That's what this Chosun Ilbo piece is saying anyway. I think.
A Japanese journalist reported that a graduate student studying politics at a top Japanese university could not understand what he was saying when he mentioned The Times of England. It was only when the journalist wrote down “The Times” that the student understood and said, “za-tai-muze!” the Japanese pronunciation of the name of the paper. Similarly, the Japanese pronunciation of “toilet” is “toire.”
The English-speaking capabilities of today’s young Japanese, however, are exceeding those of young Koreans. We should not base our ideas on old Japanese English. Japan is no longer a nation of incompetent English speakers.
I don't get the point of the column, but anecdotal evidence has shown that Koreans, in spite of generally having little ability to show for their decades of English study and exposure, are better at English than are the Japanese. Your thoughts?
Basically the only reason I posted this article was to share the cartoon that accompanies it. The foreigner looks about right, but as you can see the Chosun Ilbo is distorting Japanese culture by their inaccurate depiction. The Japanese man's teeth are not protruding, nor is his hair styled into a chonmage, a popular interpretation in Korea most recently seen in this Japanese textbook at my school.
Koreans enjoy deriding the Japanese for their mispronunciation of English words, though if you teach here you'll scratch your head at such an ironic and misplaced source of pride. There's a little more I want to add to that matter, but I'm saving it for a post-dated entry coming out while I'm on vacation in January. How's that for a cliffhanger?
10 comments:
A Canadian who wished to frequent such English-named businesses as "Homeplus", "Emart" and "Outback" was surprised to discover that she'd been mispronouncing these English words. Fortunately, countless taxi drivers have spent hours correcting her misguided pronunciation.
As a proud American with a love for western products, you should have seen how surprised I was when I learned I had been mispronouncing, "CostCo" for years.
Thankfully, I also had a taxi driver to correct my mistakes. Although, one actually did take us to Outback when we asked for "CostCo." True story.
Outside of several trips to Narita airport and surrounds, I've spent nearly all my time in Japan - not much - in Kyushu so it may be different elsewhere. But, in my experiences, I have found Koreans, particularly those under 30, to have a higher level of English and/or more confidence in using English - or Konglish - in transactions. (I'll leave that to you to debate whether that's actually a good thing or a bad thing).
Going to Japan, I've found nearly all the transactions outside Narita airport and Hakata port to be held in Japanese even if it's blatantly clear to the other party that I know bugger all Japanese. What follows is my futile attempts at Japanese and body language.
Also, I find there to be much more English signage in Korea than Japan. There seems to be a much greater impetus to learn Japanese in Japan as you really will be stuck without it. Whereas, this is largely not the case in Korea.
So, all in all, I think Korea is actually more English-friendly in these regards, though it's probably entirely different in big cities like Tokyo and Osaka.
That said, Japanese seem (outwardly) to be a bit less xenophobic and reactionary when they encounter a foreigner on average.
That said, I agree that Koreans shouldn't spend that much time deriding Japanese efforts at English when we're all witness to some breath-taking displays of Konglish on a daily basis!
It's the pot calling the kettle black.
jeonnamlife.com:
your observations are spot on!
(young) Koreans: much more confident in using English! (even in cases they know very little)
i ve lived in a Tokyo suburb for the last 2 1/2 years. foreigners are so common here that the appearance of a white face barely calls for extra attention. a lot of info is available in english (city offices, other services).
but verbal communication IS often a problem.
my colleague tells me that most pupils don t see the immediate benefit of studying english, therefore their motivation is quite limited.
in the end, Japan is very successful in doing business with other countries, so i guess they have english speakers in places where it is actually needed.
begs the question whether the resources spent by Koreans for learning E is a good investment.
umakk69 I think the answer to that question is clearly no. I do need to qualify and say that you can't expect a whole country to learn a language in a generation. But clearly in spite of the lip-service paid to developing communicative competence in English, that's not the real priority. Hell, I'd say developing any sort of proficiency in the language beyond what's EXACTLY needed to pass the tests is not the real priority.
I posted an account of an university professor in Korea in the 1960s, whose struggles are the exact same we're dealing with in 2008, showing that *trying to be as kind as possible* old habits die hard.
http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2008/11/must-read-account-of-teaching-english.html
Interesting point about having English speakers in places where they're actually needed. Korea has notoriously low standardized test scores in English,a point I like to make fun of because, as I said, Koreans are studying exclusively for these tests. While Koreans do have pretty low levels of English, what drags that number down is having everybody in the country taking the exam. If they would restrict the test to people who would actually potentially need English for their careers, I think that number would go up.
I think there will always be jobs available for teachers of English, just as there are jobs available everywhere for teachers/speakers of other languages. However, I'm sure English's worth will devalue drastically in Korea, once (a) people realize it's just easier to study Japanese and Chinese more, and (b) people get fed up with having native speakers in each school, and just decide to have Koreans teach the subject.
Anyway, please don't get me started about English education. It's a touchy subject with me ajf9wjf030-a3wj.
When you learn a language as an adult the hardest part is to make sounds that are not in your native language.
Many sounds in English are not in Japanese, so they find it very hard to sound natural.
Well . . . yeah.
I think we're criticizing more Koreans' eagerness to make fun of Japanese English, not Japanese English itself.
In my (nominal) experience Korean learners are more confident and this is backed up by the amount of English around the place.
Putting aside Konglish for a minute there is also a huge amount of English that has entered the Korean Lexicon, (Loan words) something that has not necessarily been the case in Japan.
In saying that, Japanese learners are probably a bit more efficient in their approach to learning English (And in a lot of other respects too). It still boggles me how Koreans can't find it within themselves to reform an education system where you have people who have been "learning" a language since elementary school, and yet while studying it as a major in University can hardly put a sentence together.
This isn't limited to English. Ever tried to speak to a French or German Major in Korea?
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