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[matador]

I really need your advice on this one: I lived in Tokyo for about 5 years, then, a couple of months ago, I decided to get out of Tokyo for a year and live in Shanghai (only a 2 hour flight). The level of English here seems to be much higher than in Tokyo.

Now, for a country thats only just developing its English teaching sector and shrugging off the dead hand of communism v dynamic, wealthy, eikaiwa-loaded Japan, why should this be?

Is it down to the 'Japanese people are more shy than Chinese and would rather avoid using English for fear of drawing attention to themselves' old chestnut or something else?

I have been out several times with Chinese and Japanese business people after lessons and the Japanese speakers English level is much worse than that of the Chinese. I don't understand.

[Brooks]

probably because the Chinese there have a hungry spirit. Shanghai attracts the best and brightest. The Chinese are striving for something.

Many Japanese are complacent and have a poor attitude to language learning like Americans do.

[Nismo]

There are several factors involved:

1. Japanese junior and high schools are still taught by Japanese teachers, not native English speakers.

2. Japanese have a tendency to shy away from English conversation. Their reading and writing skills may be well beyond Shanghai's populace, though.

3. Japanese is a language limited in sounds. Chinese has more of a variety and makes it easier, at times, to pronounce English words. Japanese tend to add unnecessary vowels in English words (think miruku chii AKA "milk tea").

[Sheep-Goats]

Chinese students are extremely motivated, and if you live in Shanghai and can afford English lessons you're probably have as affluent a lifestyle as a Japanese in Tokyo (better in some departments, worse in others).

If you fly to a poorer part of China you'll find the English level drops to "Harrow!" pretty damn quickly.

[Big John Stud]

matador wrote:

I really need your advice on this one: I lived in Tokyo for about 5 years, then, a couple of months ago, I decided to get out of Tokyo for a year and live in Shanghai (only a 2 hour flight). The level of English here seems to be much higher than in Tokyo. Now, for a country thats only just developing its English teaching sector and shrugging off the dead hand of communism v dynamic, wealthy, eikaiwa-loaded Japan, why should this be? Is it down to the 'Japanese people are more shy than Chinese and would rather avoid using English for fear of drawing attention to themselves' old chestnut or something else? I have been out several times with Chinese and Japanese business people after lessons and the Japanese speakers English level is much worse than that of the Chinese. I don't understand.

The Chinese on the average speak better English than the average Japanese for a number of reasons. You are right being shy to speak English and too concern about making mistakes is one reason. But also the sentence structure. For a native English speaker to speak Japanese and for a Japanese person to learn English both have to learn to think differently.
Another main reason is that to speak Chinese one has to listen for tones. For example Ma could either mean mother, horse, or scold depending on the tone. This helps them learn other languages.

[AgentMulderUK]

[Nismo]

[AgentMulderUK]

[ContemporaryDog]

You are in the most wealthy, westernised and dynamic city in China though.

[ContemporaryDog]

[ContemporaryDog]

[ContemporaryDog]

[Eleckid]

It's interesting reading all these posts as to guess why most Chinese people (not all, of course, some Japanese ppl learn English really quickly too) learn English faster & better than Japanese.

Please let me say something as a Chinese who was raised in HK for 8 years before coming to Canada to learn English as a second language.

1) Cantonese is NOT spoken at all in Shanghai. They speak Shanghainese locally, & learn Mandarin at school (cuz it's the standard Chinese dialect in most parts of China). Cantonese is only spoken in a few places in China (some ex. are Hong Kong & it's origin place, the province of Canton). It just became somewhat popular cuz HK was popular for its economy a long time ago. Nismo is right that Cantonese has 9 intonations, & intonations are important in the Chinese language. Mandarin has 5 (the 5th one has no tone).

2) We start learning English in pre-schools, from a Chinese teacher. If the school's rich enough, they'll hire a native speaker to teach some parts of the lesson. However, many Chinese had either lived abroad for a long time or studied univ abroad so their English is good enough to teach. There are also many International schools in HK. In my kindergarten days in HK, we had a British woman who came to our class once a week. She took us out in our school yard to read stories to us in English...I gotta admit, it was completely useless. We didn't understand a word she was saying, & honestly we didn't learn anything from her.

3) There are a lot of high schools which uses English as its main language. Most texts in high schools (b4 the handover) were all in English. The English textbooks we use in elementary school are in pure English, so during our English class, the teacher (Chinese) speaks to us in both English & Chinese. They would only explain grammar points in Chinese, everything else was in English. As for high school classes, teacher uses English only.

4) Most university courses are taught in English, by either native speakers or non-native speakers.

5) There are English channels on TV.

6) English is everywhere (mainly cuz HK used to be a British colony & it's still a main tourist place).

7) There are 5 min shows on TV (Chinese channels) which teaches you a few English phrases every day. They even teach English in kids shows.

We do practice English conversations in the classroom. There are annual English speech competition in most local schools.

9) A lot of computers in HK are run by English OS.

10) English grammar is similar to Chinese grammar.

11) There are a lot more foreigners living in HK, a lot of companies are run by English speaking ppl.

12) Because Canontese is such a hard language to master, learning English is not so difficult for us.

13) People in HK have more opportunities to use English (conversation & written) compared to Japan.

14) There are waaaaay more Chinese than Japanese. So it seems like they all speak English better than Japanese, when only a tiny part of China are wealthy enough to bring English into their lives.

15) Mandarin do have the /r/ sound in their language, so that's a benifit for them. That's also maybe why Korean seem to learn English better than Japanese. (they also start learning English in kindergarten)

16) There are English proficiency tests for all teachers in HK, whether it is the subject they teach or not.

I'm probably wrong in some points which I made, but these are just my points of view as a Chinese.

[spawnofsancha]

[Nismo]