Do you wanna speak English ? Really ?
Some of my friends commented my blog , and now I'm gonna reply it . Sorry for my late...
He commented on this article.
http://capm.seesaa.net/archives/20060917.html
Firstly , he pointed out he has studied some part of engineering , but a lot of Japanese companies don't expect the students to use the knowledge they studied in the universities. As I mentioned before , the companies usually train the employees , so you don't have to have specific skill to enter the companies .
I heard an interesting story from some of U of T students majoying Finance , so I'll comment this part in next time.
Nextly , he said my writing is easy to understand ( I hope this means my writing is good) , and asked me my level of the conversation .
First of all , his English is incredible . He lived in the US more than 3 years ( in this point , he has the same exprience as "Mogura" ) , and his score of TOEIC is almost perfect and his way of speaking is also very good. Because of this , I 'm very glad to hear from him my English is easy to understand.
By the way , Motoyuki Shibata , who is the professor of Tokyo university majoring English Literature , and also the famous translater , said
" If you wanna speaking English very good , you have to have another personality " ,
and I feel very strongly how real his comment is , after coming here . If you wanna speak English fluently , you have to have another personality . This is absolutely true.
In other words , if you wanna speak English fluently , you have to think everything in English . A lot of Japanese students take one or two seconds to reply something when they are asked something in English . One of my teacher said to me this is one of the most typical responses of Japanese people. Firstly , they think something in Japanese and try to translate it in English ( And they usually make mistakes . They usually creat their original expressions. This is because they "automatically" translate Japanese into English , you know ?) . As long as you do this , it'll take 1 or 2 seconds to response it . This is inevitable , you know ?
The thing is Japanese and English have a totally , totally different structure , and this makes Japanese people bad at English . Spanish , French , German , Italy , or so have the Latin root , right ? So , for them learning English is not so difficult as Japanese people .
Of course , even for them , speaking English is very difficult , especially , pronunciation , but the fluency of them is much , much better than that of Japanese . Some of my friends was praised by his friends because of his fluency , but looking back , his fluency is so terrible . All of my friends who came here to study English from the countries having the Latin root are much better than him in the fluency.
What I try to say is not to embarress him , but to emphasize that , for Japanese , it is so hard to speak English fluently. And one of the reason is the way of thinking and structure is so different form Japanese , you know ?
Even right now , my speaking is so terrible . I think I am thinking everything in English . Sometime , I talk to myself , but even at that time , I definitely use English . And whenever I have a dream at night , I am speaking English . I have a English dream !
Everything is so dominated by English , but my speaking is terrible ... I personally believe if you wanna use English in a business field or something like it , you have to spend more than 6 months living the place where English is used .
In my opinion, this time is shortest . And if you wanna establish your English in such a short time , before going there , you have to prepare studying English more than 6 hours per day at least one year ( though , this suits only for Japanese people ). I studied English very hard before coming here. I think after entering the graduate school , I studied English "at least" 8 hours per day . A lot of classes are taken place in English , and the books I read is almost all ( over 90%) English . But my English is this level , you know ?
Of course , how fast people learn English totally depends on the abilitiy of people , but as far as my concerned , a lot of smart people struggle to learn English . Let me give you an example.
Do you know Oki Matsumoto ? I think everybody agree with his smartness if you know him. He graduated from the Law department of Tokyo university , and , he has a record of the youngest person who get the partner of Goldman Sach . He entered Solomon Brothers after graduating from his university , but according to him , the main reason why he choosed Solomon is learning English . Even for him , it is so difficult to speak English that I force himself to speak English , entering the foreign capital company .
In Japan , a lot of people assume you have to learn English . Some English school crazy about advertizing such a message , you know ?
However, it is really true ? English is very time-comsuming . If you wanna make your English level " enough", you have to spend amazing time to learn it . If you don't do it , you can have a lot of time to do another thing. You could take some qualifications , such as CPA . You could have another important skill , such as , writing some programing . And you can enjoy yourself !
If you wanna make your English enough , you have to compute seriously the cost of learning English and the benefit of learning English , and you should put a lot of energy into that thinking . And if you think it deserves it , you have to be crazy about learning English . This is my idea. What do you think about it ?
He commented on this article.
http://capm.seesaa.net/archives/20060917.html
Firstly , he pointed out he has studied some part of engineering , but a lot of Japanese companies don't expect the students to use the knowledge they studied in the universities. As I mentioned before , the companies usually train the employees , so you don't have to have specific skill to enter the companies .
I heard an interesting story from some of U of T students majoying Finance , so I'll comment this part in next time.
Nextly , he said my writing is easy to understand ( I hope this means my writing is good) , and asked me my level of the conversation .
First of all , his English is incredible . He lived in the US more than 3 years ( in this point , he has the same exprience as "Mogura" ) , and his score of TOEIC is almost perfect and his way of speaking is also very good. Because of this , I 'm very glad to hear from him my English is easy to understand.
By the way , Motoyuki Shibata , who is the professor of Tokyo university majoring English Literature , and also the famous translater , said
" If you wanna speaking English very good , you have to have another personality " ,
and I feel very strongly how real his comment is , after coming here . If you wanna speak English fluently , you have to have another personality . This is absolutely true.
In other words , if you wanna speak English fluently , you have to think everything in English . A lot of Japanese students take one or two seconds to reply something when they are asked something in English . One of my teacher said to me this is one of the most typical responses of Japanese people. Firstly , they think something in Japanese and try to translate it in English ( And they usually make mistakes . They usually creat their original expressions. This is because they "automatically" translate Japanese into English , you know ?) . As long as you do this , it'll take 1 or 2 seconds to response it . This is inevitable , you know ?
The thing is Japanese and English have a totally , totally different structure , and this makes Japanese people bad at English . Spanish , French , German , Italy , or so have the Latin root , right ? So , for them learning English is not so difficult as Japanese people .
Of course , even for them , speaking English is very difficult , especially , pronunciation , but the fluency of them is much , much better than that of Japanese . Some of my friends was praised by his friends because of his fluency , but looking back , his fluency is so terrible . All of my friends who came here to study English from the countries having the Latin root are much better than him in the fluency.
What I try to say is not to embarress him , but to emphasize that , for Japanese , it is so hard to speak English fluently. And one of the reason is the way of thinking and structure is so different form Japanese , you know ?
Even right now , my speaking is so terrible . I think I am thinking everything in English . Sometime , I talk to myself , but even at that time , I definitely use English . And whenever I have a dream at night , I am speaking English . I have a English dream !
Everything is so dominated by English , but my speaking is terrible ... I personally believe if you wanna use English in a business field or something like it , you have to spend more than 6 months living the place where English is used .
In my opinion, this time is shortest . And if you wanna establish your English in such a short time , before going there , you have to prepare studying English more than 6 hours per day at least one year ( though , this suits only for Japanese people ). I studied English very hard before coming here. I think after entering the graduate school , I studied English "at least" 8 hours per day . A lot of classes are taken place in English , and the books I read is almost all ( over 90%) English . But my English is this level , you know ?
Of course , how fast people learn English totally depends on the abilitiy of people , but as far as my concerned , a lot of smart people struggle to learn English . Let me give you an example.
Do you know Oki Matsumoto ? I think everybody agree with his smartness if you know him. He graduated from the Law department of Tokyo university , and , he has a record of the youngest person who get the partner of Goldman Sach . He entered Solomon Brothers after graduating from his university , but according to him , the main reason why he choosed Solomon is learning English . Even for him , it is so difficult to speak English that I force himself to speak English , entering the foreign capital company .
In Japan , a lot of people assume you have to learn English . Some English school crazy about advertizing such a message , you know ?
However, it is really true ? English is very time-comsuming . If you wanna make your English level " enough", you have to spend amazing time to learn it . If you don't do it , you can have a lot of time to do another thing. You could take some qualifications , such as CPA . You could have another important skill , such as , writing some programing . And you can enjoy yourself !
If you wanna make your English enough , you have to compute seriously the cost of learning English and the benefit of learning English , and you should put a lot of energy into that thinking . And if you think it deserves it , you have to be crazy about learning English . This is my idea. What do you think about it ?
posted by NINJA @ 3:59 PM
2 Comments:
At 2:39 PM,
Anonymous said…
[In my view, most Japanese people does not need to speak or read English. Most Japanese gets any materials in Japanese even if you are in a university.]
I totally agree with you. Compared with other countries , the market of Japan is so large that everything can be gotten in Japanese , right ? Thing is you have to read English if you wanna study the graduate level of Economics , and this is so annoying , you know ? I wish I can study "Romer"'s level in Japanese...
[If they get some knowledge, they can speak English in some degree soon. Of coures, I do not mean they can speak it smoothly. It is depend upon a goal which they want to achieve.]
I think so , too. But you know , listening is also hard . I watch "The Simpson " everyday to enhance listening skill , but I can catch at least 20-30% . So difficult ! But even juniar high school students here can easily understand "The Simpson"'s English , and , they speak like that , you know...
Point is nobaby wanna speak to Asina gays. Compared with other countries , such as , France , Asian gays don't have a good-looking , right ?
This means if you wanna speak to the native speaker , you have to talk to some people , using your poor English , and this is a tuff job for Japanese , right ? So , I also think learning English is stricktly related to the general communication skill , and I think the average level of that skill by Japanese guys is extremely low . I have noticed that!
But , you know, compared with the guys , Japanese girls are popular , so they don't have to talk to the strangers ! The strategy for them is only waiting ,and make a friend . So , usually , the level of Japanese girl's English is much higher than that of the guy !
By the way , why do you comment the discussion about Japan's specific things I wrote about . I wanna ask you and I wanna listen to the Hirose-kun's opinion ( His major is Labor Economics ,right ? ).
Anyway , thank you for your comment .
At 3:40 PM,
Anonymous said…
Hi!
I am an international student from Taiwan in U of T ; the main reson for me being here is that my parents wana me to learn English.
After 10 years learning English, I still can't speck it very well! Because all of my friends here r from Asia, we don't use English@_@
Last month I went to Chicago for vacation and met some people there! That was the first time I feel how important one person can speck English in North America.
In my own opinion, English is not just "English", but useful tool to catch more information and build a connect with others in the world. Because it is the most common language now.
For our generation, "www" is an amazing stuff for people to connect with others, however, there is one big problem of internet for exchanging information -- language.If we can use same language to talk, we will have the "internet of internet" and learn much more and much fast~
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