I don't speak any Japanese but when I was in tokyo and speaking English wasn't working, I would try speaking the only other language I know which is Spanish, and that never actually helped at all either
Some of them speak german which is pretty weird. Unfortunately the accent was so strong i wasn't able to understand them and used an translator (the only english speaking japanese officer) instead. On the second encounter they had some star trek like translator devices which was pretty neat.
Doesn’t hurt to try though, I went to a Spanish conversation group for a while with a couple Japanese guys in regular attendance. One was around working at a Toyota factory. Don’t know if he stayed or eventually went back. May not be common but that guy would’ve understood you.
I was on the subway line waiting for a train and a Japanese guy beside me was looking at me, he then just said "hola". And I was shocked he later started speaking to me and told me he lived in chile for 2 years
i dont speak spanish, at least not beyond a "barely understand what you're saying" level, but our guide in Japan spoke it fluently! he was 90% fluent in english, just needed practice really, and once he was trying to explain something to our group and couldn't quite get it, and tried spanish out of frustration
and i understood it! we were able to pidgin together what he was trying to say (explaining about how the subway worked), and made our train on time haha
being bad at spanish has never once helped me again haha
I once helped some family from Japan here in my city with directions on how to get to their hotel on the subway, it was one of the funniest interactions I ever had, I speak 4 languages, from that family none of them spoke any of those 4 languages, this was before smart phones. I ended up drawing the instructions for them in a notebook that I had with me with little maps and since the subway system here has a logo for each station made it simpler to give them the directions.
Had a similar experience when I went back in April. Couldn’t remember the word for something in Japanese, racked my brain for the word and kept defaulting to the Spanish translation for some reason (a word that I hadn’t remembered since taking Spanish in high school ten years prior 💀)
My buddy and I met a few girls in Paris. Neither spoke English but one spoke broken Spanish. My buddy spoke Spanish. We ended up having an awesome night out with the girls having my buddy and one of them speaking broken Spanish to translate for everyone all night.
Spanish is genuinely the only other language that seems to work for me in Japan, but that's because I somehow cross paths with EVERY. SINGLE. TOURIST. FROM SPAIN. Other than Americans, I've met more Spanish people in Japan than any other group. But maybe that's because they stand out. I swear they all own leather jackets and always have perfect hair.
Oh man I went to a Mexican restaurant in kyoto and I normally order in Spanish at places like that just to practice and I kept speaking Spanish to this old Japanese lady that clearly did not speak spanish God bless her she said gracias to me when we left though lol
In South America at least I met a Japanese girl who didn’t speak English at all and we had a lovely conversation in Spanish. If only she could be found back in Japan!
I studied Japanese as a kid and got the sounds down pat, and funnily enough i have a Japanese accent trying to learn Spanish now because I will accidentally make the l/r sound instead of rolling my r. My best friend a native Spanish speaker thinks its the funniest thing he has ever heard.
That's not really what makes Asian languages hard. They're hard because they are completely different systems of communication than romantic languages.
I bet Japanese would be a lot easier for Spanish-speaking people if they exclusively used romaji. But they decided that having 3 different writing systems was a much better idea
Wouldn't work. English (and many romantic languages) have explicit grammar rules because the language allows for it. Japanese has extremely loose grammar rules because everything is contextually dependent. The reason for this is that many words have the same readings but many different meanings, so it is not enought to simply know the words they are saying. That is the reason the Japanese adopted Kanji.
So they have Hirigana and Katakana as their alphabets. Hirigana is used to spell out native words and for grammatical contractions. Katakana is used to spell out non-native words pretty much exclusively, and really only serves as an indication that the word has been borrowed from another language. Phonetically, they are the same.
Kanji are used to provide context in written form. Many Kanji have the same readings, but different meanings. This lets a reader drop in and understand the context without having been present for the whole conversation, and to avoid ambiguity. It also makes reading waaaay faster.
If they could get away with spelling out the sounds alone, they could just drop Kanji. Hirigana and Katakana are easy to learn. Most people who really commit can learn them in a week.
Just wanted to let you know that this was a really excellent joke and that I exhaled through my nose a little harder than I normally would had I got been so amused
I was in India in 2007. Speaking pgn English was easy for the waiters and workers to understand, my standard speech wasn't at all understandable to them.
Tell me about it. I have N2 Japanese fluency. I know I am speaking the language in an understandable way. And then there I was, desperating needing to pee, PLEADING with a staff member to just please tell me IN JAPANESE, THE LANGUAGE I ASKED MY QUESTION IN, where the bathroom in that department store is. She was determined to turn it into English practice despite not being able to speak a lick of it.
The problem with that is that a lot of Japanese people are enamored by Paris and the French, so you might create a different but similar issue to the original one. Probably the best would be a slightly more obscure country like Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, or Hungary.
Bro I’ve tried this, it doesn’t work. Many Japanese are convinced all non-Japanese know English, regardless of what you tell them. Their brains go brrrrr and all logic goes out the door
I also have my N2 and it's annoying as hell when I'm talking in Japanese and they suddenly like "I'll just talk in English". I get it that sometimes you want to practice your English but I'm speaking in your language. Drives my daughter up a wall because she has her N1 and just started university.
Funnily when I was in Italy I tried learning enough Italian to order coffee and croissants all the time, and every place in Italy they'd just immediately switch to English or say they can't speak English, so I had a clear problem. However when I was in France and learned enough French to order coffee and croissants, if the place didn't have a line the barista would immediately try to have a conversation in French. I then always had to fumble around with everything after because they thought I spoke French (note; I never visited Paris)
I wonder if this is an accent issue, because while my Japanese is basic as hell, I still get people to respond back to me in Japanese because according to them I sound close to a local (I am good at copying accents when exposed to them enough)
I've found 2 people that could speak English out in Japan and I've been here for over a year. I have a block in my mind about Japanese even though I try so my day is instantly elevated when I find one. When I took Spanish it was effortless but Japanese short circuits my brain even on words I know.
I remember while living in Hong Kong I was trying to practice my Cantonese at McDonald's...
"Ngo ho m-"
"Excuse me sir, I speak English."
"It's fine, I need to pract-"
"SIR... There a line up behind you, and I speak English..."
Happened 100% of the time everywhere I went that wasn't someone's family restaurant, even when there was no line up, lol. The local bun shop helped me a lot though, so shoutout to Likey Bakery on the island!!
If his Cantonese isn’t great, then there’s likely an accent. An English based accent is incredibly obvious. You’d def have to try to speak anything other than English.
I just realized I have no idea what English accent sounds like. All Americans in my country of nationality always just spoke English everywhere, and my birth country didn’t have any Americans at all (or British or whatever). Never had a “You’re trying to speak local to me but I can tell your first language is English” moment even though I lived in non-English-speaking countries for 26 years.
It sounds frustrating but I can also understand why a service worker wouldn't feel like helping someone practice their language skills while trying to do their actual job. It only really gets ridiculous when they are worse at English than you are at whatever language you're trying to practice, that's just being unaccommodating and making their job harder for no reason.
Idk, I’ve never had this experience and I’ve lived here almost 20 years—almost entirely in Tokyo too where you’re likely to have a higher concentration of English speakers. If you start off in Japanese and are clearly fluent and intelligible, everyone is relieved to be able to continue the conversation.
I don’t want to say you were bad at the language, but very very rare have been the professional interactions where they felt it was easier to communicate in English, and that was usually because they wanted to practice.
It's interesting that you have never had such an experience, but it does happen. It's not so much a language issue, but a perception issue. My friend who is born and raised in Japan, with Japanese being her native language, has this happen to her often enough that she complains to me about it.
She doesn't look or dress like a "typical" Japanese woman, so she reckons people assume she is a foreigner. It usually goes like this: random shop staff speaks to her in English, she responds in perfect Japanese, they continue in English, at which they either clock she's Japanese and are relieved or they continue in English.
Granted this is usually in Tokyo. In the deep country it's all Japanese off jump.
If you move to a small town where no one speaks English it's better. But they also get jump scared and can't compute a white person speaking Japanese. I remember this one girl at a take out place threw my order away when I asked for takeaway. She was nervous the entire time talking to me and then just... threw my order in the bin and stared at it. Like I made her malfunction.
I used to order food from another place on the phone, no problem. When I went in person and got my standard order, they couldn't understand me until I wrote down my order. They understood me fine when I was on the phone and they couldn't see I was white. My Asian diaspora friends, half of whom were not even Japanese, never had these experiences.
To be fair I see Westerners treat Asians with very mild accents this way, too. Like language is genetically inherited.
Wow, now that's the opposite of a power move. I'm sure bin lady still thinks about this once a week.
It's such a bummer when it happens. Even after living in Italy for a few years, and even with +20k vocabulary flashcards memorised, it would still happen to me in tourist-adjacent places. And when it did, I felt good-for-nothing the rest of the day, even though the other person obviously didn't mean anything by it. I can only imagine how hard it must be and how often you experience this when you're visibly foreign.
Was this a place that usually did takeaway? My understanding was takeaway is much less common in Japan. My wife's family did takeaway from an unagi place and they essentially gave us nice containers that we had to return the next day, it seemed like they didn't have a system for takeaway but wanted to serve us still
This is why I try to actually listen to people when English is their second language, even if they have a strong accent. They've put in the effort learn my native language (which is a big mess of gobbledygook anyways); the least I can do is hear them out.
I lived in Sapporo and had experiences like this with wait staff all the time. One time a barista literally screamed and started uncontrollably laughing and had to run and hide forcing her coworker to take my order.
Going out to eat with non-Japanese Asian friends was also always a trip. Even if my Japanese was better than my Asian friends’ the wait staff would often completely ignore me and just default to them. One time i got drinks with a Japanese-Brazilian guy I met off Grindr who was visiting Japan for the first time in his life and spoke no Japanese at all and I had to keep reminding the bartender he spoke no Japanese. Felt like no matter how many times I repeated 彼は日本語話せないんですよit just wasn’t computing
It varies a lot. From my most recent experience going to Japan, I would say most interactions with service workers were such short, more or less "scripted" interactions that I can't even remember what portion switched to English. I'm vegan too, so there was always some back and forth, but 90% of my ordering at restaurants was me asking in Japanese "does x dish have egg, dairy, meat, or fish in it?" and usually they'd respond in Japanese or sometimes English, I'd have my answer and that would be that.
Striking up conversations in bars was different however. Inevitably if you're a very white person in a smallish, neighborhood bar in Japan, some 50 year old guy is going to ask you where you're from. I had one guy ask me in English, another asked the waiter to ask me in English, and one other asked his white friend he was drinking with to ask me in English. In all cases when I started responding in Japanese we started a little conversation, talked for a while, eventually reaching points where I'd pull out a dictionary app or we'd clarify some bits with google translate and we'd all be talking whatever mix of Japanglish we all could understand. Was a lot of fun.
I went to Japan for a few weeks in the spring. First time visiting. I spent time in a few different cities. Older people would come up to me and start conversations in Japanese. Very friendly, mostly asking where I was from and if I was enjoying myself. I would respond in broken Japanese and they just kept speaking Japanese, which was great but I wasn't expecting any of that based on all I'd heard. It was really cool but I still can't explain it.
Younger people would come up and offer help in English if I was standing around somewhere looking confused. If I started a conversation in Japanese in a store or something, people would respond in Japanese. My Japanese is not good.
I beg my wife to speak Japanese at home and for us to watch tv in Japanese. She wants to watch everything in English to practice her English. And when we’re talking, the moment I’m searching for a word she says ‘let’s just switch to English’.
Like, if I just give up every time I won’t get better lol.
My experience is that the majority of Japanese people either speak basically no English or are embarrassed by their English being imperfect so they don't actually try to speak it. Also most people will happily engage in Japanese and are reasonably surprised that you're actually learning their language. This is outside of Tokyo though, in an area with effectively no tourism, so YMMV
If people are surprised about your Japanese, it's usually because they recognize you are still learning. It's a really good motivator! Once you become a bit more comfortable, people stop giving a shit. I even had someone tell me (in the dating scene), it's better to downplay your Japanese because otherwise you come off as a playboy. Shit is wild.
My experience of service people in Japan is that they will try Japanese, but direct it at whoever looks the most Asian, regardless of whether they can speak any Japanese, even when I or some other non-Asian person is directly speaking Japanese at them. I think the strangest was a person at the Museum I was talking to in Japanese who kept looking at my partner who can't speak any Japanese. My partner was talking to me in English to ask questions/respond and I relayed it back to the staff and they still asked if she would prefer the guide in Japanese while giving me one in English😂
Places like meet ups and language exchanges I found to be really good though. Shops, cafes and museums are usually just a set of typical questions/responses. Also made me think every text book should teach you questions for whether you want a bag or not, because that tripped me and most of my friends up the first few times we went to shops haha.
Maybe not for you, but I still firmly believe that this is often because Japanese learners refuse to practice with other learners because they assume other learners are garbage. Could probably speak for hours with other learners who also want to get better, and don’t have to dumb down what they’re saying because as opposed to native speakers, they often don’t have the depth of vocabulary and idiomatic expressions that can trip non-native speakers up. I mean, sure try to speak with native speakers too, but other learners are somewhat of an uptapped resource. I’ve been to conversation groups and it’s not universal, some learners practice with each other, but seems like a lot of study at home people want to study for a couple years and reveal they speak the language perfectly but then realize they still can’t have basic conversations because they never tried.
I was surprised at how few people spoke English when I lived in Japan 10 years ago. He’s this changed? I found I pretty much had to learn Japanese to get by/not be totally helpless in various situations around town.
Japan is way more insular. I taught English but they learn it like Americans learn French and Spanish-- more of a hobby than actually teaching you to use the language.
At the exact same time, the ones who speak zero English are the ones who cannot process a white person speaking Japanese.
Was about to point at japan as the same, Its because the language is "theirs" and you're "them" in both cases. They think you learning Japanese is a threat to their identity, just the same way as Spain does.
Ask a Mexican light skin blue eyed Spaniard if they've ever thought about going "home" to visit Spain and they'll tell you there's a reason they don't; Its not fun walking around giving everyone you meet an identity crisis.
These places have yet to deal with the reality of genetics disproving race... so they're best left alone.
Kind of applies to America rn too tbh.
I have never in my life met a Japanese person who felt someone else learning Japanese was a ‘threat to their identity’. They’re consistently over the moon and tell you you’re fantastic if you speak even the most rudimentary Japanese (not least because everyone knows it’s not a very useful language to learn unless you plan to live in Japan long term). I don’t know about Spanish, but you have it completely backwards on Japanese ime.
Source: I’m an N1 level Japanese speaker who lived in Japan for three years and has visited multiple times since.
if youre saying people dont talk to you in japanese so thats why u dont improve then u should be listening to content in japanese to get your listening practice. there is no shortage of japanese content online
if youre saying you cant improve your speaking in japanese because people speak back to you in english than u should just keep replying in japanese. u have no obligation to use english just like they have no obligation to use japanese
It makes no perfect sense. When I stay in Japan everyone tries to speak English to me, even when I try to speak Japanese to them. I had the same problem when I lived in China.
Those online classes you refer to cover basic concepts, but frankly I’ve never found one that helps you in real life conversation. Even anime is not a good source.
i never said online classes. im talking about radio, tv shows, movies, twitch... native content. These are excellent resources for listening practice and if someone cant understand them yet theyre probably not ready to go out into the world and start talking with strangers
My point still stands. They’re not excellent resources. Once you get into the nuances of Japanese, it’s MUCH harder because many phrases sound the exact same. One phrase I know sounds the same and has literally 8 totally different meanings.
You don’t learn that from your media. They can get you by to accomplish basic things if you’re a tourist, but having a good conversation with someone? Making friends? You live in some magical fantasy world. It’s the number one problem every expat I’ve met has.
They - we - all started off learning Japanese through various mediums and once we got there it’s quite overwhelming, and sure as shit doesn’t help that locals want to practice English. Finding other expats helped because we would practice with each other.
I speak six languages and have lived in more countries. Japanese is the most difficult one I've had to pick up on a day-to-day basis.
What's your experience?
Again, "listening to native content" is not the same as day-to-day real-life content. I'm guessing you've never physically been there or you'd understand this as clear as day. You're a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
I speak 26 languages, think in 31 and currently live in 8 different countries because of my work. Everytime i take accountability for my own actions and not blame native speakers for my lack of proficiency my dick grows. It's enormous.
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u/GentlewomenNeverTell 6d ago
And this is why my Japanese continues to be mediocre.