19 Asiaphiles who love to talk about Jap-lish
Description
This article is from the Japanese FAQ, by TANAKA Tomoyuki tanaka@cs.indiana.edu and Olaf Meeuwissen olaf@IMSL.shinshu-u.ac.jp with numerous contributions by others.
19 Asiaphiles who love to talk about Jap-lish
Reischauer, Jared Taylor, Nicholas Kristof
whole books on Jap-lish
other names for Jap-lish: Jinglish, Japalish,
Japanglish, Nip-lish?,
Janglish (suggested by Rhialto)
(not to be confused with:
wasei eigo, Japanese English, broken English)
> Hi,
> Wanna have a laugh at Japan English...? Then come to my new
> revised and enhanced website at
>
> [ http://freespace.virgin.net/r.barnett/jappics/japmain.html ]
>
> Lots of great new examples fresh from the Island Country!!
> Let me know what you think
re: white American teachers of English in Japan
see:
http://freespace.virgin.net/r.barnett/jappics/student.html
note: the word "American" (like "Nazi") has a symbolic
meaning far broader than its primary, literal meaning.
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In article < ...> , < kabikira@aol.com> wrote:
>
> there are very few good instructors out there. some instructors refuse
> to believe that caucasians can handle kanji, so the standards for
> learning the language are quite low.
yes. this must be a factor.
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the reason i brought up this topic of
"why Americans can't speak Japanese well."
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i know how some Americans *LOVE* to ridicule Japanese's English (see
examples of Reischauer and others below).
some of it is fine; we can all be ethnocentric once in a while.
but i've heard too much of this stuff and i'm getting annoyed with it.
i want to remind such Americans the following basic facts before they
get too carried away.
1. Japanese living in the USA speak *much* better English than
Americans living in Japan speak Japanese.
2. after, say, 2 years of classroom instruction,
Japanese know (speak/write) much more English than
Americans know (speak/write) Japanese.
3. overall, Americans are probably the worst in the world (certainly
worse than Japanese) when it comes to mastering foreign
languages (and appreciating/respecting foreign cultures).
a well-known joke: (i first read this in Newsweek a decade ago.)
Question: what do you call a person who speaks 3 languages?
Answer: a trilingual.
Question: what do you call a person who speaks 2 languages?
Answer: a bilingual.
Question: what do you call a person who speaks only 1 language?
Answer: an American.
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