Do you speak Japanese ?

[deborah gormley]

@ miyuki
your school board seems quite tough!! but if thats the way its done , then so be it!! I dont know any kanji yet, it frightens me so much I cant discribe it, but maybe if I was brought up in an enviroment that needed kanji things might be sooo different!!!
I find kanji facinating with its meaning and terms of interpretation, and thats the frightening bit, lol

[bexchurnside]

@ miyuki
your school board seems quite tough!! but if thats the way its done , then so be it!! I dont know any kanji yet, it frightens me so much I cant discribe it, but maybe if I was brought up in an enviroment that needed kanji things might be sooo different!!!
I find kanji facinating with its meaning and terms of interpretation, and thats the frightening bit, lol

Deborah, it seems tough to us, many of having BA's in Japanese couldn't best them, if we even tried. If these folks go to cram school and work their best in their mother tougue vs us, well, you can guess. But then, you go to Japan, and see that these so called English teachers have a terrible command of the English language. I know many high school students would draw circles over them. So the same is simply reversed. They would think what are we doing with an entire BA with less than what the Japanese get for their minimum educational requirement. These kids have it in their bones to learn.

You know, many envy our English skills that are recongized worldwide. Japanese on the other hand is pretty much useless outside of either Japan or in situations outside of Japan, outside of Japanese corporate environment.
Even in Sao Paulo or Hawai'i, the Nikkeijin do speak English adequately enough that we really don't need to learn Japanese to get around.

The Japanese also do not ever expect us to try taking them on in the language sparing game. I talk here in competitive terms, as that is their way of thinking. Only the Kikokushijo is made to play catch up, and in some cases, the Nikkeijin who have citizenship. Many of them do go through the daunting task of playing catch up, but we need not envy. My boyfriend said that he was forced into the game where he is made to learn to not get socially outcasted, and have a good job. And many of them learn Japanese out of necessity and duty, and not out of interest like many of us do, choosing this culture. Theirs being choiceless, or almost choiceless makes the task while apparently easier to do than for us, less enjoyable, with the love of it more often than not, absent. When your hair is strawberry blond like mine, even slightly unnatural but so so well spoken Japanese is only applauded by them.

So let them be, and we do what we do in our own category.