[net.nlang] Getting Japanese to Believe You're Speaking Japanese

barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) (12/19/85)

During my four months in Japan, I also repeatedly ran into natives who
assumed that my (undoubtedly English-accented) Japanese was some weird
variety of English.  I also found out a way around this problem....
You sneak up behind them and say (in Japanese), "Excuse me for bothering
you, but...."  Then ask your question.

On another occasion, when a taxi driver looked at me and -- _before I
could speak_ -- said, "No Engrish'" and started to drive off, I babbled,
"Ii des'.  (That's nice.)" and quickly told him my destination in Japanese.
He had the engine started when he realized he had indeed understood me --
and opened the door for me.

--Lee Gold

das@ucla-cs.UUCP (12/19/85)

In article <2528@sdcrdcf.UUCP> barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) writes:
>During my four months in Japan, I also repeatedly ran into natives who
>assumed that my (undoubtedly English-accented) Japanese was some weird
>variety of English.  I also found out a way around this problem....
>You sneak up behind them and say (in Japanese), "Excuse me for bothering
>you, but...."  Then ask your question.

Yes!  A quick "Chotto sumimasen ga ..." before the person turns their eyes to
look at you works wonderfully, and a short phrase like that can be spoken with
essentially no accent, so the double-takes can be fun when they finally see
you; at that point, your accent doesn't matter, since they're listening for
Japanese.

When I couldn't use this trick, I noticed an odd phenomenon.  In Tokyo and
Kyoto, most shop clerks, etc., responded to my Japanese in English.  But in
Osaka, Kobe, in suburbs, and in the small (pop. 300) village I was
staying in, people responded in rapid-fire Japanese.  There was no middle
ground -- I never ran into anyone who thought to speak Japanese *slowly* to an
obvious foreigner who addressed them in American-accented Japanese.

Also, no one *ever* obeyed the request "Moo ichido itte kudasai" ["Please say
that again"]  Invariably, they either paused and then tried to say what they
just said in English, or they said it in an entirely different way.  I varied
it by sometimes asking people to repeat in the same words, or more slowly,
etc., but no one *ever* did.  Why is this?  A friend has pointed out that
Americans seem to do this, too (Amer.: "You turn right at the signal, then
go straight for five blocks."  For.: "Could you repeat that, please?"
Amer.: "Sure.  Go down to the light and turn right; go five blocks and you're
there.").

-- David Smallberg, das@locus.ucla.edu, {ihnp4,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!das

ecl@mtgzz.UUCP (e.c.leeper) (12/22/85)

> Also, no one *ever* obeyed the request "Moo ichido itte kudasai" ["Please say
> that again"]  Invariably, they either paused and then tried to say what they
> just said in English, or they said it in an entirely different way.  I varied
> it by sometimes asking people to repeat in the same words, or more slowly,
> etc., but no one *ever* did.  Why is this?  A friend has pointed out that
> Americans seem to do this, too (Amer.: "You turn right at the signal, then
> go straight for five blocks."  For.: "Could you repeat that, please?"
> Amer.: "Sure.  Go down to the light and turn right; go five blocks and you're
> there.").

There is a good reason for this.  Many people with hearing difficulties have
difficulty with only certain sounds--perhaps a sibilant 's' for example.
Changing the words used to express something can make the content intelligible
where simply repeating oneself might not.  (This is what many doctors recommend
these days in dealing with older people.)  Also, someone dealing with
non-native speakers/listeners may think they have used a word the other person
never learned and try to re-phrase what they say for that reason.

					Evelyn C. Leeper
					...ihnp4!mtgzz!ecl