But I do speak in an age-appropriate manner befitting someone 40 years old with a law degree. Yes, I have been told by native Japanese speakers that I sound gay or like a woman-I consider that a compliment, because I sound that way in English, too. I can speak oneekotoba with my close friends, and switch to highly respectful language when speaking to a senior Japanese attorney. With my ability to understand and communicate using appropriate keigo, kenjougo and teineigo with a native-level comprehension of kanji and vocabulary in fields from law to finance to medicine to technology, I can effectively conduct and participate in high-level business meetings with Japanese attorneys and business people, even if they think I'm a bit femme because of my speech. As an openly-gay, somewhat effete bilingual speaker, I really don't mind sounding gay. Maybe for our grandkids Japanese will be very unimportant, but for another 50 years, learning Japanese is not a complete waste. Japan has a looooooooooooong way to go to improve and economically and linguistically there is no doubt it has quite big chance it could really grow less significant in the next few decades.
In Japan, legally anyone can live there as long as you become a citizen. China may be great for Chinese people, but it still doesn't allow foreigners any room to live in there and own property unless its Hongkong. This is unlike German, the 4th or 5th largest economy because Germans are great at English and learning a 2nd language.īesides, the most important languages are where you live. Japanese will always be quite useful as long as the Japanese don't get quite proficient at language learning. The future languages are really: English, Arabic, and possibly a little Spanish (still a poor mans language). Speaking Mandarin means you get by in Singapore and a few other outer-Asian areas, but a lot of expats of China speak 'dialects', unintelligible to each other like Cantonese and other smaller population dialects like Shanghainese, so on so forth. (Trust me I know, I unfortunately understand Spanish)Ĭhinese is without a doubt the language of the future, Mandarin to be exact but even right now knowing Chinese is just a business opportunity. Spanish is ok, since it covers a lot of ground and the dialects are not THAT different (they still are), but you're still dealing with poverty level people for the most part. On the other hand, French is not as useful as it used to be, unless you're on a random South Pacific island or in North Africa (and obviously France). Japanese-descent expats also have lost a lot of their mother tongue.
(I wonder why you left out Russian?)īut knowing Japanese is still incredibly useful: It's still the 2nd largest economy in the world (becoming number 3 after China still makes it a per capita large economy) and the biggest perk is that there is not enough people in Japan that know a 2nd language. Sure, those languages you mentioned are the top "important" languages, no doubt. Japanese is not amongst the top useful languages of the world. This is a big reason why 2nd language speakers need to speak even more clearly and precisely than normal speakers.Įnglish, Spanish, French and Chinese.
We rely on our awareness of the natural "patterns" of the language to extrapolate the missing word. I think that people underestimate how much we "guess" or "fill in the blanks" in daily conversation when someone mumbles a word or two. Learning a language out of natural order can be a big barrier to communicating effectively later. Here's another example, my colleagues and I were talking about the weather yesterday and they were using a strange phrase, so I asked what it meant, and after many false starts I guessed "mushi atsui" (humid), and they were all amused that I knew the more difficult term but didn't know any of the simpler terms for it. Learning any language in a more natural order is a goood move. To an English native speaker "choose" is the easier word (it's the word English children use first), and so it's the word we would use first. Ask a Japanese person to "choose" an option and you'll probably get a blank stare, but use the word "select" and they understand, because most of them learnt the word "select" from computer games. Laugh if you want, but I think this book is a good step in the right direction.
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