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Thread: Assumptions that gaijin cannot speak Japanese (at all)

  1. #151
    遠いから行きません GaijinPunch's Avatar
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    毎月、占いに10万円以上注ぎ込んでいる人もいるようで すので、この産業を撲滅しようとしたら、大仕事になる と思います。
    なくならない企業ですね。奥さんがわざわざ池袋まで有 名な占い師の所まで行ってました。英語は弱い方なのに 海外に引っ越したらローカルの人で受けていると思います。自分では完璧にお金 の無駄だと思っているけど「人にはそれぞれ」って覚え たら自分の生活が楽になると思います。

    My point is they should have known some of us eat horse and seen my eating horse as respectfully as I don't care if they are vegetarians/dog-eaters/cat-eaters or not.
    Well, at least you didn't eat whale. There would definitely have been some nastier looks. I'm an ex-smoker vegetarian (although I do eat seafood) but can sit in a room with people eating Yakiniku, and smoking. Tolerance is a beautiful thing.

  2. #152
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gaijinian
    ...after trying to explain for a while, she finally said 英語できなくてツライわ!...
    Can someone translate the japanese into English, please?
    Last edited by monrepo; Oct 15, 2005 at 04:01.

  3. #153
    Danshaku Elizabeth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gaijinian
    Japanese cheat "gaijin" by assuming they cannot speak Japanese without talking to them, it's "gomakashi!"
    (前の翻訳:)日本人が外人に騙して会話しないで日本 語ができないと決するなんて胡麻菓子だ!
    話題に合っていて、さ、使ってみようと思いました。
    外人に騙して would be 外人 wo 騙して, but the placement is also wrong. Think about it more in relation to your subject.

  4. #154
    ┣¨キ(*゚д゚*)┣¨キ meverieJp's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maciamo
    Yet I have the feeling that there are proportionally much more people believing in fortune-telling than science in Japan compared to Europe (note that I did not say "compared to the USA").
    That would be true but I doubt all of them truly believe it. I'd say most of them rather consider it as an entertainment or a tool to break the ice like some forum members said (whether you like it or not it's just their way).
    More serious case is that it would be a first consultant for some of them to ask so as to ease their mental anxiety instead of psychological counseling, which incites them to fortune-telling addiction.

    Quote Originally Posted by Maciamo
    But don't forget that not everyone like horses (it's not one of my favourite animal) and Westerners also eat horse meat (especially in French speaking countries like France, Belgium or Quebec). According to Wikipedia (see link above), 153,000 tonnes of horse meat was consumed in Europe in 2001.
    Thank you for the link. that accounts for the contradiction of the people I came across.

    Quote Originally Posted by Maciamo
    They know that some people eat horse also in the West. But I am sure the people you met would have reacted the same way in their own country if someone had eaten horse in front of them.
    That's even worse if they had known it.lol
    Maybe those people are not cut out for going overseas..

    And I'm not sure if this makes you feel better (I hope you will), but I asked a guy who used to work at an eikaiwa school how many teachers could speak Japanese at a reasonable level after several years stay in Japan. and the answer is:
    "Are you joking?! Most of those teachers come to Japan just to party or hook up girls or because they couldn't get a decent job in their own country! People who were seriously trying to learn Japanese were less than 10%! I know a girl who has just started learning Japanese after 4 years stay and a guy who had been living with a Japanese girl friend for 4 years while going to Japanese school. They even frequently asked me about Japanese language!" (This guy's Japanese speaking ability is at around 4 years old level from my judgement)

    I'm not saying it's all of them but somehow, I can easily imagine how many would-be teachers are alike.

  5. #155
    ┣¨キ(*゚д゚*)┣¨キ meverieJp's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GaijinPunch
    なくならない企業ですね。奥さんがわざわざ池袋まで有 名な占い師の所まで行ってました。英語は弱い方なのに 海外に引っ越したらローカルの人で受けていると思います。自分では完璧にお金 の無駄だと思っているけど「人にはそれぞれ」って覚え たら自分の生活が楽になると思います。
    そうですね。似てるようで違うところが面白い。それに 自分の懐が痛むわけでもなし。笑) 
    I rather enjoyed it because I found it interesting to see. ;)
    逆に自分にそっくりすぎる人には、近寄らないかもしれ ません。

  6. #156
    Regular Member Gaijinian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by monrepo
    Can someone translate the japanese into English, please?
    英語できなくて辛いわ!
    "Me not being able to speak English makes it difficult!"
    Note: The way she used "turai" was strange, I think. I usually refers to emotional pain:
    つらい 辛い
    hard; painful; trying; bitter; unbearable; heartbreaking; tough.
    (形)[文]ク つら・し
    (1)心身に苦痛を感ずる。苦しい。がまんできない。
    「―・い修行」「別れが―・い」
    (2)人に対する仕打ちに思いやりがない。つめたくむご� 「。無情・冷酷だ。
    「―・く� たる」「―・い仕打ち」
    (3)どうしてよいかわからず苦しむ。困る。
    「それを言われると―・い」
    (4)人の心を汲(く)もうとしない。つれない。
    「吉野川よしや人こそ―・からめ/古今(恋五)」
    →づらい
    I guess she had meant it as simply as "komaru" (or I HOPE, anyway...).
    これからも絶対頑張る〜

  7. #157
    You SPAM/We BAN !
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    Strange & funny ?

    The police used to raid the bar in Fukuoka where I worked about once a month. They would line us up and question us all for an hour and then leave. Almost everytime the officer would question me in Japanese and I would answer in Japanese. The officer would then ask one of my co-workers what I said and he would repeat what I said ,word for word, my Japanese answer ; then the officer would nod and write it down. We all used to laugh like hell at him (after he left) and do skit type repeats of it , and laugh some more.

    Frank

    TAKE WHAT I SAY WITH A GRAIN OF SUGAR !!
    I USED TO BE FUNNY, BUT MY WIFE HAD ME NEUTERED!

  8. #158
    Regular Member Gaijinian's Avatar
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    Strange and funny...

  9. #159
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    to Gaijinian

    Thank you

  10. #160
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    All you have to do is read Alan Booth's books about his walks in Japan from the tip of Hokkaido to the tip of Kyushu. A man who spoke perfect Japanese but in his travels through this dark archipelago you begin to realize how deeply and truly ignorant the Japanese mixed race are. Always asking stupid questions "Do you like natto?" (to make conversation??? really??) and refusing the FACT that this gaijin could speak Japanese even in many local dialects. In Japaland ignorance rules.

  11. #161
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    Oh and don't walk through Japan the poor guy died shortly after of cancer. Hiking through this country could be bad for your health,

  12. #162
    Master of the Universe Bucko's Avatar
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    celtician, similar stories can be found in Hokkaido Highway Blues. The author actually talks about Alan Booth a few times.

  13. #163
    Nipponster
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    When your japanese gets to a decent level (and you don't need to practice on random strangers anymore) why fight the Nihonjin urge to "try out" their English on you?
    I find it more amusing and less stressful to let them try the conversation in Engrish. Less work and more fun.

    Plus, for me, the better my Japanese has become and the more I understand the Japanese, the less confortable I feel speaking in Japanese; except for when it is a necessity. Can anyone else relate to that?
    Tori
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  14. #164
    RaOR?!??!!1 Grammarsaurus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maciamo
    But don't forget that not everyone like horses (it's not one of my favourite animal) and Westerners also eat horse meat (especially in French speaking countries like France, Belgium or Quebec). According to Wikipedia (see link above), 153,000 tonnes of horse meat was consumed in Europe in 2001.
    Quebec is not a country, though they wish they were. I found this topic fascinating. The only Japanese person outside of tourists to Victoria BC (I worked in the Empress hotel) I regularly converse with is my friend, Minoru. Perhaps I'm lucky, because he is half-Korean, and spent his teen years in Boston, so he understood the difference between say.. a Canadian and an Australian. Or a Russian and a Swede.

    I did get quite a few surprised looks at my time in Victoria, however. I often addressed the Japanese tourists in Japanese if they were having a hard time with English. I'm at a conversational level, largely thanks to my High School offering courses for it, and my frequent communication and visits with Mino-chan. I never once heard them use gaijin when they were the ones who were foreigners, though, and you'd be amazed at how many Japanese tourists hit Victoria in the Spring and Summer seasons.

    I look forward to visiting Japan in the next couple of years, but this thread has certainly given me some food for thought. I wanted to one day live and work in Japan, my ultimate goal when I was younger was working for Squaresoft, but I'm not entirely sure anymore. I'm still young, and have many years ahead of me to figure it out in any case.

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