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Japanese who don't understand gaijin Japanese
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rxk22



Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 4:13 am    Post subject: Japanese who don't understand gaijin Japanese Reply with quote

I used to think it was just me, but often times I will talk to Japanese people, and there is always that one person who just can't seem to understand me. Anyhow recent story

I subbed at an elem school the other day. The guy they had help me out, didn't understand any of my Japanese at all. I asked in Japanese "what is the students English level", he thought I said seitan instead of seito-tachi Sad A nearby JT saw this, and came and resuced me, as she understood me.

My Japanese is not fluent, but it is def pretty solid. So, it's not me saying all kinds of gibberish. Wonder what it is? Are they nervous when talking to a gaijin, and just get flustered? Kinda funny and annoying at the same time.
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G Cthulhu



Joined: 07 Feb 2003
Posts: 1373
Location: Way, way off course.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 5:41 am    Post subject: Re: Japanese who don't understand gaijin Japanese Reply with quote

Same thing that happens everywhere in the world. Some people don't want to understand, some genuinely don't (for whatever reason), etc., etc.
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steki47



Joined: 20 Apr 2008
Posts: 1029
Location: BFE Inaka

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 7:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, this happens to every gaijin. In some cases, my Japanese was not go great or my word choices were a bit unnatural, thereby confusing the Japanese.

In many cases, however, the problem is on their side. Quite a few Japanese think that their language and culture are the most unique and difficult in the world and therefore impossible for us to ever understand.

For example, me at internet cafe, holding membership card
Me: Ichi jikan gurai intaneeto shitai n desu.
Staff: No English, Eigo dekinai.
Me: Nihongo de ii desu. Ichi jikan gurai intaneeto shitai n desu.
Staff: Gomenasai. Eigo wakarimasen.
Me: Nihongo de ii desu. Ichi jikan gurai intaneeto shitai n desu.
Staff: Are? Japanese OK desu ka? Sugoi!
Me: Hai, Japanese OK desu. Ichi jikan gurai intaneeto shitai n desu.
Confused
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jcook77



Joined: 08 Oct 2010
Posts: 32
Location: Tokyo

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 7:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It can be really frustrating at times, to be sure. I used to get annoyed and felt like I wasted my time studying Japanese when someone would just stare at me and not answer or try to reply in bad English. I'm certainly not fluent, but usually I can get my point across clearly.

After a few years, however, I've just made peace with it. Often, when Japanese students speak English, I can't catch everything they're saying. It's not the same situation, but it helped me to better understand that this was just one of those cultural things I had to accept.

What's really funny to me is how easily I can understand other gaijin when they speak Japanese -- maybe we all used the same textbook. Smile
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seklarwia



Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 9:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think some of you are reading way to much into this and possibly turning honest mistakes into some kind of slight against foreigners.

Sure in some cases it might be that the person is really nervous interacting with a foreigner - and after seeing some absolutely hilarious embarrassing reactions of some little, old, white Yorkshire folk (who have never interacted with anyone they thought was foreign) when confronted with a big black man in the multicultural UK, I can quite imagine that there are people in Japan who panic when stood before a foreigner.
In other cases it could be that either your pronunciation, word stress or intonation was ever so slightly off (assuming it's as good as you think it is) - which might not cause problems for all Japanese listeners but could for those not used it (anyone who has ever heard a regular French person speaking English will understand... even when their pronunciation isn't completely horrible, there is still something about the way they speak that takes a heap of getting used to)

But consider this:
- Have you never seen a Japanese person misunderstand another Japanese person?
- Have you never seen that confused look on one person's face because they weren't paying full attention or were unable to hear a word or part of a sentence correctly?
- Has this never happened to you when you were speaking to another English native?

Perhaps some of these misunderstandings are occurring simply because sometimes people misunderstand.
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the4th2001



Joined: 04 Oct 2010
Posts: 130
Location: Tokyo

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 10:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

seklarwia wrote:
I think some of you are reading way to much into this and possibly turning honest mistakes into some kind of slight against foreigners.

Sure in some cases it might be that the person is really nervous interacting with a foreigner - and after seeing some absolutely hilarious embarrassing reactions of some little, old, white Yorkshire folk (who have never interacted with anyone they thought was foreign) when confronted with a big black man in the multicultural UK, I can quite imagine that there are people in Japan who panic when stood before a foreigner.
In other cases it could be that either your pronunciation, word stress or intonation was ever so slightly off (assuming it's as good as you think it is) - which might not cause problems for all Japanese listeners but could for those not used it (anyone who has ever heard a regular French person speaking English will understand... even when their pronunciation isn't completely horrible, there is still something about the way they speak that takes a heap of getting used to)

But consider this:
- Have you never seen a Japanese person misunderstand another Japanese person?
- Have you never seen that confused look on one person's face because they weren't paying full attention or were unable to hear a word or part of a sentence correctly?
- Has this never happened to you when you were speaking to another English native?

Perhaps some of these misunderstandings are occurring simply because sometimes people misunderstand.


+10

From my experience, Americans and Brits tend to have ridiculously bad pronunciation and equally horrible intonation. Even if their accuracy and fluency are spot on, the sounds coming out of their mouths destroy everything. I know it happens to me from time to time . . . as painful as it is to admit.

But yeah, it happens everywhere, not only in Japan. I remember having to translate for my mom in Orange County because she couldn't understand Hispanics' or Asians' (mainly Chinese) English. It is what it is.
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Mr_Monkey



Joined: 11 Mar 2009
Posts: 661
Location: Kyuuuuuushuuuuuuu

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 11:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think it's necessarily the case that the speaker's Japanese is bad - I mean the Japanese syllable and stress system is pretty simple. The vowels are monophthongs, and combination into diphthongs is pretty unambiguous.

I know my pronunciation is good and my vocabulary is sound, yet still Japanese people occasionally look at me agog when I speak or simply don't understand. I think this is what rx22 and steki47 are referring to.

Sure, mistakes and misunderstandings happen, but there's a clear role for expectation in comprehension - receptive skills are not a passive process. You apply your schema(ta) to every interaction. One of the challenges in learning a language is developing the knowledge of the schemata and scripts necessary to process text. If the listener in these exchanges really doesn't expect the other speaker to know Japanese and is nervous about having to speak English, then there's a chance that they won't realise they're being spoken to in a code they can understand.

The other day, I was at the local international office to put up a flyer. I asked the guy at the counter for one, and he asked "for teaching?". I'd asked in Japanese, and was nonplussed, as I didn't understand what he'd said in what was a very simple conversation. When he repeated himself, I understood.

It happens, basically.

The whole issue around whether it's easier for Japanese L2 speakers to process other L2 speakers' Japanese is interesting. I suspect it's because most Japanese L2 speakers draw from a smaller pool of vocabulary - a kind of common core vocabulary in Japanese that make up the majority of deployed vocabulary. The use of grammar is possibly also more restricted than a NS of Japanese and perhaps L2 speakers deploy honorific Japanese less often. I'm sure there's a publicly available paper on Google Scholar about it.
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Apsara



Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 2142
Location: Tokyo, Japan

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 11:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've had the same experience as Mr_Monkey describes above a lot of times.

My mother-in-law has the habit of occasionally throwing English phrases into conversations and I almost always fail to pick up that she's said something in English the first time she says it and have to ask her to repeat what she said. This is partly because her pronunciation isn't that good, but mostly because I am just not expecting it in the flow of a conversation in Japanese. I feel terrible when it happens because she is trying hard with her English, but it seems to happen just about every time she decides to road test her English on me.

It's a bit different when someone completely fails to pick up that someone is speaking to them in Japanese in the way steki47 describes, but it's probably just an extreme version of what happens to me with my mother-in-law.
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the4th2001



Joined: 04 Oct 2010
Posts: 130
Location: Tokyo

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 12:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mr_Monkey wrote:
I don't think it's necessarily the case that the speaker's Japanese is bad - I mean the Japanese syllable and stress system is pretty simple. The vowels are monophthongs, and combination into diphthongs is pretty unambiguous.


It is pretty simple. However, just listen to some Americans speak. The first problem is that they fail to understand that tongue placements for t's, d's, r's, g's, and k's are different in Japanese and f's aren't pronounced the same way. Second, they tend to vocalize certain vowels (desU, shimaSU, shimashIta, bokU, etc) when they shouldn't. Third, they tend to unnecessarily stress random sounds. All in all, it's difficult to understand some Americans when they speak.

Spanish speakers on the other hand tend to have beautiful pronunciation. Maybe that's just me though.

At any rate though, I get what you're saying.
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seklarwia



Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 12:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

the4th2001 wrote:
Mr_Monkey wrote:
I don't think it's necessarily the case that the speaker's Japanese is bad - I mean the Japanese syllable and stress system is pretty simple. The vowels are monophthongs, and combination into diphthongs is pretty unambiguous.


It is pretty simple. However, just listen to some Americans speak. The first problem is that they fail to understand that tongue placements for t's, d's, r's, g's, and k's are different in Japanese and f's aren't pronounced the same way. Second, they tend to vocalize certain vowels (desU, shimaSU, shimashIta, bokU, etc) when they shouldn't. Third, they tend to unnecessarily stress random sounds. All in all, it's difficult to understand some Americans when they speak.

Spanish speakers on the other hand tend to have beautiful pronunciation. Maybe that's just me though.

At any rate though, I get what you're saying.

I agree that the syllable system is simple... in theory. But in practice I've come across many complications. I mean my teachers love trying to train me how to say words like "hashi" so that they can tell which one I'm saying just by how I say it. And to this day I am still unable to say 麩 correctly first time so that the listener can understand without me having to describe it first or (when talking to any Japanese person who knows me) adding "the food I hate" as preffix of sorts... I've practiced it so hard but on the odd occasion I've said it right, I'm simply unable to hear how it is different to how I say it normally.
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rxk22



Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 12:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

seklarwia wrote:
I think some of you are reading way to much into this and possibly turning honest mistakes into some kind of slight against foreigners.

Sure in some cases it might be that the person is really nervous interacting with a foreigner - and after seeing some absolutely hilarious embarrassing reactions of some little, old, white Yorkshire folk (who have never interacted with anyone they thought was foreign) when confronted with a big black man in the multicultural UK, I can quite imagine that there are people in Japan who panic when stood before a foreigner.
In other cases it could be that either your pronunciation, word stress or intonation was ever so slightly off (assuming it's as good as you think it is) - which might not cause problems for all Japanese listeners but could for those not used it (anyone who has ever heard a regular French person speaking English will understand... even when their pronunciation isn't completely horrible, there is still something about the way they speak that takes a heap of getting used to)

But consider this:
- Have you never seen a Japanese person misunderstand another Japanese person?
- Have you never seen that confused look on one person's face because they weren't paying full attention or were unable to hear a word or part of a sentence correctly?
- Has this never happened to you when you were speaking to another English native?

Perhaps some of these misunderstandings are occurring simply because sometimes people misunderstand.


There is misunderstanding, and as the other poster pointed out, not listening. Often times a Japanese person will word for word repeat what I said to the anti listener. Other people understood me, and often times they chide the non -listener.

I think there is a shut down of "外人が来た英語難しい どうする???!!!! and then they are just unable to hear anything. I don't know how many times I've heard "英語難しい" while engaged in a Japanese conversation.

My Japanese is def not perfect, but it is understandable, esp when i am using masu/desu and not my Osaka-ben(in Kanto). Though occasionally I mix up 十分and 自分for some awful reason, but other than that, and the minor slip up, I am fairly solid. I do BJJ in Japanese, which is saying something.

I speak to them loudly and clearly, and often repeat what I said 3-5 times, and then they figure it out or the person next to them just repeats what I said, and then they understand.

I am white+Hispanic mix, and have lived in areas with tons of foreign born. So I am used to being able to speak to non-Native English speakers, and can understand them, unless they are really messing up.

Anyhow, to me it's silly, and was wondering why Japanese in particular do it.
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Rooster_2006



Joined: 24 Sep 2007
Posts: 984

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 1:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I haven't had this problem in Japanese simply because I haven't used my Japanese very much (and it's usually with someone patient), but MAN have I had it with Korean...

I've noticed it's especially severe with people over the age of 40, especially less-educated people like restaurant staff and other menial workers.

I was talking to a returned Mormon missionary who had learned Korean and done his mission in Jeolla Province, and it turns out that the Mormon missionaries have a special term for this: "변비 표정," or "constipated expression."

It's largely to do with the listener, not the way we're speaking. I can talk with basically any Korean just fine -- it's just a small percentage of the population that starts grimacing, grunting, and ignoring what I say/freezing up.

To prove this, I can talk to Koreans over the phone no problem, with no difficulties whatsoever. It's only when they see my foreign face that this problem arises.
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Mr_Monkey



Joined: 11 Mar 2009
Posts: 661
Location: Kyuuuuuushuuuuuuu

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 2:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

seklarwia wrote:
I agree that the syllable system is simple... in theory. But in practice I've come across many complications. I mean my teachers love trying to train me how to say words like "hashi" so that they can tell which one I'm saying just by how I say it. And to this day I am still unable to say 麩 correctly first time so that the listener can understand without me having to describe it first or (when talking to any Japanese person who knows me) adding "the food I hate" as preffix of sorts... I've practiced it so hard but on the odd occasion I've said it right, I'm simply unable to hear how it is different to how I say it normally.
Might it not be a tonal difference? There are a very few Japanese words that rely on tone to distinguish meaning, as I understand it - kumo (cloud/spider) is the example I learned.
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seklarwia



Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 3:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mr_Monkey wrote:
seklarwia wrote:
I agree that the syllable system is simple... in theory. But in practice I've come across many complications. I mean my teachers love trying to train me how to say words like "hashi" so that they can tell which one I'm saying just by how I say it. And to this day I am still unable to say 麩 correctly first time so that the listener can understand without me having to describe it first or (when talking to any Japanese person who knows me) adding "the food I hate" as preffix of sorts... I've practiced it so hard but on the odd occasion I've said it right, I'm simply unable to hear how it is different to how I say it normally.
Might it not be a tonal difference? There are a very few Japanese words that rely on tone to distinguish meaning, as I understand it - kumo (cloud/spider) is the example I learned.

Yes for "hashi" but no for 麩.
In any case there is more to speaking Japanese than being able to pronounce it's syllables. So just because a speaker has come to grips with the simple sylllables, doesn't mean that their Japanese isn't bad or difficult to understand for some people.

But this is completely going off from the point I was trying to make in my first post. As I was saying, yes the fact that they are being confronted by a foreigner may play a role in some cases. And in some, the foreigner really might have made a mistake in their speech.

But I see Japanese people misunderstand each other on a daily basis. Sometimes because they weren't listening properly but other times because they missed bits through no fault of their own. The same thing often happens amongst native speakers the world over. Is it such an impossibility that sometimes these kinds of regular misunderstandings are happening to some of the people here instead of the 'it's because I'm gaijin that they refusing to understand my Japanese' or 'Why should I bother learning Japanese when they are not even going to bother trying to understand me?' kinds of situations being painted in this thread.
I mean take the OP's ES example... is it not possible that he simply misheard because there was background noise, or a kid drew his attention briefly, or he had important things on his mind at moment or any other number of reasons that didn't include the fact that he had a foreigner stood before him?

It's just that I don't have the things that are being described here happen to me; quite the opposite in fact. I've never had people start telling me that they don't speak English even whilst I'm speaking to them in Japanese. I often get approached by people especially in stores and offices when I'm doing my "lost lemon" impression and they always start off by speaking to me slowly in Japanese and as soon as I they realise I can understand, they start prattling off like they are speaking to any other customer and I have to keep telling them to slow down because my Japanese really isn't that good.

And I know I make mistakes but listeners always seem to be trying their best to understand. Even though I mispronounce words regularly they often work it out from the context. When a word is giving them issues they normally parrot it. At which point I start saying it over a few times changing how I say it slightly on each repetition. At this point they normally start doing the same. Sometimes they can hit on the what I wanted to say themselves but sometimes I have to describe what I'm on about but in either situation there is always the light bulb moment when they get my meaning. A sheepish smile and apology for my awful Japanese normally has them encouraging me to continue and making a double effort to understand.

I most certainly haven't had people turn off just because I am a foreigner.
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mstoffer



Joined: 17 Feb 2011
Posts: 27

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 4:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This even happens to me from time to time with family members in Germany and I have spoke German my whole life! It is definitely not just a Japan thing or a bad knock on your language skills.
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