Surprise English!
January 17th, 2006 by MarkIt’s no secret that the Japanese suck at English. Even though it’s compulsory for them to study it from elementary school on, and even though many study it in cram schools starting as soon as kindergarten, they suck. I don’t just mean a little, either. Even compared to Korean, Chinese, and Arabic speakers, the Japanese really suck at English. (Please don’t take offense at this, Kei, Ryuta, or Kazuto. You guys are are all the more impressive for overcoming what so few of your countrymen could.) It was in Japan that Engrish was born.
There are many theories as to why the Japanese struggle so much, such as geographic isolation, having a language with so few syllables, or cultural barriers to truly using foreign languages. I am far from qualified to weigh in on such an issue. However, I believe I’ve found the answer: All of their problems stem from programs like Surprise English.
Rewards and Punishments
Overwhelmed by Cuteness
I Can Speak English
I’ll Have This One Please
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January 17th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
So, how long did you teach in Japan? After five years teaching there, and now two years in China, I have to say that I find the level of English generally higher there, and my best students in Japan FAR surpass my best in China. So who sucks the most? At this point, I’d have to say it’s the Zhongguoren.
January 17th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Back when I studying at UCB, I did a research project on second language acquisition that compared the progress of various east Asian ESL learners between the ages of 18 and 27 based on native language and gender.
Initially, I had some hypothesis about the affect of gender on performance. However, I was shocked to find that the difference between Japanese and other speakers was far, far greater than the difference between male and female learners. Based on the results of the (admittedly small) group I examined, Japanese students struggled to achieve the same skills as those of Chinese students who had studied for only half as many class hours. If you are interested in this, I can probably drag up my paper and email it to you.
I’m curious about your experiences, though. Where in Japan were you? Where in China are you? Is it possible that you are comparing affluent Japanese students who have had years of English education starting in elementary school with much less affluent Chinese students who have had much less study time? Other than Shanghai, the only places where Chinese speakers have had a similar amount of English exposure would probably all be in Taiwan.
BTW: I did NOT intend for this to be a serious post.
January 18th, 2006 at 1:24 am
Ha! Nice… I liked the first two a lot more than the second two.
I agree with Mark that the Chinese/Taiwanese (and the Koreans) generally have better English than the Japanese. (I taught foreign students for two years at the University of Florida.)
January 22nd, 2006 at 10:44 pm
A student of mine today mentioned another theory for you: Japanese people have a problem with English because so many modern Japanese words are a derivative of English words (eg pla-su-tik), so people get used to speaking “Engrish”.
January 23rd, 2006 at 2:26 am
That should help them with vocabulary, but it could hurt their pronunciation. I’ve noticed that my students in Taiwan, occasionally mis-pronounce certain words even after they have nearly undetectable accents. Those words are “seven”, “eleven”, “call”, “hip-hop”, and several other words which have made it into Chinese as 外來語 (loan words).