Japanese

AuntPeggy

AuntPeggy

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So, yesterday I sat in a meeting where they extolled the virtues of the company and told my group we would be reporting to a different manager, Mr Koyama. As Mr. Koyama spoke and his boss Mr. Ohtsaka spoke and Toshihide Shimayama leaned over to say something to me, it occurred to me that, in self-defense, I ought to consider learning Japanese.

Has anyone any suggestions on something that works. I tried to learn French on the train using tapes and learned enough to ask for a subway map.
 
While it's always possible to pick up another language, the only way to approach fluency is to move to a country where that language is spoken and don't make any American friends.
Rosetta Stone and community college classroom instruction are great, and necessary, for learning the structure of a language. However, the framework only starts to make sense with a ton of practice and a "natural" feeling for the rhythm, inflection, and innuendo of your target language.
I took Spanish in grade school, high school, and college and it never "clicked" until I went to Spain and stayed there for a while. Then, I got it and had a couple of years of being truly bilingual.
Unfortunately... that was ten years ago, and my fluency is sadly gone.
It's a practice a lot, then use it or lose it situation.
 
You could listen to the Styx album Mr. Roboto over and over. ;)

Japanese is a thing that, if you are serious about, takes a lot of time. You have multiple alphabets to deal with plus pronunciations that are not based on the Germanic or Romantic roots you are used to. I started learning Mandarin before tackling Japanese. To this day when I hear Japanese I end up thinking of the word they said in Mandarin first and then into English. The net result is that I can order food in a sushi restaurant and that is about it.
 
AuntPeggy said:
So, yesterday I sat in a meeting where they extolled the virtues of the company and told my group we would be reporting to a different manager, Mr Koyama. As Mr. Koyama spoke and his boss Mr. Ohtsaka spoke and Toshihide Shimayama leaned over to say something to me, it occurred to me that, in self-defense, I ought to consider learning Japanese.

Has anyone any suggestions on something that works. I tried to learn French on the train using tapes and learned enough to ask for a subway map.
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"Nihongo wa hanashimasen" works pretty well. That means "I don't speak Japanese". :D

Unless you are one of the people who can pick up languages easily I think Japanese will be difficult. It has 2 different alphabets plus the characters which are somewhat like Chinese. Of course you can do what I just did and write the phrase in Romanized letters. Probably the best thing to do to start out in a business situation would be to learn some greetings, etc. The Japanese have a very stratified society so you want to make sure you are using the honorific terms to speak with your bosses. There is also business etiquette. We read a little bit about this before our trip to Japan last year. The thing I remember is how you are supposed to hand people a business card. You give it to them with both hands with the printing facing the recipient. I noticed they do this with credit cards too.

All four of my grandparents were from Japan but my parents, who were born in this country, spoke English to me exclusively with the exception of perhaps a few baby phrases. I took a semester in college but I gave it up. Consequently my Japanese is very limited. I had never even been to Japan until last year when we flew a trip there. I wondered if people would expect me to know Japanese but I think I look and act "American" enough that only one person made that mistake, a waitress who started asking me something.
 
I have a BA in Japanese Language and Culture from the late '60s. Forgot most of it by now. Four years and I could not read a newspaper without a dictionary, and that was not all that bad. I'd spent some time in Japan when I was first learning.
Since then, I've learned German almost on my own to where I can get along socially. I also have some Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese. The Army, you know.
I took one year of Japanese in Japan, one year in a summer intensive course (6 hours a day - I was dreaming in Japanese before the summer was over) then two years of regular college.
The advice the others give is good. One thing you have to do is get an ear for the language. Expose yourself to native speakers in natural situations and pick up the sound and cadence. Let your ear tell your mouth what to do. If your eyes tell your mouth what to do, you'll have some awful accent. Your mouth must obey your ear no matter how funny your mouth feels about taking those positions and making those sounds. I'm quite serious about this. Put your ear in charge of making sure that your mouth can imitate the native sounds.
If you live in New York, you can surely get TV in Japanese, as well as movies, records, etc. You may be able to get a shortwave radio and tune in to Radio Japan although they will likely speak English. Also, you can use your computer for live audio and maybe video of Japanese radio and TV shows. In other words, there is a plethora of aural Japanese for you. Don't worry too much about the Kanji or kana unless you get really serious. The syllabaries are not that hard, as their sounds are pretty rational and consistent, but Kanji is a major pain.
I think all you can hope for is to take a course in business Japanese and get some honorifics and social chit chat down. You will always be a gaijin and the Japanese will likely insist on speaking English to you because they'll assume/conclude their English is better than your Japanese.
There are some gender differences in Japanese, both in vocabulary and style of speaking. A lot of GI's got funny looks when the took the Japanese they learned from bar girls to a different venue.
 
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I studied Japanese after I studied English and honestly Japanese is much easier language. Tonal accents? Pfffft. In English, nothing sounds right, I thought "why do you cry Willie" was going to be a death of me. I still have my irregular word tables, those were a pure madness. Granted, Japanese writing system is formiddable enough that high school students have classes where they read books aloud, but if your company does not use Japanese as official language, then who cares?

Know that it will take you several years. A you going to stick with the company that long?

One rewarding thing about Japanese is that the people love you trying to speak. I heard many stories of French pretending not to hear and generally being nasty to non-native Francophones. No such thing in Japan. Living there may be another matter... Once you stop being a novelty and turn into an irritant, xenophobia blossoms like everywhere else outside America. Fortunately you don't have to live there.
 
zaitcev said:
One rewarding thing about Japanese is that the people love you trying to speak. I heard many stories of French pretending not to hear and generally being nasty to non-native Francophones. No such thing in Japan. Living there may be another matter... Once you stop being a novelty and turn into an irritant, xenophobia blossoms like everywhere else outside America. Fortunately you don't have to live there.
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Yes those wonderful French stories. I have spent a lot of time in France, including Paris and if you are trying in earnest you will be appreciated by most people. It is the people who are using their 1 year of French from HS and actiing like it is the listeners fault for not understanding them that get the wrath of the French. Being an ugly tourist is never a good idea.

In Asia I think it amazes the Asians even more when gaijin or gweilo try to speak the local language. We are considered often times far too stupid to be able to figure such advanced things out.
 
My sister lived in Japan for a couple of years, teaching English to Sony execs. They were not terribly interested - she learned more Japanese than they learned English, I think, principally because she wanted to learn while they were obliged to learn. She ended up comfortably conversant in the language, but of course, that was thirty-some years ago. Now she speaks Australian.

---

Funny thing about the French - my young bride and I had heard all the "rude French people" stories, and were dreading it when we went to Paris for a week. Guess all the rude Parisians were on vacation or something, because we found nothing but friendly treatment there. Guess it has something to do with attitude.
 
Hours and hours and hours of watching subbed anime!
 
Even before reading any responses I was smiling at your OP. My former wife's now deceased brother went to Japan. While there he met and became very friendly with Hideshi Tamaru, at that time a high-ranking engineer with Sony. Before brother in-law could return to Japan, with sister in tow, he died in a tragic accident.

So strong was Scotty's and Hideshi's friendship that Hideshi made his first trip to America to attend the funeral. He's also a published author in Japan. Interestingly, because of his halting use of "Engrish" structure my former wife "transrates" for him.
She doesn't speak Japanese; however, he sends her manuscripts and she, with use of numerous software products, transrates his writings to a properly structured Engrish text. She then e-mails the result to him in Japan for his review prior to publishing.

Val says it's a slow process and mind-boggling.

HR
 
Lawreston said:
Even before reading any responses I was smiling at your OP. My former wife's now deceased brother went to Japan. While there he met and became very friendly with Hideshi Tamaru, at that time a high-ranking engineer with Sony. Before brother in-law could return to Japan, with sister in tow, he died in a tragic accident.

So strong was Scotty's and Hideshi's friendship that Hideshi made his first trip to America to attend the funeral. He's also a published author in Japan. Interestingly, because of his halting use of "Engrish" structure my former wife "transrates" for him.
She doesn't speak Japanese; however, he sends her manuscripts and she, with use of numerous software products, transrates his writings to a properly structured Engrish text. She then e-mails the result to him in Japan for his review prior to publishing.

Val says it's a slow process and mind-boggling.

HR
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I have a Japanese friend that has been living in the U.S. for over 7 years and even got his PhD here and yet still speaks Engrish! Its very humorous!
 
Fluent in Chinese. For Americans, a European language has more similarities. (After all, English is the world's biggest hodgepodge!)

Only studied a couple of years of Japanese, but one thing I can say is that like Chinese and Korean, the language is much more "pure" than English. The good news about that is that there are far fewer exceptions to rules! Like other posters have said, Community Colleges offer excellent courses (don't do the con ed; do the for-credit). Then find a real, live Japanese person and setup time to speak with him or her! You'll have fun, too!
 
Asian languages are difficult primarily due to character set complexity (as evidenced by other posters in the thread).

However, it is (for me, at least) relatively easy to pick up the basics in romaji, or the romanization of a word/phrase.

For example, Toire wa, doko desu ka? (Where is the bathroom?)

If I want to get fancy, I can type the romaji on my keyboard while set to the hiragana (phonetic, usually reserved for Japanese words and concepts) character set: 　といれわどこですか？

The devil, in all languages, is in the details. Counting is something I sitll don't get, and I've been practicing my Japanese for almost four years. But, I can get around Tokyo without speaking a lick of English, and generally understand what I'm doing/where I'm going. Pantomime and a dictionary to convert kanji (pictograms) into hiragana or katakana (phonetic, usually reserved for technical or foreign words).

Learning the every useful "osewa ni narimasu, taihen mousiwake gozaimasu" will help if you ever get in trouble. It is painfully over the top, but then again, foreigners usually get excused . . .

Mostly, find someone who is a speaker/instructor and spend time with them. A few hours a week, conversational, may really help. Computer-based learning is really, really hard, I think.

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
zaitcev said:
I don't think it works anywhere as well as they say. Raws I can believe, but with subs people spend too much attention at reading.
-- Pete
http://ani-nouto.animeblogger.net/
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I've gotten to the point when I know the subbers are lazy and aren't correct with their translation. I've also gotten to the point to where I know the context of the way the character is speaking to someone (rudely or very polite) which is difficult to translate into English.
 
astanley said:
Learning the every useful "osewa ni narimasu, taihen mousiwake gozaimasu" will help if you ever get in trouble.
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In that phrase I only recognize the word "taihen" which I understand as being something like "terrible". My grandmother would say it all the time along with "abunai" which means dangerous. Of course she was referring to my actions when I was a child. :redface:
 
You might consider moving to Dallas. We can order it by phone in English here.

ScottM said:
You could listen to the Styx album Mr. Roboto over and over. ;)

Japanese is a thing that, if you are serious about, takes a lot of time. You have multiple alphabets to deal with plus pronunciations that are not based on the Germanic or Romantic roots you are used to. I started learning Mandarin before tackling Japanese. To this day when I hear Japanese I end up thinking of the word they said in Mandarin first and then into English. The net result is that I can order food in a sushi restaurant and that is about it.
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And here I opened this thread thinking it was going to be about the 8,9 magnitude earthquake.
 
Everskyward said:
In that phrase I only recognize the word "taihen" which I understand as being something like "terrible". My grandmother would say it all the time along with "abunai" which means dangerous. Of course she was referring to my actions when I was a child. :redface:
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I would bet you're still pretty dangerous.
 
AuntPeggy said:
So, yesterday I sat in a meeting where they extolled the virtues of the company and told my group we would be reporting to a different manager, Mr Koyama. As Mr. Koyama spoke and his boss Mr. Ohtsaka spoke and Toshihide Shimayama leaned over to say something to me, it occurred to me that, in self-defense, I ought to consider learning Japanese.

Has anyone any suggestions on something that works. I tried to learn French on the train using tapes and learned enough to ask for a subway map.
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Go to Japan and take an "Immersion Course". Barring that, Rosetta Stone.
 
Bad juju with this thread and a tsunami later that afternoon, Japan time.

Sad video on the TV this morning.
 
denverpilot said:
Bad juju with this thread and a tsunami later that afternoon, Japan time.

Sad video on the TV this morning.
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No kidding.

There might be more Japanese on the news for Peggy to hear and see, though. I have been studying Spanish on my own for a year or more and I would try to figure out what they were saying when they rescued the Chilean miners. I could probably do better now than I did then. I occasionally try to watch the news in Spanish but they speak much too quickly. By the time I figure out one phrase they are a couple sentences ahead. I did watch something last night and I got the idea the commentators weren't too happy with Janet Napolitano...

I have been using a program called Fluenz for Spanish. I experimented with Rosetta Stone and I decided I liked Fluenz better. However, they only have Spanish, French, Italian and Mandarin so no Japanese.
 
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I'm pretty sure our local community college has classes.

I used to work with a guy from Japan - we had great fun trying to get him to pronounce "Marlboro Light".
 
Matthew said:
I'm pretty sure our local community college has classes.

I used to work with a guy from Japan - we had great fun trying to get him to pronounce "Marlboro Light".
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I say it again. You must put your ear in charge of your mouth. It's hard for some to do. You must force your mouth to make all those funny, awkward, unnatural shapes until your ear says that the right sound comes out.

After making jokes about how some languages sound, it's no wonder that some of us don't in our hearts want to sound like that.....but we must if we are to really master the spoken part of the language.

When I was learning German, more or less on my own, I watched a lot of TV shows where pictures reinforced the words. Nature, some sports (when they didn't talk too fast), some news (when they didn't just read from paper) etc. The picture gives useful context to the words.

Japanese language uses a fair amount of allusion. I'd think it would drive an autistic person mad. We say, "once in a blue moon" to mean something uncommon. The Japanese will use concepts like this more than we do, and it can take a lot of immersion in the language to get to the point where one is pretty comfortable in casual conversation. Dialects in Japan aren't as bad as they are in Germany, as I recall, but they are there.
 
jnmeade said:
Dialects in Japan aren't as bad as they are in Germany, as I recall, but they are there.
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However, I believe there are differences in some of the words used by women and men. Now that I think of it the word for "I" is "watashi" which can be used by both genders but there's also "boku" which is used by men but wouldn't be used by a woman.
 
woodstock said:
And here I opened this thread thinking it was going to be about the 8,9 magnitude earthquake.
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Sorry about that. Here is what I know so far about our corporate headquarters.
Subject: Update on the Earthquake in Japan
Thank you very much for your concern. I truly appreciate the kindness and support you have offered to the Japanese staff.
As of yet we have not received an official report from Tokyo, but to the best of our knowledge the earthquake had minimum impact on the Corporate offices.
We are gathering information and hope to know more by Monday. We are also considering ways to help support the efforts that will be required to help Japan to recover from the results of the quake.
Thank you again for your concern and please keep the friends and families of your associates in your thoughts.
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