is a detailed process (do you think it is limited to my friend only? No. Try it on some people and you'll see).
It is a detailed process. Some people , as was stated earlier by another poster can shorten the process by "grading their language" But I think by and large Japanese people think about the units of kanji and the best meaning for the situation.
So my friend told me that when translating that part of the thought process is thinking of what meaning of the particular kanji and what context to use it in.

Here, take a look at this experience I had. I was asked to go to a store to buy some stuff using my own money and I would be repaid on my return. The person told me don't forget to get your ryoshusho so we can repay you.
So I asked what a ryoshusho was.
The answer I got "A Receipt"
I know in Japan in many stores people don't bother getting a receipt. They drop it in a bowl or bottle near the cash register. So I figured that they were referring to the usual receipt.
So I went to the store and I bought the stuff and got my receipt and went back and presented the stuff and the receipt.
I was told not that receipt. A different kind of receipt.
Nobody could explain to me the difference between the receipt and the Receipt.
The correct translation might have been an official receipt. However when the Japanese person is asked what a ryoshusho is, how many of them will know to say that it is an official receipt?
And an official receipt is Different from the Katakana word receipt that kdynamic mentioned.

[wintersweet]

I think johanne has it right when she says

[kdynamic]

There are lots of subtle distinctions between words in English that are very difficult to explain, just like in Japanese. That's why I think seasonedvet's theory that Japanese people run into problems explaining things simply because they are thinking of the kanji that make up the word doesn't hold water. Translating between languages is hard. Explaining your own language is hard. Not only for Japanese, which uses kanji, but also in English, which doesn't.

[gaijinalways]

Seasoned vet posted