Why do the Japanese struggle with English?

In the opening lines of Anna Karenina Tolstoy wrote " all happy families are happy in the same way but unhappy families find their own individual ways to be unhappy", or words to that effect.

All good language learners, of whatever national origin, are in some ways the same. What about those who struggle? Does it depend on their nationality? Here I am following up on Hiroshi's comment on Swedes speaking so well.

I know Japanese people who speak English very well. Some are members of The Linguist. Yet it is true that most Japanese people I meet in business, or who are living and working in Canada, struggle with their English. There is much handwringing in Japan over their poor average TOEIC scores and other indicators that even in Asia the Japanese do more poorly than other countries.

In my view the Japanese face a few unique obstacles, and share other problems with other larger language groups. These problems do not affect those language learners who manage to liberate themselves from these obstacles. These are the good language learners who are in the same category as the Swedes we are talking about and all other good language learners whether from Asia, Africa, Europe or wherever.

A major problem is the "language or cultural ego" that Hiroshi referred to. " We are unique. Our language is unique. Our culture/language is uniquely refined, difficult, expressive. I do not want to lose my uniqueness. How can I possibly become a fluent speaker of another language when I am so unique." This attitude is strong in Japan and East Asia, but also exists to varying degrees among other people everywhere.

If you cannot believe in and look forward to the idea that you will become a natural speaker of another language; if you cannot make another language and some of the behaviour of another culture your model to imitate and emulate; if you resist this process; if you think this process is a big serious deal, rather than an entertaining adventure; you will always be on the outside of the language looking in.

I will continue on the subject in subsequent posts. I await comments.

Comments

[jemini]

I don't think that "language or cultural ego" has much to do with it. I believe it all has do to with hearing. If you can't hear it, you can't reproduce it.

Many Cantonese and Taiwanese can't pronouce the Mandarin number shi(10) correctly, becasue they can't produce the r sound. They compensate by adding extra endings to words. For example, instead of saying nar(where), they'll say na li.

So then what do they hear? They hear an r sound, but not all of it. And those parts or points that they miss causes their accents. It causes them not to be understood correctly, because as far as they're concerned they're saying the words the way they heard it, they way they understood it should be pronounced.

Have you ever heard a deaf person speaking. No matter how hard they try, they can't say the words correctly. Since they can't hear it correctly, they can't reproduce it.

The Swedes may have an easier time with English, because English doesn't have any sounds that they haven't heard. I not sure how well they would do in Japanese or Chinese.

So how does one overcome this? Listen, listen, listen untill you hear what you have been missing.

[Edwin]

Jemini,
I think Steve is talking about more of an 'attitude' side, and you are talking about the technical side.

The technical problem you describe would probably contribute to the accents. They can still speak the language in an understandable and fluent way, but they would have accents.

I don't know Swedish, but I know that different languages usually have different phonetic sounds. I don't think one can learn an entirely new language without learning new sounds.

I do agree with Steve that the 'cultural egoism' is a huge obstacle to language learning. The scary thing is that it usually creeps into your subconscious mind without you knowing it.

Steve,
I hope you are getting better now. Take care!

[Steve]

Jemini,

The strong "r" of Pekingese is not a required standard of Mandarin. Pin Yin deliberately went away from the "shr" spelling of Wade Giles Romanization and uses "shi" which is closer to the way many hundreds of millions of Chinese say it. "Nali" is quite standard and not a substitute for "naer".

Southerners and others hear the rolling "r" but mostly do not try to imitate it. Similarly there are French, German, Swedish and even Italian native speakers who either use the guttural "r" or the rolled or trilled "r". It is not because they do not hear the difference. It is how they choose to speak.

English speakers who cannot make the guttural "r" of French and German, nevertheless hear it. If they apply themselves they can learn to pronounce it in most cases.

[Richard]

To Steve
This is my first post on this blog.

I have seen a few video clips of you speaking Chinese, and Japanese unscripted. It sounds quite impressive.

I would like to ask whether you have any plans to keep up and improve your Chinese and Japanese. If so, how would you assess your ability in these two languages, and what else would you do to improve your mastery of these languages besides regular reading?

[Tony]

Steve, I was going to ask, do you think to learn a language well has anything to do with personal interests? The reason I asked is that you mentioned one of the important facts to improve language skill is through comprehensive reading, and choose the content that you feel interesting. If a person has few interests, he/she probably has no motivation reading any articles in target language, consequently, probably will not be able to improve. I am not sure if that is the case? Thanks.

[Steve]

Richard,

Of the foreign languages that I speak I would rate myself as follows out of 6 in my top three languages.
French 6
Japanese 5.5
Mandarin 5
I will be working to improve on all my languages by combining listening, reading and vocabulary study. I will be doing it using the Linguist system, in order that the process be as intense and efficient as possible with a minimum of memory leakage. That is part of the reason for developing the multilanguage version of the system.

Tony,
It was only when I got turned on to French that I learned it. Then many different types of French content became interesting to me. When I study I find it easier to read and listen, and reread and relisten to content that I like.
I believe this has to do with engaging some of the parts of the brain that have to do with emotion. Langaug learning cannot just be a logical exercise, in fact it is not primarily a logical exercise, I believe, it is much more an emotional one. Your likes and dislikes matter.
If you are interested in content you struggle to figure out the meaning, and usually you have a feeling for the context.
A person who has few interests will not be a successful language learner. They are probably not very motivated to do much.

[hiroshi]

What Jemini said is true to a certain extent. The closer sounds are, the easier it becomes to learn a target language. For example, my American professor who teaches at a university in Bangkok told me that it is easier for him to understand English thai or chinese students speak than Japanse counterparts. Then, I remembered what a professor who taught a phonetics at my previous university said: Most problems with phonetics boil down to whether one can distinguish vowels correctly or not. Certainly, it was relatively easy to tell consonants, but I still have some difficulties pronoucing vowels properly because of the differences in the numbers of vowels between my first language, Japanese and English. On the other hand, why is it that thai/ chinese students ( perhaps, the Swedes as well as those whose mother tongue is closer to English) can pronouce better English? Later on, as I study these languages, I learned that in terms of phonetics, thai/chinese have more phonetic sounds, especially, vowels than Japanese that has only 5 vowels and therefore it is easier for them to pick up English pronunciation.

This is however the minor issue, compared with cultural ego( or psychological obstables). what are the underlying motive that urges us to listen over and over again? If we have a cultural ego, is it not one of the major obstacles that prevent us from listening a lot?
To make it clear, Let me explain the nature of ego and why it is detrimental to langauge learning.( I may be mistaken though,,,this is just what I have learned through my observations)

In my opinion, having ego or a certain belief is the dangerous thing, for belief such as some ism like Hinduism, Buddhism can lead to divisions and then the division creates conflicts as seen in politics, religions etc, both internationally and domestically. What is inside is what is outside and vice versa, that is, these external events stem from internal problems, namely, ego and many other psychological problems.
This is not irrelevant to cultural ego and language learning. Belief that my culture is superior does cause lots of problems as I stated above. And it is this assumptions that keep us from improving, say, in pronunciation. For instance, just look at kids whose minds are less conditioned by ego or knowledge or adults who truly enjoy a language and a country they are in. Since they have little/no cultural ego, they just listen, imitate and naturally pick up an excellent pronunciation. On the other hand, I know intellectuals ( like some university professors) who speak unnatural English with awful accents. Some even obtained the PHD in linguisitic and had lived in English speaking countries for years. But they nevertheless speak such English. What on earth is it that is holding them back?
As I listened to them, I one day noticed that it was the very knowledge and higher degrees ( or ego that they are more knowledgeable than laymen) that made them more complacent and so prevented them from picking up better pronunciation. Ironically, at times it seems to me that the more we have, the further away we get from what is important.

Lastly, let me quote from a book of Dr Andrew weil, The marriage of the sun and moon. His statement is quite similar to that of Steve san.( if you are interested, see page 5-6)
: I knew that Latin America would be a rich source of information. Therefore, I went to Mexico to learn Spanish. Once in Mexico, I quickly abandoned my plan to take formal language classes in Cuernavaca and settled instead in the nearby village of Tepoztlan. There I became one of the first students in a new, experimental school called the colegio de Tepoztlan, under the direction of Marco Polansky, an offbeat teacher and unforgettable charactor. Marco's philosophy of learning languages was out of the ordinary but struck me as corrent. He said that we all had the capacity to learn languages, since we did it as infants, that it had nothing to do with intellect but rather was an operation of the unconscious mind. The only abilities it depended upon were accurate listening and accurate imitating. Therefore, the way to learn a new language is to want to learn it badly and immerse yourself in it, letting as much of it flow into the unconscious mind as possible. Whether you understand it or not is irrelevant. Forget about grammar books and formal instruction, Marco said. Just listen and imitate.
Classes were bizarre. Sometimes Marco would have us fall into trance states to the accompaniment of recorded chamber music while he intoned vocabulary words from a Spanish comic book.When pressed for more-structured help, he would decline, saying that there was no way to teach another person a language. He did arrange for us to be apprenticed to local people to force us to talk. I was placed in the care of the village carpenter and spent many pleasant afternoons with him in an outdoor shop, helping to make furniture.
I must say that the Polansky method worked like a charm. In three months I was speaking passable Spanish and three months after that I was speaking good Spanish. The only other language I ever learned as well was German, and that took four years of painful work in high school. I would never again attempt to learn a language by studying it and I have no doubt that I can learn any language now just by really wanting to and placing myself in the right part of the world:

So the point is that with less/no ego in the mind, learning a language badly and immerse oneself in it would be a key. Then, we do not resist the process of language learning and naturally simply take it in.

I am hoping that Steve san will elaborate more on the mental process of your language acquisition you have gone through in your next book.

[Roni]

This is my first post on this blog, but this topic caught my eye because I am an English teacher working in Japan.

I would agree variously with the comments above. As Jemini said, speakers of languages with similar phonologies to their target language obviously have an advantage, but in my opinion, this just goes as far as pronunciation, as well as aiding with remembering vocabulary. Of course similar grammatical systems and vocabulary aid greatly in understanding and remembering easily - I believe I have had some success in learning Spanish for this reason - however in Japan I don't feel this is especially the case.

As far as the aforementioned 'cultural ego' is concerned, I don't find that it is an obstacle for my students. Many are proud of their culture and in fact benefit from talking about it. It is of course true though that students who don't listen and don't respond to any kind correction during or after speaking don't develop so much. The students I have who have been and are developing the best are those who have the habit of learning something new and using it straight away, and those who, for want of a better word, "steal" what I say straight out of my mouth and use it against me!

In my experience, I find that most students can't speak because they often don't realise that language is by and large about communication. I find this problem manifests itself in 2 ways. 1, is the other side of Hiroshi-san's professor problem. Some students come to the class with an obeisant 'Hai, Sensei!' mentality, I'm guessing this is probably the way they would study many other things in Japan. When this subsides and they relax, then things start flowing and they enjoy themselves, ask questions and always have things to talk about in class.

Which leads to 2, they come to the lesson and give single word responses: 'What did you get up to at the weekend?' - 'Job, part-time job'. Which leads us back to Hiroshi-san's absolutely fundamental point of wanting to learn a language, thus wanting to be able to communicate not just enough, but everything and more in a way that would be "agreeable to the ears" of native speakers. I often tell my students when they get embarassed about their mistakes - how ever gently I correct them - that it's not wrong, it's just native speakers don't say it like that.

[Mitch]

I think that motivation (along with a good method) is more important than cultural ego. Leonard Newmark (who promoted "comprehensible input" before Krashen) pointed out the following: There were inmates in prison camps and concentration camps during World War II who learned German well enough to pass as natives when they escaped. One could scarcely say that they had any love of the culture of their camp guards. But their motivation--survival--was extraordinary.

[Mike]

I have to agree that cultural egoism, egotism...whatever its called, definately plays a big part in the reasons why the Japanese cant speak English. I am a teacher in Japan working at a Junior High school and have had countless experiences that reinforce this idea. It seems that from an early age Japanese kids are told that Japan is unique, the culture is unique and most importantly the Japanese people themselves are unique. That is they are fundimentally different in the way that they think and act. This idea reinforces something calld "uchi and Soto" which is a basic principle of Japanese society. Roughly translated it means inside and outside and Japanese people divide their lives according to this idea. If a Japanese considers you to be "inside then you will be treated very differently to someone they consider to be "outside". Simply put friends are inside, strangers are always outside. The idea of inside and outside runs very deeply within the Japanese mind and most Japanese will still consider Japan inside and the rest of the world outside. Consider the average Japanese tour group abroad- they stick very closely together, dont talk to anyone outside of the group and basically have a goldfish bowl attitude about the country they are visiting. If we look at the problems Japanese encounter when learning languages many of them can be attributed to this inside and outside way of thinking. Foreigners in Japan, as a general rule, are always viewed as outside. How could a Japanese ever communicate sucessfully with someone who couldnt possibly begin to understand the Japanese way of thinking, someone who is so absolutely outside of the "Japanese family". Well, the answer is they can, very easily, if they just forget about this inside, outside ideal.
One point in reference to the idea of Japanese being "unique" (i mean the people not the culture) it was a goverment propaganda scheme at the end of the second world war created to improve the moral of the defeated nation. The Japanese were told that they had a genetic makeup unique to Japanese people and different to everyone else in the world. This caused them to have different feelings and act differently to everyone else. Many Japanese still believe this today.