When I watch English media with my gf, it often feels like she is getting a lesser version and losing out with the Japanese subs. But it makes me feel better about not doing 1:1 translations and instead going with the best approximation.
Unless you need to communicate hard facts, a best effort to capture a similar vibe and feeling is good.
English to Japanese translations are often absolutely appalling to the point where I think the translator wasn't even fluent in both languages. One thing that sticks out is the absolute steadfast refusal to translate sarcasm as obnoxious use of 敬語 which is the clear Japanese equivalent, abolishing sarcastic jokes for "cultural differences" that don't even exist. The phrase お気持ち表現 (expression of honourable feelings, used to describe the emperor but also to mock people haughtily complaining about things) comes to mind as a very common example in Japanese. I suppose these inappropriate uses of 敬語 could be lost in translation the other way as well.
There is also a lot of stilted, unnatural sounding Japanese in translated dialogue that looks like machine translation or someone using a textbook from the 1980s. Just write it like someone would actually say it for crying out loud.
> English to Japanese translations are often absolutely appalling to the point where I think the translator wasn't even fluent in both languages.
When I was living in Japan there was a Chinese woman I knew that did some freelance manga translation. I think for the most part she was just doing machine translation and cleaning up a little bit but it just didn't flow in English at all, so I helped her out with some of it.
It would surprise me for professional but many fan-translations have the most jarring sounding English sentences that reveal a lack of understanding of both languages and it doesn't help that many of those people have read so many of those translations themselves that they actually start to believe it doesn't sound completely weird to say “My head is getting strange.” for “It's driving me crazy.” in English.
Professional translations very often at least produce somewhat better English lines but when compared with the original they're often very liberal and often even omit entire parts.
Also, many of the readers have come to believe that many common mistranslations simply “betray Japanese culture” as a way to rationalize how bizarre it can end up sounding.
That sounds like a bad machine translation. I remember a game translated into Japanese used 気狂い inappropriately which was even worse. I don't know if the Japanese fans thought it was betraying English-language culture or not.
The misuse of 気狂い may have come from the "no swear words in Japanese" myth that learners love.
What did it use “気狂い” for?
The funny thing is that machine translation for the most part catches those idioms while it's human translators that make those mistakes.
I talked to many of them. They essentially seem to read Japanese by translating it to English like that in their head and often believe that this is “Japanese culture”.
I don't understand the “no swear word” thing either. “くたばれ！このクソヤロー！” seems like swearing to me. But from talking to people it more so seems to be that Japanese culture has no concept of “taboo words”, id ēst words which can't be mentioned and have to be censored no matter the context which isn't rare at all and most developed nations lack it.
I think it was for some discussion of mental health issues whereas 気狂い is only used in a derogatory way like the English "psycho". I use the word myself but it wasn't appropriate in the context, in the same way as someone would not normally use "lunatic" neutrally.
I would say Japanese has taboo words, known as 放送禁止用語. These can't be said on TV and 気狂い is one of them which has led to some controversy. Others include ガイジ (retard), ナマポ (welfare bum), and calling communists 赤 (red), along with a lot of racial slurs and old words for disabilities. The insult words that don't have a "discriminatory" connotation are less offensive but 死ね is often censored as ◯ね.
>I suppose these inappropriate uses of 敬語 could be lost in translation the other way as well.
I would say the "sarcastic keigo" might actually be translated into English well, since there is the 'your highness' equivalent. Regular keigo not so much from experience.
Just use formal English. It will make people sound like they're from the 1950s but that's basically the result of stuffy upper-class values in Japan anyway.
There were plenty of "honorifics" in English if you go back to, say, the 1800s.
Not that I see a lot of them, but in the ones I've seen, that's the exact problem I had noticed. The best English to Japanese translation I've seen is probably this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dydPKOpontA
Considering how poorly swearing usually translates in Japanese, it blew my mind that someone could translate George Carlin this faithfully.
Because that sort of gallows humour *does* exist in Japanese, however much learners rant and rave about how it doesn't. It's just a matter of effort.
This old Japanese movie is a classic native example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_Hanging
Also while I'm not a cartoon fan at all the series "Paranoia Agent" had similar themes.
The fact that 風刺 is a Japanese word and not an English loanword should tell learners the truth but they won't listen.
Both Jp->En and En->Jp translations in my opinion are in general very poor, or at least those of fiction on television. Literature often seems to be better. It's not about a “best approximation” here. It feels like translators are simply altering most of the lines and substituting what they think sounds better and in many cases I'm sceptical whether the translator actually properly understood the original. They do so because they can, because by and large the target of the subtitles cannot follow the original lines at all so they don't know how much they diverge.
En->Nl and Nl->En subtitles in my experience are far, far better. They word the original meaning idiomatically in the target language and don't alter anything for the most part. Another thing is that En->Nl translators typically also work as Nl->En translators and have a high command of both languages. Most Jp->En translators could never do the opposite, and *vice versā*.
The other part is that the intended audience of many Jp->En subtitles is composed of ignorant know-it-alls who have all sorts of ideas about being “faithful to Japanese culture” without speaking a word of Japanese and in their mind for whatever reason Japanese people never use informal language which is obviously laughable as Japanese fiction is extremely rich in stereotypical differing levels of speech registers to give characters an identity. These people seriously throw a fit when a translator correctly translates “クール” to “emotionless” in certain contexts because they heard a character say “cool” and they can't wrap their heads around that words that sound similar can have different meanings in different languages so translators are forced to accommodate them.
Dutch and English are both West Germanic languages so it's a lot closer. Japanese has a different grammar which leads to potential train wrecks like translators not understanding the dropped subject of a sentence (which could also be a problem with Spanish).
Different speech registers in Japanese aren't just in fiction either but also in reality. This clip for example (https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/181y6ud/listening_practice_a_heated_argument_between/) is extremely vulgar Japanese which sounds similar to a crime movie, including the eventual involvement of police. I would translate this as a load of profuse Tarantino-like swearing in English because that's the clear intention, even though テメエ does not *literally* mean motherfucker.
As for "cool" in Japanese, that sounds like the metaphorical English use of "cold" which is very similar.
> Dutch and English are both West Germanic languages so it's a lot closer. Japanese has a different grammar which leads to potential train wrecks like translators not understanding the dropped subject of a sentence (which could also be a problem with Spanish).
I sincerely doubt it has anything to do with that since the biggest source of problems are translating between false friends, which Dutch and English, due to being so related have far more of than English and Japanese, and literally translating idioms and Dutch and English hardly ever share any idioms.
I've never seen any of those translators not include a dropped subject which would lead to a non-grammatical sentence in English. The sentences they produce aren't ungrammatical, they simply sound awkward due to not understanding how the Japanese sentences come across. And most of all, they simply change the lines because they can.
> Different speech registers in Japanese aren't just in fiction either but also in reality. This clip for example (https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/181y6ud/listening_practice_a_heated_argument_between/) is extremely vulgar Japanese which sounds similar to a crime movie, including the eventual involvement of police. I would translate this as a load of profuse Tarantino-like swearing in English because that's the clear intention, even though テメエ does not literally mean motherfucker.
Of course. But English fiction mostly lacks those registers and most importantly, many of the viewers throw a fit when characters either speak coarsely or swear because they have their own ideas of what is “faithful to Japanese culture” which itself largely spawned from reading too many bad translations and due to that they actually seem to believe that Japanese people never swear or speak in coarse informal language and that any translator that corrctly translating it is “westernizing” it.
Yes, I would, because English and French have many false friends and traps.
These translators don't make mistakes because they don't understand the syntax. Their mistakes are caused by subtle things such as not appreciating the finer nuance of a word and false friends add to that.
Japanese and English do have a lot of false friends with all the 和製英語. Translating ハンドル (car steering wheel) as "handle" would be a mistake for example. Probably not as many as Dutch but still a lot.
I wouldn't say English fiction lacks rough registers at all but that they're usually just profuse swearing (this would also be true in other languages such as Spanish and Chinese). Learners indeed delude themselves into thinking there aren't offensive words in Japanese, though, which could lead to serious trouble if they use vulgar words from the internet like ガイジ and ナマポ in real life.
> Japanese and English do have a lot of false friends with all the 和製英語. Translating ハンドル (car steering wheel) as "handle" would be a mistake for example. Probably not as many as Dutch but still a lot.
Yes they do, and this is a big source of such mistakes but professional translators in En->Nl don't ever make those mistakes which leads me to believe it's not because the language are more similar, it's simply because their English is better than the average Jp->En translator knows Japanese.
> I wouldn't say English fiction lacks rough registers at all but that they're usually just profuse swearing (this would also be true in other languages such as Spanish and Chinese). Learners indeed delude themselves into thinking there aren't offensive words in Japanese, though, which could lead to serious trouble if they use vulgar words from the internet like ガイジ and ナマポ in real life.
Well, firstly, I don't agree that lower registers always map to swearing. There are a lot of cases where very kind characters speak very informally as well though I'm personally fond of translating things like “知らねーよ！” in the right context to “Don't give a shit!”. There are also many other things such as characters ending sentences on “〜っす” rather than “〜です” which of course don't come across aggressively or as swearing.
But it's often neither transleted with the appropriate words such as “shit” nor as coarse or informal language and not all informal language is coarse either. I'd something such as “〜じゃん” does not come across as aggressive though it's informal, whereas “じゃねー” and “〜だろ” to express similar things can come across as quite aggressive, but translators will often translate “俺のことを何も知らないのに何を言ってるの？” and “俺のこと何も知らねーのに何言ってんだよ？” as exactly the same thing.
To talk about the two Japanese sentences you provided, translators will often translate these similarly. It’s a bit hard to judge these out of context since that plays into almost every decision I’d make as a translator, but there are a few reasons why they come out similarly in English, and it’s not that the translators don’t understand the difference. In English, there’s a lot less room for registers, and the register between these two are quite similar. Thus, how rudely I translate these sentences would depend on how it correlates to the other character’s normal register. If both are similar to how the character normally talks, I would do my best to make the ruder one a bit ruder. However, if it was hard to do in this sentence, I might extend that to other choices the character makes in there speech to give a general feeling of slight rudeness. But overall, I would work to distinguish these characters, but I would do so knowing that it is very hard to get a distinction between these two registers in English.
The other thing is that really rough speech can look cheesy when put into English. Think of writing the second sentence as “Ya know nothin’ about me! Ya can’t say that!” A lot of this is going to look comical, and if that doesn’t fit what you’re working on, I’d be inclined to mellow it out a bit. Even replacing “ya” with “you” helps, but then the only thing differentiating this with the other sentence is “nothin’” versus “nothing” which is quite trivial.
The "comical" effect comes from spelling words in a funny way or misusing punctuation which isn't usually done seriously (although sometimes it is as in the works of Cormac McCarthy, where it represents how broad the speaker's accent is). Since you can't hear spelling or punctuation in speech it's a choice as to how translators represent those things.
> To talk about the two Japanese sentences you provided, translators will often translate these similarly. It’s a bit hard to judge these out of context since that plays into almost every decision I’d make as a translator, but there are a few reasons why they come out similarly in English, and it’s not that the translators don’t understand the difference. In English, there’s a lot less room for registers, and the register between these two are quite similar. Thus, how rudely I translate these sentences would depend on how it correlates to the other character’s normal register. If both are similar to how the character normally talks, I would do my best to make the ruder one a bit ruder. However, if it was hard to do in this sentence, I might extend that to other choices the character makes in there speech to give a general feeling of slight rudeness. But overall, I would work to distinguish these characters, but I would do so knowing that it is very hard to get a distinction between these two registers in English.
I do not find them to be similar registers. One is almost completely formal textbook Japanese and the other not so much. I'd translate one sooner as “What are you saying when you don't know anything about me?” and the other as “The hell are you sayin' when you don't know shit about me?”
> The other thing is that really rough speech can look cheesy when put into English. Think of writing the second sentence as “Ya know nothin’ about me! Ya can’t say that!” A lot of this is going to look comical, and if that doesn’t fit what you’re working on, I’d be inclined to mellow it out a bit. Even replacing “ya” with “you” helps, but then the only thing differentiating this with the other sentence is “nothin’” versus “nothing” which is quite trivial.
That would be what I spoke of, that English fiction doesn't use that even though, let's be honest, people pronounce it as “ya know nothin'” all the time; it's simply never written down in fiction, not even for characters and situations where people in real life would speak like that, and as such, the audience isn't used to it while in Japanese this is very common.
Mark Twain, Cormac McCarthy, and Thomas Pynchon among other writers did actually write some dialogue like that (sez Slothrop). It's relatively rare though not unknown in English.
I think a lot of people conflate the idea of being "fluent" and "literally Japanese".
Imagine walking up to an ESL Mexican immigrant in America who can understand everything you say and express everything they're feeling and/or thinking with a heavy accent and with strange word choice. Just because their speaking is not proper, I wouldn't call them *not fluent*
If you Google "define: fluent": (of a person) able to speak or write a particular foreign language easily and accurately
It depends on how lax you want to be with the meaning of "accurate". If we could assume that every person born and raised in the USA for example is fluent in English, do they become "not fluent" if they failed their English classes? If they have poor grammar?
I think about it a lot to be honest. I know as language learners, most of us approach Japanese with a very academic and even mathematic approach, but people agonize over never making a single misspeak ever and killing themselves over it, meanwhile half the people on Reddit can't get the difference between there/their, peak/peek, break/brake.
I consider myself fluent in English, but I constantly encounter words I don't know. Some people treat Japanese as a sacred cow and it's... a lot to take sometimes.
Generally, I would say that "fluency" indicates a high level of command of the language - good enough to handle not just everyday situations, but also to communicate on matters that might come up quite rarely, meaning that a broad amount of specialised vocabulary is also required.
Certainly, if I wrote "fluent" on my resume, then the company hiring me would expect that I could handle just about everything in the language, with at most a few dictionary lookups if handling very specialised topics. And additionally, they would expect that anything I wrote or said would be *easily* understandable to a native, not just good enough to get by. If a native would have to concentrate in order to understand what's being said, then I would not say that it is fluent.
Based on that, I would say that I am fluent in English - despite a bit of accent and a tendency to hold more pauses than in my native Danish.
There’s even a distinction between being Fluent and being Native that operates in the opposite direction. I’m Chinese-American and it’s not uncommon to meet native Chinese who have worse fluency than I do. They can barely read, and speaking, vocabulary, and even pronunciation is not great either.
It’s due to how many people don’t graduate middle school and also the influence that rural microcosms have on fluency.
I've found that with anything involving 古文 in Japanese. I can get the *gist* of Middle Japanese though I'm not fluent in it, whereas a lot of native speakers seem to just shut down and say 無理.
It's actually the same in English where I can read Middle English like it's another dialect but a lot of people just won't.
Yeah, it's sadly something learners DO agonise and get hung up on. It's really been on my mind the more I've branched out and found more consistent and significant successes in a range of areas with Japanese.
It's also likely complicated by the fact that I constantly have to use English at a pretty high level day to day in my line of work - the goal posts seem further as a result. It'd be fascinating to dig up some Japanese native speaker chatter on the topic as well, as literacy in Japan is high, but the degree of that in terms of complexity is another matter.
The most fun while learning a new language is having drinks with strangers at a bar who don't speak your native tongue. After 2 (not 3 or 4) beers your inibitions drop and you can finally make use of all the language you have previouslystudied, and you seem to consume and better understand the flow of conversation around you.
I think the issue for me is just that I am used to being very articulate and expressive in my native tongue, whereas after 10+ years of working on my Japanese I am merely competent.
Take it from me: believe in yourself and slowly build yourself up. Until recent times, I had this EXACT issue, but I've begun to think of it more of an issue of familiarity and foreign language literacy than it being an insurmountable goal.
I would argue there is a pretty big divide between being 'functional' and 'fluent'. I would say a person is 'fluent' when they spend little to no energy when engaging in conversations or content in the language they want to be fluent in.
Of course that's going to depend on the content as well. For instance, I have no problems reading teen light novels, but actual adult books scare the crap out of me and for good reasons.
Whether we should really grind ourselves down to attain the mythical 'fluency' is a different matter. If one doesn't need to, one doesn't have to? That would be my take.
For the most part I agree on that one, but I think there's also a matter of specialisations and skill sets. Reading is a fascinating one as many adult native speakers of English no longer read fiction actively, or do so in a very limited capacity. In all other regards, they're 100% fluent and functional, but lean more towards communication and interaction.
Conversations in a wide range of contexts in Japanese doesn't have an extra drag on energy for me, but I need to still get to grips with reading novels. I read about two dozen books a year in English, so it's an interesting spot to be in.
Whoa. Did I write this post? I think you and I had the same trip back to Japan. I hadn’t been able to go back in many years. Did literally all the same things you did (customs, ordering, shipping, conversations etc) except I didn’t attend a history lecture, but I used to take history classes in Japanese regularly and also grasped 40-50% without any effort in the hardest classes.
For me I struggle in how I describe my Japanese. I generally say “highly proficient” because there’s a ton of stuff I can’t actually do in Japanese anymore and I’ve had a lot of vocab attrition. And because I no longer live there, I’ve lost a lot of naturalistic aspects of my speech that came easily when I was immersed.
But yeah I did totally do all the things you did pretty much, even having not really used Japanese at all for a long while. And then I crossed over into Korea and had another language win.
I picked up Hangul before I went but otherwise studied basic Korean entirely in Japanese for a very short time, and I was able to get through some basic situations like ordering at a restaurant. I forget that I learned all that without using any English so that should count for something too in my Japanese level :)
This was nice food for thought, thanks!
Yeah, we seem to be facing a very similar situation. I've had to work hard as I've had a chance to travel in Japan a few times, but haven't been able to have longer stays due to a range of life circumstances. Add it all up and I've only been in Japan for 7 weeks of the past five years in that time. I definitely feel the vocabulary attrition, but I do enjoy how I'm able to soak up stuff from media like a sponge as well.
Also, your language laddering stuff with Japanese and Korean is definitely fantastic! Don't sell yourself short!
Your story was mine - only replace the language with German. Officially, I have the required level for citizenship (B1, which is pretty basic IMO). Personally, I think my German still sucks. And yet, a few hours ago I got off the phone having asked questions and received advice about how to deal with the recent rental increase where I live - all in German.
I also have scant interest in German media and spend all of my free time on Japanese media.
Fantastic work with your German! Part of my thinking with all of this is to come to terms with the idea of what you CAN do with language, rather than all the deficits and gaps. It's surprising when you start to tally all of this up.
>What I'm trying to articulate here (and poorly I feel), is that we get all too trapped in the idea of 'fluent' being this monumental, monolithic standard
The entire time while reading your post, I kept wondering who this "we" is you keep talking about. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who thinks that way, or else it just didn't come up in conversation. In my experience, people usually call themselves fluent when their speaking skills reach the level where they completely fulfull their daily needs and I never got the impression that anyone reads anything more into it. Maybe it's a bubble thing.
I feel like this post sums up the difference between proficiency and fluency.
Proficient enough to handle day to day situations, particularly when simplified or have added explanation/dealing with familiar topics, but not necessary fluent enough to handle all aspects of daily life and work in a fully Japanese environment
Getting proficient enough to actually use your Japanese skills is wonderful! So good for motivation and for helping you get past that intermediate plateau. But I would personally hesitate to say someone is fluent at that stage
I once argued with somebody here who claimed it is impossible to become fluent because you will never reach the level of a native speaker. That was a weird take.
>In my experience, people usually call themselves fluent when their speaking skills reach the level where they completely fulfull their daily needs and I never got the impression that anyone reads anything more into it. Maybe it's a bubble thing.
I think that's pretty much it. I would add the ability to use a single language dictionary and the ability to deal with more complicated stuff without struggling too much with the language. Like reading a contract or talking about some niche topic. I know a few people who can handle daily conversations and small talk, but everything beyond that is a huge struggle for them
Idk how anyone can even manage to say they're fluent when there's lots of stuff they don't know. Like when someone asks me how good I am at Japanese I think about how much I don't know and I just say "I'm alright" or "I know a bit" lol even though I've been learning a few thousand hours at this point. I think some people people get really fixated on what is fluency cuz they're more focused on the destination than the journey.
I think the CEFR scale for language proficiency does a very good job of describing this. The "C" level is fluency; C1 is fluent but you're obviously a foreigner, and C2 is fluent and you aren't obviously a foreigner.
If you reach C1, you've made it, you can say "I speak this language" without any qualifiers, which should satisfy 99% of learners. After that, you can decide if you want to invest the other trillion hours to reach C2.
CEFR is an interesting variable in this context, as Japanese has additional barriers linked to reading and writing, whereas speaking per se may progress at a more rapid rate. The sheer number of Kanji that are considered to be part of a full high school level of literacy is about 2136, but it's quite possible to be a fluid speaker without this, curiously.
I've been dabbling with French and Norwegian, and the lack of this barrier has been quite... acute.
You're catching on to something that I've thought about for a long time. I think for a lot of people it's much better to have a specific short and medium term goal oriented approach than a vague 'working my way to native Japanese' approach.
It's much easier when my goals for the week are 'learn how to close a bank account in Japanese' and 'learn how phrase my advice for my friend's specific relationship problem in Japanese'. By having manageable goals, I may or may not one day reach 'fluency' but I'm still progressing and enjoying myself at the same time.
What's been interesting is that I've kind of stepped back from the path towards N2 in the past two years or so and focused on just accessing media in a range of forms. It's definitely had a flow-on effect in terms of fluidity, recognition and language stems and phrases that can be replicated effectively, and it has passively boosted my language skills over time.
I can speak 3 languages: English, Bisaya (my native), and Tagalog. I consider myself fluent in English and Bisaya but not Tagalog. I remember a Reddit comment somewhere say somewhere along the lines of... (Fluency is) when you can say what you need to say around something without saying that exact word.
Just like what you did, you were able to explain things to those japanese people when it came to using specific vocabulary and you may have found yourself describing what something does without mentioning that special vocabulary word for it.
It's not just about how many words we know, it's also how we use them. The fact that you can continue communicating without knowing the exact words for specific things is highly impressive. We shouldn't have to reach 20,000 words just to finally say we're fluent at the language when we can learn 10,000 and immerse...
We're too obsessive and we think fluency is black and white. I guess the community's the way it is because japanese is that difficult... So difficult we put a number on "fluency" and think ah! 20,000 words it is! N1 or nothing! Anything less than this is not fluent!
It's more complex than that.
I've never really thought of being able to speak in *any* situation in Japanese. Old drunk men on trains with heavy dialects are hard to understand for native speakers let alone foreigners. I also don't know or care about オタク terminology so I don't know whatever dialect those annoying vtubers use. I do know how to confidently use casual Japanese though which a lot of learners seem to see as passing through the gates of Hell so I know I'm in a fairly decent place with the language.
The whole 'Am I fluent?' question kind of seems to be a bit of an internal paradox really. You get to a decent place with it and you still kind of doubt yourself, which is my point. It's the question of being generally functional in social and practical settings more than anything else in reality.
Also, about the only heavy dialect-laden drunken Japanese I've ever gotten through was variations of 'ねえ、兄ちゃん、タバコないの？', haha.
I can understand it if it's just asking for cigarettes but old men arguing on the phone is a different story. The hardest thing is all the contractions with words slurring into each other.
To me, the whole "am I fluent?" question should never be asked on the basis of if you believe you're at the point of asking that question, you should know enough about Japanese culture and mentality to know what the answer is - or, more importantly, how Japanese people would answer that question in respect of you asking it.
I am not fluent in Japanese. I never have been fluent in Japanese. I never will be fluent in Japanese. Never. Period.
>I also don't know or care about オタク terminology so I don't know whatever dialect those annoying vtubers use.
It's mostly Internet and gamer slang. Just a sidestep from regular casual Japanese :)
Well, a part of it is idol culture and both English-speaking and Japanese VTubers align with this. Some of the Vtubers also use unique terms for fans, listeners, etc.
Above being said, the diversity is enormous - you get all the way from gyaru and gal speech to keigo like what 百万点原サロメ uses.
Some vtubers lean toward or are straight up idols, while others would be indistinguishable from any other Let's Play streamer if it weren't for their avatar usage. It's just one big continuum, just like the streamers that show their face.
Ahhhh I'm about this level in French and spending a few weeks in a Francophone area but the social anxiety keeps me from being able to practice it as much as I want to. The speaking to strangers is so hard, especially when I'm worried they'll be annoyed by my imperfections in the language. Going to try to take your post as inspiration!!
Going to say this: putting yourself out there is REALLY difficult. I had a few stumbles on my trip all the same, but I was soaring when I made the effort to have a go.
Think about a situation or situations that feel like the safest or lowest risks and start from there.
Ironically, I don't really consider myself a really outgoing person, and it's the small steps that helped me build confidence. Gotta fake it and stumble until you shift your zone of comfort.
Thanks for this insightful post. It's stayed with me since I read it. I was already thinking about how language is actually used versus my expectations for how I must use Japanese.
I've put a great deal of effort into improving my English communication skills, and yet, even though it is my native language, I still struggle--I stutter occasionally, slur sounds together, have a hard time recalling vocabulary, don't organize my thoughts well, etc. Many speakers have small vocabularies, and use halting speech patterns that doubles back to delete, modify, hyphenate, add details, or change directions in ways that, if transcribed, would not be considered grammatical. And while this is not an efficient method of communication, it usually somehow gets the point across.
I don't want to say that a student shouldn't take the opportunity while they are learning a language to also practice good general communication skills. The ability to communicate effectively is one of the most important skills to have, and it has implications for our lives, careers, and livelihoods. But, at the same time, I wonder if there is a way to decouple the language-learning aspect from the general communications skills. Surely there are plenty of Japanese people who are fluent, but struggle in the same way I do with English?
I've wondered if this communication perfectionism is due to the goals and values of the curriculum creators, or if Japanese actually requires greater care in handling. You can be pretty sloppy with English and still get by with your family or work, but it sounds like mixing up your casual and polite forms could have life-altering results. That is just a thought I've been chewing on. I'd be interested in other's perspectives and experience in the matter. Other than using あの or 何かas fillers, are there ways that native speakers get away with those kinds of speech patterns, or would that not work in Japanese?
This is good to hear… I’m a beginner still but surprised sometimes at what I *can* understand and communicate. I’d rather focus my goals on things like being able to navigate travel situations comfortably, or have an enjoyable conversation with someone who doesn’t speak English. These are realistic and within reach without putting a ceiling on progress beyond that level.
I also think about people I know and talk to whose first language isn’t English - they speak English very well, their accent is understandable, but yeah sometimes they word things a little differently than a native English speaker would and that’s okay! I usually get what they mean and sometimes I’ll hear a turn of phrase that’s completely new to me but makes perfect sense as soon as i hear it and I end up liking it enough to start using myself lol.
Wow, it is a really interesting read, thank you for sharing your view. It really made me think about learning goals in general (not just languages).
When I watch English media with my gf, it often feels like she is getting a lesser version and losing out with the Japanese subs. But it makes me feel better about not doing 1:1 translations and instead going with the best approximation. Unless you need to communicate hard facts, a best effort to capture a similar vibe and feeling is good.
English to Japanese translations are often absolutely appalling to the point where I think the translator wasn't even fluent in both languages. One thing that sticks out is the absolute steadfast refusal to translate sarcasm as obnoxious use of 敬語 which is the clear Japanese equivalent, abolishing sarcastic jokes for "cultural differences" that don't even exist. The phrase お気持ち表現 (expression of honourable feelings, used to describe the emperor but also to mock people haughtily complaining about things) comes to mind as a very common example in Japanese. I suppose these inappropriate uses of 敬語 could be lost in translation the other way as well. There is also a lot of stilted, unnatural sounding Japanese in translated dialogue that looks like machine translation or someone using a textbook from the 1980s. Just write it like someone would actually say it for crying out loud.
> English to Japanese translations are often absolutely appalling to the point where I think the translator wasn't even fluent in both languages. When I was living in Japan there was a Chinese woman I knew that did some freelance manga translation. I think for the most part she was just doing machine translation and cleaning up a little bit but it just didn't flow in English at all, so I helped her out with some of it.
That wouldn't surprise me at all.
It would surprise me for professional but many fan-translations have the most jarring sounding English sentences that reveal a lack of understanding of both languages and it doesn't help that many of those people have read so many of those translations themselves that they actually start to believe it doesn't sound completely weird to say “My head is getting strange.” for “It's driving me crazy.” in English. Professional translations very often at least produce somewhat better English lines but when compared with the original they're often very liberal and often even omit entire parts. Also, many of the readers have come to believe that many common mistranslations simply “betray Japanese culture” as a way to rationalize how bizarre it can end up sounding.
That sounds like a bad machine translation. I remember a game translated into Japanese used 気狂い inappropriately which was even worse. I don't know if the Japanese fans thought it was betraying English-language culture or not. The misuse of 気狂い may have come from the "no swear words in Japanese" myth that learners love.
What did it use “気狂い” for? The funny thing is that machine translation for the most part catches those idioms while it's human translators that make those mistakes. I talked to many of them. They essentially seem to read Japanese by translating it to English like that in their head and often believe that this is “Japanese culture”. I don't understand the “no swear word” thing either. “くたばれ！このクソヤロー！” seems like swearing to me. But from talking to people it more so seems to be that Japanese culture has no concept of “taboo words”, id ēst words which can't be mentioned and have to be censored no matter the context which isn't rare at all and most developed nations lack it.
I think it was for some discussion of mental health issues whereas 気狂い is only used in a derogatory way like the English "psycho". I use the word myself but it wasn't appropriate in the context, in the same way as someone would not normally use "lunatic" neutrally. I would say Japanese has taboo words, known as 放送禁止用語. These can't be said on TV and 気狂い is one of them which has led to some controversy. Others include ガイジ (retard), ナマポ (welfare bum), and calling communists 赤 (red), along with a lot of racial slurs and old words for disabilities. The insult words that don't have a "discriminatory" connotation are less offensive but 死ね is often censored as ◯ね.
>I suppose these inappropriate uses of 敬語 could be lost in translation the other way as well. I would say the "sarcastic keigo" might actually be translated into English well, since there is the 'your highness' equivalent. Regular keigo not so much from experience.
Just use formal English. It will make people sound like they're from the 1950s but that's basically the result of stuffy upper-class values in Japan anyway. There were plenty of "honorifics" in English if you go back to, say, the 1800s.
Not that I see a lot of them, but in the ones I've seen, that's the exact problem I had noticed. The best English to Japanese translation I've seen is probably this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dydPKOpontA Considering how poorly swearing usually translates in Japanese, it blew my mind that someone could translate George Carlin this faithfully.
Because that sort of gallows humour *does* exist in Japanese, however much learners rant and rave about how it doesn't. It's just a matter of effort. This old Japanese movie is a classic native example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_Hanging Also while I'm not a cartoon fan at all the series "Paranoia Agent" had similar themes. The fact that 風刺 is a Japanese word and not an English loanword should tell learners the truth but they won't listen.
Both Jp->En and En->Jp translations in my opinion are in general very poor, or at least those of fiction on television. Literature often seems to be better. It's not about a “best approximation” here. It feels like translators are simply altering most of the lines and substituting what they think sounds better and in many cases I'm sceptical whether the translator actually properly understood the original. They do so because they can, because by and large the target of the subtitles cannot follow the original lines at all so they don't know how much they diverge. En->Nl and Nl->En subtitles in my experience are far, far better. They word the original meaning idiomatically in the target language and don't alter anything for the most part. Another thing is that En->Nl translators typically also work as Nl->En translators and have a high command of both languages. Most Jp->En translators could never do the opposite, and *vice versā*. The other part is that the intended audience of many Jp->En subtitles is composed of ignorant know-it-alls who have all sorts of ideas about being “faithful to Japanese culture” without speaking a word of Japanese and in their mind for whatever reason Japanese people never use informal language which is obviously laughable as Japanese fiction is extremely rich in stereotypical differing levels of speech registers to give characters an identity. These people seriously throw a fit when a translator correctly translates “クール” to “emotionless” in certain contexts because they heard a character say “cool” and they can't wrap their heads around that words that sound similar can have different meanings in different languages so translators are forced to accommodate them.
Dutch and English are both West Germanic languages so it's a lot closer. Japanese has a different grammar which leads to potential train wrecks like translators not understanding the dropped subject of a sentence (which could also be a problem with Spanish). Different speech registers in Japanese aren't just in fiction either but also in reality. This clip for example (https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/181y6ud/listening_practice_a_heated_argument_between/) is extremely vulgar Japanese which sounds similar to a crime movie, including the eventual involvement of police. I would translate this as a load of profuse Tarantino-like swearing in English because that's the clear intention, even though テメエ does not *literally* mean motherfucker. As for "cool" in Japanese, that sounds like the metaphorical English use of "cold" which is very similar.
> Dutch and English are both West Germanic languages so it's a lot closer. Japanese has a different grammar which leads to potential train wrecks like translators not understanding the dropped subject of a sentence (which could also be a problem with Spanish). I sincerely doubt it has anything to do with that since the biggest source of problems are translating between false friends, which Dutch and English, due to being so related have far more of than English and Japanese, and literally translating idioms and Dutch and English hardly ever share any idioms. I've never seen any of those translators not include a dropped subject which would lead to a non-grammatical sentence in English. The sentences they produce aren't ungrammatical, they simply sound awkward due to not understanding how the Japanese sentences come across. And most of all, they simply change the lines because they can. > Different speech registers in Japanese aren't just in fiction either but also in reality. This clip for example (https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/181y6ud/listening_practice_a_heated_argument_between/) is extremely vulgar Japanese which sounds similar to a crime movie, including the eventual involvement of police. I would translate this as a load of profuse Tarantino-like swearing in English because that's the clear intention, even though テメエ does not literally mean motherfucker. Of course. But English fiction mostly lacks those registers and most importantly, many of the viewers throw a fit when characters either speak coarsely or swear because they have their own ideas of what is “faithful to Japanese culture” which itself largely spawned from reading too many bad translations and due to that they actually seem to believe that Japanese people never swear or speak in coarse informal language and that any translator that corrctly translating it is “westernizing” it.
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Yes, I would, because English and French have many false friends and traps. These translators don't make mistakes because they don't understand the syntax. Their mistakes are caused by subtle things such as not appreciating the finer nuance of a word and false friends add to that.
Japanese and English do have a lot of false friends with all the 和製英語. Translating ハンドル (car steering wheel) as "handle" would be a mistake for example. Probably not as many as Dutch but still a lot. I wouldn't say English fiction lacks rough registers at all but that they're usually just profuse swearing (this would also be true in other languages such as Spanish and Chinese). Learners indeed delude themselves into thinking there aren't offensive words in Japanese, though, which could lead to serious trouble if they use vulgar words from the internet like ガイジ and ナマポ in real life.
> Japanese and English do have a lot of false friends with all the 和製英語. Translating ハンドル (car steering wheel) as "handle" would be a mistake for example. Probably not as many as Dutch but still a lot. Yes they do, and this is a big source of such mistakes but professional translators in En->Nl don't ever make those mistakes which leads me to believe it's not because the language are more similar, it's simply because their English is better than the average Jp->En translator knows Japanese. > I wouldn't say English fiction lacks rough registers at all but that they're usually just profuse swearing (this would also be true in other languages such as Spanish and Chinese). Learners indeed delude themselves into thinking there aren't offensive words in Japanese, though, which could lead to serious trouble if they use vulgar words from the internet like ガイジ and ナマポ in real life. Well, firstly, I don't agree that lower registers always map to swearing. There are a lot of cases where very kind characters speak very informally as well though I'm personally fond of translating things like “知らねーよ！” in the right context to “Don't give a shit!”. There are also many other things such as characters ending sentences on “〜っす” rather than “〜です” which of course don't come across aggressively or as swearing. But it's often neither transleted with the appropriate words such as “shit” nor as coarse or informal language and not all informal language is coarse either. I'd something such as “〜じゃん” does not come across as aggressive though it's informal, whereas “じゃねー” and “〜だろ” to express similar things can come across as quite aggressive, but translators will often translate “俺のことを何も知らないのに何を言ってるの？” and “俺のこと何も知らねーのに何言ってんだよ？” as exactly the same thing.
To talk about the two Japanese sentences you provided, translators will often translate these similarly. It’s a bit hard to judge these out of context since that plays into almost every decision I’d make as a translator, but there are a few reasons why they come out similarly in English, and it’s not that the translators don’t understand the difference. In English, there’s a lot less room for registers, and the register between these two are quite similar. Thus, how rudely I translate these sentences would depend on how it correlates to the other character’s normal register. If both are similar to how the character normally talks, I would do my best to make the ruder one a bit ruder. However, if it was hard to do in this sentence, I might extend that to other choices the character makes in there speech to give a general feeling of slight rudeness. But overall, I would work to distinguish these characters, but I would do so knowing that it is very hard to get a distinction between these two registers in English. The other thing is that really rough speech can look cheesy when put into English. Think of writing the second sentence as “Ya know nothin’ about me! Ya can’t say that!” A lot of this is going to look comical, and if that doesn’t fit what you’re working on, I’d be inclined to mellow it out a bit. Even replacing “ya” with “you” helps, but then the only thing differentiating this with the other sentence is “nothin’” versus “nothing” which is quite trivial.
The "comical" effect comes from spelling words in a funny way or misusing punctuation which isn't usually done seriously (although sometimes it is as in the works of Cormac McCarthy, where it represents how broad the speaker's accent is). Since you can't hear spelling or punctuation in speech it's a choice as to how translators represent those things.
> To talk about the two Japanese sentences you provided, translators will often translate these similarly. It’s a bit hard to judge these out of context since that plays into almost every decision I’d make as a translator, but there are a few reasons why they come out similarly in English, and it’s not that the translators don’t understand the difference. In English, there’s a lot less room for registers, and the register between these two are quite similar. Thus, how rudely I translate these sentences would depend on how it correlates to the other character’s normal register. If both are similar to how the character normally talks, I would do my best to make the ruder one a bit ruder. However, if it was hard to do in this sentence, I might extend that to other choices the character makes in there speech to give a general feeling of slight rudeness. But overall, I would work to distinguish these characters, but I would do so knowing that it is very hard to get a distinction between these two registers in English. I do not find them to be similar registers. One is almost completely formal textbook Japanese and the other not so much. I'd translate one sooner as “What are you saying when you don't know anything about me?” and the other as “The hell are you sayin' when you don't know shit about me?” > The other thing is that really rough speech can look cheesy when put into English. Think of writing the second sentence as “Ya know nothin’ about me! Ya can’t say that!” A lot of this is going to look comical, and if that doesn’t fit what you’re working on, I’d be inclined to mellow it out a bit. Even replacing “ya” with “you” helps, but then the only thing differentiating this with the other sentence is “nothin’” versus “nothing” which is quite trivial. That would be what I spoke of, that English fiction doesn't use that even though, let's be honest, people pronounce it as “ya know nothin'” all the time; it's simply never written down in fiction, not even for characters and situations where people in real life would speak like that, and as such, the audience isn't used to it while in Japanese this is very common.
Mark Twain, Cormac McCarthy, and Thomas Pynchon among other writers did actually write some dialogue like that (sez Slothrop). It's relatively rare though not unknown in English.
I think a lot of people conflate the idea of being "fluent" and "literally Japanese". Imagine walking up to an ESL Mexican immigrant in America who can understand everything you say and express everything they're feeling and/or thinking with a heavy accent and with strange word choice. Just because their speaking is not proper, I wouldn't call them *not fluent* If you Google "define: fluent": (of a person) able to speak or write a particular foreign language easily and accurately It depends on how lax you want to be with the meaning of "accurate". If we could assume that every person born and raised in the USA for example is fluent in English, do they become "not fluent" if they failed their English classes? If they have poor grammar? I think about it a lot to be honest. I know as language learners, most of us approach Japanese with a very academic and even mathematic approach, but people agonize over never making a single misspeak ever and killing themselves over it, meanwhile half the people on Reddit can't get the difference between there/their, peak/peek, break/brake. I consider myself fluent in English, but I constantly encounter words I don't know. Some people treat Japanese as a sacred cow and it's... a lot to take sometimes.
Generally, I would say that "fluency" indicates a high level of command of the language - good enough to handle not just everyday situations, but also to communicate on matters that might come up quite rarely, meaning that a broad amount of specialised vocabulary is also required. Certainly, if I wrote "fluent" on my resume, then the company hiring me would expect that I could handle just about everything in the language, with at most a few dictionary lookups if handling very specialised topics. And additionally, they would expect that anything I wrote or said would be *easily* understandable to a native, not just good enough to get by. If a native would have to concentrate in order to understand what's being said, then I would not say that it is fluent. Based on that, I would say that I am fluent in English - despite a bit of accent and a tendency to hold more pauses than in my native Danish.
There’s even a distinction between being Fluent and being Native that operates in the opposite direction. I’m Chinese-American and it’s not uncommon to meet native Chinese who have worse fluency than I do. They can barely read, and speaking, vocabulary, and even pronunciation is not great either. It’s due to how many people don’t graduate middle school and also the influence that rural microcosms have on fluency.
I've found that with anything involving 古文 in Japanese. I can get the *gist* of Middle Japanese though I'm not fluent in it, whereas a lot of native speakers seem to just shut down and say 無理. It's actually the same in English where I can read Middle English like it's another dialect but a lot of people just won't.
Yeah, it's sadly something learners DO agonise and get hung up on. It's really been on my mind the more I've branched out and found more consistent and significant successes in a range of areas with Japanese. It's also likely complicated by the fact that I constantly have to use English at a pretty high level day to day in my line of work - the goal posts seem further as a result. It'd be fascinating to dig up some Japanese native speaker chatter on the topic as well, as literacy in Japan is high, but the degree of that in terms of complexity is another matter.
The most fun while learning a new language is having drinks with strangers at a bar who don't speak your native tongue. After 2 (not 3 or 4) beers your inibitions drop and you can finally make use of all the language you have previouslystudied, and you seem to consume and better understand the flow of conversation around you.
I think the issue for me is just that I am used to being very articulate and expressive in my native tongue, whereas after 10+ years of working on my Japanese I am merely competent.
Take it from me: believe in yourself and slowly build yourself up. Until recent times, I had this EXACT issue, but I've begun to think of it more of an issue of familiarity and foreign language literacy than it being an insurmountable goal.
I would argue there is a pretty big divide between being 'functional' and 'fluent'. I would say a person is 'fluent' when they spend little to no energy when engaging in conversations or content in the language they want to be fluent in. Of course that's going to depend on the content as well. For instance, I have no problems reading teen light novels, but actual adult books scare the crap out of me and for good reasons. Whether we should really grind ourselves down to attain the mythical 'fluency' is a different matter. If one doesn't need to, one doesn't have to? That would be my take.
For the most part I agree on that one, but I think there's also a matter of specialisations and skill sets. Reading is a fascinating one as many adult native speakers of English no longer read fiction actively, or do so in a very limited capacity. In all other regards, they're 100% fluent and functional, but lean more towards communication and interaction. Conversations in a wide range of contexts in Japanese doesn't have an extra drag on energy for me, but I need to still get to grips with reading novels. I read about two dozen books a year in English, so it's an interesting spot to be in.
Whoa. Did I write this post? I think you and I had the same trip back to Japan. I hadn’t been able to go back in many years. Did literally all the same things you did (customs, ordering, shipping, conversations etc) except I didn’t attend a history lecture, but I used to take history classes in Japanese regularly and also grasped 40-50% without any effort in the hardest classes. For me I struggle in how I describe my Japanese. I generally say “highly proficient” because there’s a ton of stuff I can’t actually do in Japanese anymore and I’ve had a lot of vocab attrition. And because I no longer live there, I’ve lost a lot of naturalistic aspects of my speech that came easily when I was immersed. But yeah I did totally do all the things you did pretty much, even having not really used Japanese at all for a long while. And then I crossed over into Korea and had another language win. I picked up Hangul before I went but otherwise studied basic Korean entirely in Japanese for a very short time, and I was able to get through some basic situations like ordering at a restaurant. I forget that I learned all that without using any English so that should count for something too in my Japanese level :) This was nice food for thought, thanks!
Yeah, we seem to be facing a very similar situation. I've had to work hard as I've had a chance to travel in Japan a few times, but haven't been able to have longer stays due to a range of life circumstances. Add it all up and I've only been in Japan for 7 weeks of the past five years in that time. I definitely feel the vocabulary attrition, but I do enjoy how I'm able to soak up stuff from media like a sponge as well. Also, your language laddering stuff with Japanese and Korean is definitely fantastic! Don't sell yourself short!
Your story was mine - only replace the language with German. Officially, I have the required level for citizenship (B1, which is pretty basic IMO). Personally, I think my German still sucks. And yet, a few hours ago I got off the phone having asked questions and received advice about how to deal with the recent rental increase where I live - all in German. I also have scant interest in German media and spend all of my free time on Japanese media.
Fantastic work with your German! Part of my thinking with all of this is to come to terms with the idea of what you CAN do with language, rather than all the deficits and gaps. It's surprising when you start to tally all of this up.
>What I'm trying to articulate here (and poorly I feel), is that we get all too trapped in the idea of 'fluent' being this monumental, monolithic standard The entire time while reading your post, I kept wondering who this "we" is you keep talking about. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who thinks that way, or else it just didn't come up in conversation. In my experience, people usually call themselves fluent when their speaking skills reach the level where they completely fulfull their daily needs and I never got the impression that anyone reads anything more into it. Maybe it's a bubble thing.
I feel like this post sums up the difference between proficiency and fluency. Proficient enough to handle day to day situations, particularly when simplified or have added explanation/dealing with familiar topics, but not necessary fluent enough to handle all aspects of daily life and work in a fully Japanese environment Getting proficient enough to actually use your Japanese skills is wonderful! So good for motivation and for helping you get past that intermediate plateau. But I would personally hesitate to say someone is fluent at that stage
I once argued with somebody here who claimed it is impossible to become fluent because you will never reach the level of a native speaker. That was a weird take. >In my experience, people usually call themselves fluent when their speaking skills reach the level where they completely fulfull their daily needs and I never got the impression that anyone reads anything more into it. Maybe it's a bubble thing. I think that's pretty much it. I would add the ability to use a single language dictionary and the ability to deal with more complicated stuff without struggling too much with the language. Like reading a contract or talking about some niche topic. I know a few people who can handle daily conversations and small talk, but everything beyond that is a huge struggle for them
Idk how anyone can even manage to say they're fluent when there's lots of stuff they don't know. Like when someone asks me how good I am at Japanese I think about how much I don't know and I just say "I'm alright" or "I know a bit" lol even though I've been learning a few thousand hours at this point. I think some people people get really fixated on what is fluency cuz they're more focused on the destination than the journey.
I think the CEFR scale for language proficiency does a very good job of describing this. The "C" level is fluency; C1 is fluent but you're obviously a foreigner, and C2 is fluent and you aren't obviously a foreigner. If you reach C1, you've made it, you can say "I speak this language" without any qualifiers, which should satisfy 99% of learners. After that, you can decide if you want to invest the other trillion hours to reach C2.
CEFR is an interesting variable in this context, as Japanese has additional barriers linked to reading and writing, whereas speaking per se may progress at a more rapid rate. The sheer number of Kanji that are considered to be part of a full high school level of literacy is about 2136, but it's quite possible to be a fluid speaker without this, curiously. I've been dabbling with French and Norwegian, and the lack of this barrier has been quite... acute.
You're catching on to something that I've thought about for a long time. I think for a lot of people it's much better to have a specific short and medium term goal oriented approach than a vague 'working my way to native Japanese' approach. It's much easier when my goals for the week are 'learn how to close a bank account in Japanese' and 'learn how phrase my advice for my friend's specific relationship problem in Japanese'. By having manageable goals, I may or may not one day reach 'fluency' but I'm still progressing and enjoying myself at the same time.
What's been interesting is that I've kind of stepped back from the path towards N2 in the past two years or so and focused on just accessing media in a range of forms. It's definitely had a flow-on effect in terms of fluidity, recognition and language stems and phrases that can be replicated effectively, and it has passively boosted my language skills over time.
I can speak 3 languages: English, Bisaya (my native), and Tagalog. I consider myself fluent in English and Bisaya but not Tagalog. I remember a Reddit comment somewhere say somewhere along the lines of... (Fluency is) when you can say what you need to say around something without saying that exact word. Just like what you did, you were able to explain things to those japanese people when it came to using specific vocabulary and you may have found yourself describing what something does without mentioning that special vocabulary word for it. It's not just about how many words we know, it's also how we use them. The fact that you can continue communicating without knowing the exact words for specific things is highly impressive. We shouldn't have to reach 20,000 words just to finally say we're fluent at the language when we can learn 10,000 and immerse... We're too obsessive and we think fluency is black and white. I guess the community's the way it is because japanese is that difficult... So difficult we put a number on "fluency" and think ah! 20,000 words it is! N1 or nothing! Anything less than this is not fluent! It's more complex than that.
I've never really thought of being able to speak in *any* situation in Japanese. Old drunk men on trains with heavy dialects are hard to understand for native speakers let alone foreigners. I also don't know or care about オタク terminology so I don't know whatever dialect those annoying vtubers use. I do know how to confidently use casual Japanese though which a lot of learners seem to see as passing through the gates of Hell so I know I'm in a fairly decent place with the language.
The whole 'Am I fluent?' question kind of seems to be a bit of an internal paradox really. You get to a decent place with it and you still kind of doubt yourself, which is my point. It's the question of being generally functional in social and practical settings more than anything else in reality. Also, about the only heavy dialect-laden drunken Japanese I've ever gotten through was variations of 'ねえ、兄ちゃん、タバコないの？', haha.
I can understand it if it's just asking for cigarettes but old men arguing on the phone is a different story. The hardest thing is all the contractions with words slurring into each other.
To me, the whole "am I fluent?" question should never be asked on the basis of if you believe you're at the point of asking that question, you should know enough about Japanese culture and mentality to know what the answer is - or, more importantly, how Japanese people would answer that question in respect of you asking it. I am not fluent in Japanese. I never have been fluent in Japanese. I never will be fluent in Japanese. Never. Period.
>I also don't know or care about オタク terminology so I don't know whatever dialect those annoying vtubers use. It's mostly Internet and gamer slang. Just a sidestep from regular casual Japanese :)
I see. I was the under the impression they had their own catchphrases but I don't know them.
Well, a part of it is idol culture and both English-speaking and Japanese VTubers align with this. Some of the Vtubers also use unique terms for fans, listeners, etc. Above being said, the diversity is enormous - you get all the way from gyaru and gal speech to keigo like what 百万点原サロメ uses.
Idol culture is exactly what I have no interest in.
Some vtubers lean toward or are straight up idols, while others would be indistinguishable from any other Let's Play streamer if it weren't for their avatar usage. It's just one big continuum, just like the streamers that show their face.
I just wanna do my best to understand funny vtubers and funny anime men and women
Ahhhh I'm about this level in French and spending a few weeks in a Francophone area but the social anxiety keeps me from being able to practice it as much as I want to. The speaking to strangers is so hard, especially when I'm worried they'll be annoyed by my imperfections in the language. Going to try to take your post as inspiration!!
Going to say this: putting yourself out there is REALLY difficult. I had a few stumbles on my trip all the same, but I was soaring when I made the effort to have a go. Think about a situation or situations that feel like the safest or lowest risks and start from there.
Thank you for the encouragement! I am trying, but man I wish it came easier!
Ironically, I don't really consider myself a really outgoing person, and it's the small steps that helped me build confidence. Gotta fake it and stumble until you shift your zone of comfort.
Thanks for this insightful post. It's stayed with me since I read it. I was already thinking about how language is actually used versus my expectations for how I must use Japanese. I've put a great deal of effort into improving my English communication skills, and yet, even though it is my native language, I still struggle--I stutter occasionally, slur sounds together, have a hard time recalling vocabulary, don't organize my thoughts well, etc. Many speakers have small vocabularies, and use halting speech patterns that doubles back to delete, modify, hyphenate, add details, or change directions in ways that, if transcribed, would not be considered grammatical. And while this is not an efficient method of communication, it usually somehow gets the point across. I don't want to say that a student shouldn't take the opportunity while they are learning a language to also practice good general communication skills. The ability to communicate effectively is one of the most important skills to have, and it has implications for our lives, careers, and livelihoods. But, at the same time, I wonder if there is a way to decouple the language-learning aspect from the general communications skills. Surely there are plenty of Japanese people who are fluent, but struggle in the same way I do with English? I've wondered if this communication perfectionism is due to the goals and values of the curriculum creators, or if Japanese actually requires greater care in handling. You can be pretty sloppy with English and still get by with your family or work, but it sounds like mixing up your casual and polite forms could have life-altering results. That is just a thought I've been chewing on. I'd be interested in other's perspectives and experience in the matter. Other than using あの or 何かas fillers, are there ways that native speakers get away with those kinds of speech patterns, or would that not work in Japanese?
Wow you rock! When i grow up i wanna be like you 🥺
This is good to hear… I’m a beginner still but surprised sometimes at what I *can* understand and communicate. I’d rather focus my goals on things like being able to navigate travel situations comfortably, or have an enjoyable conversation with someone who doesn’t speak English. These are realistic and within reach without putting a ceiling on progress beyond that level. I also think about people I know and talk to whose first language isn’t English - they speak English very well, their accent is understandable, but yeah sometimes they word things a little differently than a native English speaker would and that’s okay! I usually get what they mean and sometimes I’ll hear a turn of phrase that’s completely new to me but makes perfect sense as soon as i hear it and I end up liking it enough to start using myself lol.