RAINICHI 2023 #000.5 – An Immediate Digression Concerning the Japanese Language
May 30, 2024
There are a lot of lonely people out there trying to learn Japanese. Not in the hopes that knowledge of Japanese might help them socialize, but in order to retreat even more fully into the online cave that they have constructed for themselves. Most Japanese learners online have no real intention of ever having a conversation in Japanese, and are instead purely interested in acquiring the passive reading and listening skills required to read and watch untranslated manga and anime. In this sense, much Japanese study is comparable to the study of dead languages such as Latin or Ancient Greek. The goal is to access unavailable texts, or to better understand available texts without the mediation of a translator.
I have nothing against such study. In fact, I am exactly the kind of person who prefers to learn languages this way. I don’t want to talk to anyone in any language; I just want to read stuff. But unlike that of actual dead languages, Japanese language education remains rooted in the pedagogy of alive languages, focusing not only on reading and listening comprehension, but on conversational skills such as pronunciation, word recall, and practical application of grammar rules.
From my experience in Japanese classes in a Canadian college, as well as classes for English-speaking international students at a Japanese university, this incongruity has some strange consequences. More so than with other languages, Japanese learning “communities” (including classrooms) quickly turn competitive; in the absence of any real inclination to use the language instrumentally, its only use becomes to gain the reputation of “being good at Japanese.” This competition immediately leads to shame and demoralization for those who fall behind and those who excel, as the intrinsic fun of using a language one has learned is completely lost.
On top of this, there is a remarkable disparity between how a non-Japanese person speaking Japanese is viewed by fellow non-Japanese speakers, as opposed to Japanese people. To a non-Japanese person with elementary knowledge of Japanese, any earnest attempt by another non-Japanese person to speak Japanese immediately appears as cringe-worthy. This is partly because of the remaining stigma surrounding anime/manga fandom, and mostly because of the watcher projecting their own fears regarding how they sound when speaking Japanese. In contrast, most Japanese people find a non-Japanese person speaking Japanese to be either fun & surprising or mundane & not of any interest, depending on their age and location. In the same way that any generous English speaker will appreciate a non-native speaker's earnest attempts at communication, no matter how clumsy, Japanese people will find malformed or unnatural Japanese to be at best, charming, and at worst, a little confusing. Any embarrassment caused by miscommunication will be felt by both parties, as communication is a two-way street, and most people will try to make their best effort regardless of their interlocutor’s language proficiency.
When I was learning Japanese, and particularly when I was in Japan for five months during the year 2015, not only did I not understand the ideas in the above paragraph, I could not have been made to understand them. I was so absorbed in myself and the impressions I made on people that I could not comprehend the idea that anyone would want to give me the benefit of the doubt. I assumed that if I spoke to someone in less-than-perfect Japanese, they would hate me, and possibly kill me.
I had a friend who spoke better Japanese than I did, and this made me doubly embarrassed, because I knew that he too would notice all of my mistakes. We were twenty-to-twenty-four year-old boys, and so we gave each other shit all the time. We even made fun of each other’s English. While I don’t remember us ever explicitly commenting on each other’s Japanese, there was this constant feeling that your Japanese was being judged, and this caused me to practically never use it.
It didn’t help that most of our Japanese friends were English majors who became our friends because they liked to hang out in the International Building where all our classes were held. Their English was, in almost all cases, much better than our Japanese, and they probably assumed that the experience of living in Japan was practice enough for us, while they rarely got an opportunity to converse with native English speakers.
All this being said, eventually I managed to get over myself, mostly due to the sheer coincidence of meeting a Japanese international student who I happened to get along with after returning to Canada. I had taken my studying much more seriously than many of my peers, partially because of a dream I had of one day translating important novels. This dream itself, however, was prompted by the fact that I legitimately enjoyed learning the language, so I guess that’s something of a recursive cause-and-effect relationship. I had learned from my previous mistakes, and insisted that we develop a pattern where we would alternate between the languages, speaking English one day and then Japanese the next. Fortunately for me, my new friend was not particularly committed to his English study, and so we primarily ended up speaking in Japanese.
If I had to offer any advice to sum up the above paragraph, it would be this: when learning a new language, it is very helpful to have a conversation partner who you would enjoy talking to in any language (i.e. who you don’t only talk to because they happen to speak the language you’re learning.)
Language is a tool for communication. This is easy to remember theoretically: it is, after all, only a six-word phrase. However, language is also a method of socialization, which is a lot more complicated. Speaking a language well or poorly, politely or impolitely, with archaic words or modern slang, all contribute to the general impression a speaker will make. One may use an interesting phrase learned from a TV show without realizing that it is only used by middle-aged women, or that it makes one seem like an obnoxious cartoon character.
Generally, we want to be in control of the impression we make, so that the people we are speaking to gain an accurate understanding of who we are. This is almost impossible when speaking one’s non-native language, up until reaching a very high level of fluency. An important aspect of using a new language in the wild is understanding this lack of control, and not letting it bother you. You will seem odd and you will confuse people. You will use a word with a similar meaning but just the wrong nuance, and thereby make a situation uncomfortable. You will not be the you that exists at home; you will be a different you who you can never actually know.
Crucially, this is all mitigated by a significant factor: the people you are speaking to will acknowledge that you are a non-native speaker, and mould what they are hearing you say into something recognizable. So, if they ask you whether you have been to Italy and you say, 「イタリアに行きませんでした」 (“I didn’t go to Italy”) they will understand that you meant to say 「イタリアに行ったことがありません」 (“I haven’t been to Italy.”) If you are a twenty year-old boy and you say something that only a middle-aged woman would say, they will recognize that you are neither a middle-aged woman nor are you secretly making fun of them, but instead just accidentally picked up a phrase somewhere and didn’t understand its nuance.
What this means, however, is that your personality is getting trimmed down at the edges in order to fit into the box of “normal Japanese.” In one’s native language, one can choose from a wide variety of ways to communicate any particular idea. There is always at least a tiny amount of intentionality in this decision, even if it’s often subliminal. You might even choose to use improper grammar or a non-standard word in order to make a point or a joke. Any attempt to do this as a non-native speaker will generally be interpreted as a mistake, regardless of one’s actual intention. The expectation is that one is aiming toward standard usage. Aiming toward standard usage is generally a good idea, as it’s a foundation from which to branch out into other ways of speaking, but it’s not always the goal for everyone.
All this being said, we’ve all met non-native speakers of whatever language(s) we speak, and we can say for certain that their personality often shines through regardless of their proficiency. The very mistakes they make tend to give themselves away. A gregarious person will skip over words or entire clauses in order to simply speak, while a more reserved person will speak slowly and formally. Some nervous people will trip over themselves and use the wrong tense of a verb, while others will enunciate each syllable of the verb ending in order to avoid such a mistake.
As with all socialization, the key thing to understand is that others see you the way you see others, and not the way you see yourself. The difference isn’t between you and other people, but between introspection and external observation.
I have basically no idea what kind of person I seem like when I speak Japanese. My only guess would be that it somewhat resembles the person I seem like when I speak English. Although to be honest, I’m not sure what that person is, either. Most of the time when I talk to people I don’t know, I’m just pretending to be something. What I’m pretending to be depends on the mood I’m in and what sort of interaction we’re involved in. When I speak Japanese, I’m not pretending to be anyone, but instead trying to convey or receive information. I say what I can using the tools that I have. Most of my conversations during our RAINICHI began with me walking up to a person and asking them a question. “How do I do this?” “Where is that?” “Which train should I take?”
One time, I had to call customer service and tell them there was a cockroach in our hotel room. I said, 「すみません、えっと、部屋には大きいゴキブリがいますけど…」 (“Excuse me, uh, but there’s a big cockroach in our room…”) Before the phone call I had looked up the word for “cockroach,” but aside from that, I just picked up the phone and winged it. There are a few interesting aspects to this improvised sentence of mine. First, I started with the words sumimasen, etto… meaning “Excuse me, uhhh…” This is an attempt to strike a more conversational tone, rather than launching straight into my problem. You don’t want to answer a phone and hear someone say, “Hi, there’s a cockroach in my room.” You’d rather they start with something like, “Hey, sorry to bother you,” even if it’s kind of logically weird for them to be apologizing to you. Second, I described the cockroach as ookii, or big, even though it was actually my first time seeing a cockroach in real life. I wasn’t necessarily trying to say that it was big relative to other cockroaches, but instead simply expressing my surprise at the big-ness of cockroaches in general. Third, I ended the sentence with kedo. Kedo means “but,” and you might think that putting it at the end of a sentence would necessitate following it with a clause that somehow contradicts or lessens the preceding statement. However, in Japanese, people end sentences with kedo just to be polite, to take the edge off of a declarative statement. I didn’t particularly blame anyone for there being a cockroach in my room. We were staying in a relatively old building built on a hot spring in a forested area. There’s going to be bugs. There are a lot of cockroaches in Japan! It’s not that abnormal to see one. (It’s honestly kind of strange that I hadn’t seen one before.)
I couldn’t quite understand what the person answering the phone told me. This is partially because I didn’t know the word for “extermination” or “pest control.” I was pretty sure that someone was going to show up to do something, but I was just nodding my head more than I was engaging in listening comprehension. Several moments after hanging up the phone, I started to wonder if they had promised me anything at all. I mean, it would have been weird if they hadn’t done anything, but how was I to know? So eventually I left the room and went downstairs to the front desk to talk to someone in person, where I once again deployed my “Excuse me, uh, but there’s a big cockroach in our room…" but this time excluding the word “big” because I had realized, as I mentioned before, that I didn’t really know how big cockroaches were supposed to be. The woman at the counter feigned surprise and phoned the maintenance staff, who told her that there was already someone in my room taking care of it. I said okay, that makes sense, sorry to bother you, and went back upstairs.
Now, here’s the point of this story: the fact that this entire interaction took place in Japanese made it kind of fun. I mean, the cockroach was creepy, but getting a chance to use my second language in an interesting and novel way more than made up for it. The hotel staff were probably surprised that I didn’t seem upset about the situation at all. But there’s a certain unreality that comes from using your second language (combined, of course, with being on vacation) that made the whole thing feel like a bit of a joke. Looking back, I feel like I learned a lot, including but not limited to the word for “pest extermination.”
Rest assured that I will not be subjecting every interaction I had in Japanese during our trip to this level of scrutiny. I am using this particular instance as a characteristic example. It’s important to note that I probably didn’t have to use Japanese here; I could have spoken in English and been understood by the hotel staff. I did it partially for my own amusement and gratification, and partially out of politeness, because it’s just more comfortable when you’re working to also be able to use your native language. I’m on vacation, so I don’t mind, but when someone’s doing their job, it’s nice to make it as easy for them as possible.
This brings us quite naturally to the events of our first few hours in Japan, with which we will begin:
RAINICHI 2023 #001 — The Beginning (coming soon)
Previously:
RAINICHI 2023 #000 – An Introduction
RAINICHI 2023: