Japan is learning to love Chinese

[Ian_Lee]

Interesting article with interesting title from Japan Times:

http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?ek20040129a1.htm

The article asks an interesting question on why fluent Mandarin speakers are hard to find among Japanese.

It seems most Japanese have inherent deficiency in studying a foreign language.

[roddy]

It seems most Japanese have inherent deficiency in studying a foreign language.

That's complete nonsense.

Roddy

[confucius]

I agree with Roddy. Absolute rubbish.

[ala]

That's complete nonsense.

I agree with Roddy. Absolute rubbish.

Actually, it's not complete nonsense. There is some truth to the original statement. There ARE physical constraints to learning a foreign language in adulthood that makes it much much harder. Japanese has a very simple phonology compared to Chinese, Korean, and English; certain physical movements are never used by Japanese speakers and this makes mimicking these new positions and movements (commonly found in Chinese or European languages) very difficult for the adult Japanese-only speaker. Discerning them is often a problem too. Of course this shouldn't directly interfere with their attaining fluency, but it is an obstacle to clarity and communication, which indirectly affects fluency and further progress. And it is not just limited to the Japanese, although I do believe that the adult Japanese-only speaker will encounter far greater problems than say a Korean-only speaker learning Chinese. This is even considering that both Korean and Japanese have similar general grammatic structure to each other, and that the Japanese actually have a much larger advantage in terms of Chinese characters (a well-educated Japanese can easily recognize some 5000+ characters, far more than the government's jouyou basic 1945-character list).

[smithsgj]

Isn't it a bit trivial to argue that native speakers of language A find it difficult to learn language B because of features of language A, Ala?

The OP spoke of an "inherent deficiency". I find it difficult not to construe that as a racial slur.

In any event this wasn't mentioned at all in the Japan Times article. Various reasons for the low ratio of fluent Chinese speakers were given, including an inadequate number of classroom contact hours. There is no mention of "inherent deficiency" or anything of that sort, and no indication that the problem extends to other foreign languages, such as English, with more complex phonologies than Chinese.

[Ian_Lee]

Wow! I don't expect that my two-word comment stirs such an uproar.

If fellow posters think that such comment is nonsense/rubbish/racial slur, I apologize and I take it back.

But I am not a bit racially prejudiced against Japanese. In fact, I drive Toyota, watch Sony TV and use Panasonic rice cooker. I prefer Japanese tenants over all other ethnic groups and I love to frequent Harajuku whenever I am in Japan (sounds too young for me).

But as ala says, due to the simpler phonology imposed by the Japanese language, many Japanese do have a problem in learning foreign language.

[ala]

Isn't it a bit trivial to argue that native speakers of language A find it difficult to learn language B because of features of language A, Ala?

If the top 4 languages that Japanese learn are English, Korean, Chinese, and German, then how is this trivial? It is not. The Japanese language does indeed have the short end of the stick in terms of phonology when compared to the foreign languages that a Japanese would most likely learn.

The OP spoke of an "inherent deficiency". I find it difficult not to construe that as a racial slur.

I didn't though. I interpreted it as constraints created from the native language. The inherency is thus of the native language.

In any event this wasn't mentioned at all in the Japan Times article. There is no mention of "inherent deficiency" or anything of that sort, and no indication that the problem extends to other foreign languages, such as English, with more complex phonologies than Chinese.

I agree. Yet it is unreasonable to say "absolutely rubbish" and "complete nonsense" to this idea that some native speakers will have a harder time than others in learning the world's main languages. Also although this JT article is rather worthless in this discussion, there are plenty of sources available regarding this.

For example this source discusses some of the different linguistic problems with learning English for Korean and Japanese speakers:

http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/units/ling210-901/phonology/interlanguage/pronerrors.html

It also brings up the issue that richness in phonology (as in Korean) may also present different problems for Korean speakers (more difficult to discern in detail the small variances between the two more similar languages).

There are other sources that discuss permanent or long-term biological adaptations to certain languages, that are difficult to unlearn or difficult to develop in adulthood.

[Ian_Lee]

Some incredible stories about how some South Koreans try to speak better English:

A short cut to better spoken English

South Koreans trimming their tongues to improve speech

SEOUL, Oct. 17 — Chop a centimeter or so off your tongue and become a fluent English speaker. That is the hope that recently drove one mother to take her six-year-old son for surgery aimed at ridding him of his Korean accent when speaking the language of choice in global business.

DRIVEN BY A desire to give their kids an edge in an increasingly competitive society, a surprising number of South Koreans have turned to the knife in a seemingly drastic bid to help their offspring perfect their English.

“Those who have a short frenulum (a strap of tissue linking the tongue to the floor of the mouth) can face problems pronouncing some characters due to a disturbance in lateral movements of the tongue,” said Bae Jung-ho, an oral surgeon at Seoul’s Yonsei Severance Hospital, who operated on the six-year-old last month.

Bae said it takes about five minutes to complete the operation, called a frenotomy, which slices 1 to 1.5 cm (about half an inch) off the frenulum to make the tongue more flexible.

.............................

Read:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/981625.asp?cp1=1

And over-enthusiastic English learners in PRC get the surgery too. Read:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2161780.stm

So should a "short frenulum" be considered an inherent deficiency for Koreans to learn English?

It seems so. Is it rubbish/nonsense/racial slur?

[Quest]

I wonder if american born or british born koreans/chinese need to cut their tongues in order to speak good english...

[nnt]

Some incredible stories about how some South Koreans try to speak better English:

A short cut to better spoken English

South Koreans trimming their tongues to improve speech

SEOUL' date=' Oct. 17 — Chop a centimeter or so off your tongue and become a fluent English speaker. That is the hope that recently drove one mother to take her six-year-old son for surgery aimed at ridding him of his Korean accent when speaking the language of choice in global business.

DRIVEN BY A desire to give their kids an edge in an increasingly competitive society, a surprising number of South Koreans have turned to the knife in a seemingly drastic bid to help their offspring perfect their English.

“Those who have a short frenulum (a strap of tissue linking the tongue to the floor of the mouth) can face problems pronouncing some characters due to a disturbance in lateral movements of the tongue,” said Bae Jung-ho, an oral surgeon at Seoul’s Yonsei Severance Hospital, who operated on the six-year-old last month.

Bae said it takes about five minutes to complete the operation, called a frenotomy, which slices 1 to 1.5 cm (about half an inch) off the frenulum to make the tongue more flexible.

.............................

Read:

[url']http://www.msnbc.com/news/981625.asp?cp1=1[/url]

And over-enthusiastic English learners in PRC get the surgery too. Read:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2161780.stm

So should a "short frenulum" be considered an inherent deficiency for Koreans to learn English?

It seems so. Is it rubbish/nonsense/racial slur?

Those who do it are victims of their own racial beliefs.

The difficulty of learning a foreign language (or even another dialect of one's own language) comes from the habits taken with one's own mother tongue, not because of of any physical deficiency.

Remember, we are all Lucy's or Toumaï's descents, from some place in Africa...

[smithsgj]

Well NNT we continued to evolve after Lucy and Toumaï. Perhaps some of that evolution paid heed to phonological considerations of the target language...

Ignore the above paragraph, it's absolute rubbish.

Ala you havne't convinced me that your original assertion was not trivial. You speak as if the phonemic inventory were the only factor affecting language learning. There's more to speaking a language (never mind listening to it, and reading and writing it) than pronunciation. Chinese has simpler grammatical paradigms than Japanese or English, surely you agree with that? So that should make Chinese grammar easier for the Japanese than English.

And on your phonological-only account, English should be way more difficult for Japanese people than the Chinese language. But it's only with Chinese that problems are reported.

[nnt]

Ala you havne't convinced me that your original assertion was not trivial. You speak as if the phonemic inventory were the only factor affecting language learning. There's more to speaking a language (never mind listening to it' date=' and reading and writing it) than pronunciation. Chinese has simpler grammatical paradigms than Japanese or English, surely you agree with that? So that should make Chinese grammar easier for the Japanese than English.

And on your phonological-only account, English should be way more difficult for Japanese people than the Chinese language. But it's only with Chinese that problems are reported.[/quote']

My reply concerned the articles about the "tongue" (physically speaking) only, not about other aspects of a language.

Speaking English is not easy for Japanese. I've attended an English course given by English teachers. Among other students, there were Japanese adults, and what the teachers told them is they had difficulty to open their mouth (physically) while speaking English, because of their habits of speaking. Of course, other people have other problems with speaking English.

(By the way, I don't think Chinese grammar is simpler than English grammar, and I think Japanese is one of the most complicated languages in the world...)

[smithsgj]

It's so obvious that all human beings are physiologically equipped to speak any language that it doesn't usually need saying. In this case it was necessary for someone to make that point, and I'm glad you did NNT.

The rest of my last post was addressed to Ala really, as shown, but obviously anyone is free to reply! I understand exactly what you mean about Japanese learners not "opening their mouths". But I think this is it least partly cultural. It's *not* because their tongues are a funny shape or because they're inherently deficient.

It probably is partly because of phonological impoverishment of Japanese. But this ignores the aspects of language learning that don't involve pronunciation.

When I mentioned grammatical paradigms being easier in Chinese I suppose I meant inflection really. I should have made myself clearer (but I should imagine all languages have approximately equally difficult syntax, no?)

btw, this phonology thing: how much less is available in the Japanese syllabary than in Chinese? Is it much smaller then?

[ala]

Ala you havne't convinced me that your original assertion was not trivial. You speak as if the phonemic inventory were the only factor affecting language learning. There's more to speaking a language (never mind listening to it, and reading and writing it) than pronunciation. Chinese has simpler grammatical paradigms than Japanese or English, surely you agree with that? So that should make Chinese grammar easier for the Japanese than English. And on your phonological-only account, English should be way more difficult for Japanese people than the Chinese language. But it's only with Chinese that problems are reported.

The rest of my last post was addressed to Ala really

Obviously it was not addressed to me, unless you cannot read carefully and enjoy making gungho comments and assumptions. I have since my first post qualified my statements, saying that phonology differences "of course...shouldn't directly interfere with their attaining fluency, but it is an obstacle to clarity and communication, which indirectly affects fluency and further progress." When I say fluency, I mean the whole aspect of internalizing a language (grammar, comprehension, familiarity etc).

And on your phonological-only account, English should be way more difficult for Japanese people than the Chinese language. But it's only with Chinese that problems are reported.

Clearly you do not look at the sources I provided. There are plenty of additional and more academic sources regarding learning English for Japanese speakers.

It's *not* because their tongues are a funny shape or because they're inherently deficient.

No one here but Ian_Lee has made that assertion. Yet you have this tendency in all your posts to associate me with that statement. I however had suggested that there are usage adaptions (that are biological such as greater muscle development in certain areas, or greater or less tongue flexibility, etc) pertaining to a particular language simply from prolonged usage since childhood. I never suggested that they were inherited, or inherent to a particular people, but merely inherent to a particular language. I wrote earlier: "I interpreted it as constraints created from the native language. The inherency is thus of the native language."

Regarding triviality, I don't think you have a grasp of the importance of phonology in language fluency. I do not see how you can simply brush phonology away as "trivial." Just because it is one of many factors (to which I stated in my very first post), does not make it trivial. And the fact that the Japanese are most likely going to learn a foreign language (English, Korean, Chinese) that has a richer phonology than their native Japanese can be used to explain observations of difficulties in their learning certain foreign languages (Chinese, English, etc). I'm not saying that this is the only or best explanation; but simply that it can be rationally seen as a possibility, thus debunking the "that's complete nonsense" and "absolute rubbish" comments that I feel are unwarranted.

[roddy]

I find it hard to believe the starter of the topic had considered phonology when he said the Japanese seemed inherently deficient, given the content of the article linked. If he had, he would have been wise to say so rather than throwing out a statement that seems almost designed to offend without any explanation - regardless of how fond he is of Japanese brands. Saying 'as ala says' once some justification is offered doesn't convince me.

I'm not sure if you could call the problems caused by the phonology of L1 when learning L2 an inherent feature of the race either. A feature of language and language learning seems more accurate.

The original statement still looks like complete nonsense to me. If I tried hard I could maybe see it as an extremely poorly-worded and unsupported assertion.

I don't deny the importance of L1 phonology in L2 learning, and there's an interesting discussion here. But I didn't, and don't, think that's what was originally meant.

Roddy

[ChouDoufu]

btw' date=' this phonology thing: how much less is available in the Japanese syllabary than in Chinese? Is it much smaller then?[/quote']

I'm no expert, but I think Japanese has 8 vowels (a,i,u,e,o,ya,yu,yo) and 9 constonants. It's extremely limited. Consider that there multiple ways to pronounce an "a" or an "o" in english, but in Japanese there's only one. From knowing numerous people from many countries studying Chinese, I feel that the average Japanese person has the most trouble in producing Chinese sounds.

I think people on this board are sometimes sensitive about what is and what isn't a racial slur. When I read the "inherent defficiencies" comment I immediately thought about limited number of sounds that Japanese contains. This board doesn't contain a lot of Flames (very well moderated, by the way), and so I think you should give posters the benefit of the doubt instead of accusing them of being racist. Just my two cents.

[hparade]

i think the difficulty in learning other languages is more to do with habits rather than physical.. say the tongue thing (it maybe due to the habit of tongue movements though), and what the koreans do is really radical and crazy, i know they really fond of english culture though

[chris.]

I watched a TV program about how japanese have an obsession with impersonating english singers. They showed a room full of japanese that were learning to sing english songs, the teacher had made them put two chop sticks at each side of their mouths. This apparantly helps japanese pronounce english sounds better.

Looked quite funny too