Warum sind Japaner so schlecht in Englisch, während in Südkorea ein TOEIC-Wert von 900 an der Tagesordnung ist? „Die größte strukturelle Hürde für Japaner, Englisch zu lernen, ist ironischerweise die Größe ihrer entwickelten Wirtschaft und ihres Inlandsmarktes.“
https://president.jp/articles/-/113950
14 Kommentare
from my own experience. they just refuse to engage with the language altogether
japangrish is as far as it goes for many, even for younger generations
it’s not even about being scared or embarrassed, but just no interest and all
for many/most people english is a necessity even as a 2nd language which is why it is being taught in school. you really don’t see such push even at university here (in a way it makes you wonder if it is done on purpose to avoid brain drain)
I mean it’s similar in Europe. The Dutch are the best in Western Europe because nobody is translating shit into Dutch.
when i was in ESL class in the US, i noticed that korean students had much better ability to speak and pronounce english words than japanese students. i always wondered why such difference becuase japanese and korean sound a bit similar. they also mastered the language much quicker.
edit : fixed for clarification
They think there’s no need to go abroad, so they don’t learn English. But I understand that this is starting to change recently. I read an article saying that young people are going to work in places like Australia because they no longer think living in Japan is good.
Until recently, it was simply because they had the second largest economy in the world and everyone was doing just fine only knowing Japanese. Knowing English, for the most part, did not really benefit most people, so in the end, why learn it.
“But they learn it in school”. As a Canadian, I spent 11 years learning French in school. Even used it for my language (grade) 11 university requirement. I can barely put together a sentence nowadays. I learnt for the tests and basically forgot it afterwards.
Plenty of reasons, as others mentioned. Japan was an economic powerhouse for decades, and there was never a need to learn English to get ahead career-wise.
Also, the incompetent English education system continues to do damage. In many schools, Japanese English teachers are still using the ancient grammar-translation method, which is not only ineffective in terms of acquiring the language but also tends to demotivate students by associating learning English with something tedious and boring.
Many textbooks are also crap, focusing on strange expressions and not really engaging learners in a meaningful way. Hey, if you still remain motivated after school, you might join an eikaiwa to improve your skills, just to be met with mostly random, unqualified native speakers who are using their company’s „methodology,“ which is often structured as a sales model rather than a genuine educational philosophy.
Anecdotal, but I have a Japanese friend we’ve visited recently in Japan who speaks fluent English. She learned it in high school all the way to collage she said and just kept on practicing. She came to US and lived here a bit and that gave her more practice. Her husband who’s also Japanese does not speak English. So right now she gets to have jobs so quickly from anywhere but her husband cannot.
Funny in our recent trip we talked about this too with her that it would be good for any country to learn the “global language” to be able to compete but she said sadly in many cases Japanese just doesn’t see the value of it.
I guess they just don’t want to learn a language that it’s forced to them.
I live now in Spain, most people that I’ve met have no interest in the language or kinda hate it because they were forced to learn it and mostly only use it *to server guiris* in their own words. So they see it as a language that certifies their vassalage.
As Japanese for us is a mix of we don’t like to be force onto a particular language, our institutions teach English in a extremely rubbish way (this might be the most important reason) and we certainly don’t feel *the need* to learn it as we do not face the need to use it on our daily lives.
I know this might be upsetting for native English speakers but in my experience they usually show no intent on learning the local language even if they move to another country.
Controversial but I just don’t think Japanese culture and mentality fits second language acquisition. Learning a language, you have to be ready to make tens of thousands of mistakes, have them pointed out, possibly have someone laugh at you and so on.
Back when I was teaching English a lot of people would just lock up and freeze after making a minor mistake and having it corrected. Then they’d hesitate to try again in fear of making another one.
Some would be afraid to talk if it were a group lesson because they didn’t want to be judged by other Japanese students.
Many would also spend 5 minutes thinking of a response to “what did you do last weekend?” So they could give a perfect sentence.
The ones that weren’t like this were either overseas returnees or those ‘out’ of the ‘system’ so they didn’t give a shit about making mistakes and/or adored overseas.
Same reason why the US and the UK are bad at foreign languages.
Pride and xenophobia. To learn another language is to understand it’s culture. The want to do this is a rarity in Japan.
Here, I will tell you what the natives say to their young :
« In Japan, you don’t need English. »
Or it’s maybe all those English teachers with zero qualifications.
Its probably the same reason americans in general aren’t bilingual