English in Japan

I don't know about you, but "Oops" is the last word I wanna hear when I'm getting a haircut.


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お久しぶりやな！It's been a while...

Since I've taken so long to update this blog, I thought I'd give you a treat: a post about (so-called) Engrish. I have resisted doing so because:

(1) It's kind of a cliche for blogs about Japan,

(2) I am teaching English, and I want to encourage my students. Laughing at their mistakes does not encourage them. If my Japanese teachers posted my mistakes online for others to laugh at, I might lose motivation, and

(3) It gives the impression that Japanese people are poor at English.

However:

(1) Blogs about Engrish are popular and I felt badly for taking so long to update this blog, so I thought people might enjoy it,

(2) Of course, I won't mention any students' names or locations. Also, I will include my own errors in Japanese to hopefully even things out, and

(3) The fact is that most Japanese people study English for at least 6 years and at most 10 or more. Their knowledge of grammar is likely better than yours. It's simply that, for various socio-cultural reasons, they often don't speak English, so their spoken English is weak and they lack confidence about using it.

Written English is looked upon as somewhat of an embellishment than rather to add meaning (similar to how French is used to add a "touch of class" to restaurant menus in North America). Thus, errors in written English often go unnoticed (similar to how errors in written French often went unnoticed by Canadians such as myself, despite my having studied French for years and being part-French).

Also, as I think I've mentioned in a prior post, quite a few North Americans get tattoos with Japanese/Chinese characters riddled with errors, so making mistakes in your non-native language is hardly unique to Asia.

I'll kick things off with some pics:


Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's the famous "Sightseeing Restroom", spotted here taking a rare break from its sightseeing activities. Actually, the English here is actually not so bad: we have a verb turned into a gerund being used as an adjective (like "running shoes" or "shopping bag"). However, for this to be consistent, it would have to mean "restroom for the purpose of sightseeing" (as in "shoes for the purpose of running", etc.). I didn't actually go in, so - to be fair - maybe there's actually some sights worth seeing in there. We may never know.


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In a similar vein to the above....everybody FUCKING RUN!!! It's the FACIAL BODY REMOVER!


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In an email some guy sent to me: "I work at city hole". Somehow oddly apt, I thought.


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A regular student came in one of my jobs and plopped himself down on the floor. "I failed my erection" he announced glumly to the room. I considered this for a moment. Since my job is basically correcting the English of others, I can do this with robot-like precision and speed. Let's see...he said "failed", so it was probably a test..."erection"..."election"...ah, he probably confused "examination" with "election" ("r" and "l" pronunciation is a notorious weak point here). I corrected him and explained his error. It didn't get as big a laugh as it rightfully should have.


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Literally right around the corner from "Oops", we can recover from our haircut experience at "Tits". Their milkshake is better than yours.


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Sometimes, mistakes are somehow charming or poetic. In a text message: "It's heavenly rain" (she meant to say "heavy").


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I taught a "making stories" class at the same job as the "failed erection" guy. It basically involved talking about the method of telling a story in English, then displaying a kind of picture book from which students would choose one picture as the basis for their story. On that day, a shopping mall scene was chosen. In the picture, various people were milling about on the main floor of the mall: families, children, etc. The students basically described the scene. I walked around, checking the stories for tense, spelling, grammar, meaning, etc.I stopped at the story of one woman. She had written, "There is a woman in red. She has a baby in her vaggy." As noted above, I think it is wrong to laugh at students' work. Yet, I laughed. Heartily. I looked at the pic to see what was going on. The woman in red was pushing a stroller. A carriage. A pram. A buggy. Again, "v" and "b" confusion is a common error here ("bideo store" etc.). Again, I explained the error but failed to successfully explain just how classic this error was.


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Who made that beautiful painting? Let's take a closer look...

It's a Rongo! But "Drawed"? "Drawed"? Wrong-o. Actually, as "drawn" is a past participle (and they suck), "drawed" is a good guess. It was more the "Rongo" that gave me a chuckle.


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Just to even things out....
Another error, this time mine, was also not as appreciated as I thought it should be. I had several students that were hostesses. It's bad news to date students, but hostesses are really cute so I thought they might have some cute friends and, hey, it's an opportunity. There is a kind of "social mixer" here, a "joint party" of guys and girls, called a konpa or goukon. Someone, usually a girl, organizes a meeting of single guys and girls. I suggested to my friend that she set one up:

Me: Hey, I was thinking...why don't we have a goukon?

Her: WHAAAT?

Me: You know, a goukon. Just get a bunch of your cute girlfriends together. I've always wanted to do that.

Her: What do you mean?

Me: Don't worry, just call the girls. I'll set everything up. I'll invite a bunch of guys.I think it's a good chance to have a goukon.

At that time, I couldn't remember the word "konpa", so I stuck with "goukon". However, I pronounced it "goukan". Now, "goukon" (合コン) means "joint party, mixer, combined party, etc"). Unfortunately, "goukan" (強姦) means "violation, rape, forced sex, sexual assault, etc."). So, what I had actually requested was:

Me: Hey, I was thinking...why don't we have a RAPE?

Her: WHAAAT?

Me: You know, FORCED SEX. Just get a bunch of your cute girlfriends together. I've always wanted to do that.

Her: What do you mean?

Me: Don't worry, just call the girls. I'll set everything up. I'll invite a bunch of guys. .I think it's a good chance to have a SEXUAL ASSAULT.


-----------Writed by Rongo. I mean, Bonsai Superstar!-----------


P.S.- In a move surprising to no-one more than myself, I have quit drinking. As a result, I have been quite productive recently, so I hope to update this damn thing more often.

English in Japan (Part 1)

[This post is just a "teaser", such as it were, for the upcoming post on English in Japan. It is English-related, but basically I just saw this ad and wanted to post about it. I left in the guy's contact details in case any readers are interested - hey, age, color, nationality no matter!]




A Fatty Woman Want...

For some reason, this sounds like the title of a reggae song... (sings)

Me woman, she no fatty but
Me a fatty want...
A fatty woman want!
Me a fatty want
etc.
Anyway, sorry Charlie: I can see how you'd be confused with all the "woman as fish" metaphors in English. Yes, she might fall for your line hook, line, and sinker and you'd be reelin' 'em in, or she might not take the bait and end up being the one that got away. But, while tuna can be fatty, people are fat. "Fatty" is used to describe something, usually food, containing a large amount of fat while "fat" is used to describe slightly-overweight, big-boned people with a thyroid condition after they have left the room.

To give this guy the benefit of the doubt, he could be using the nickname (fatty, fatties) in the same way that such guys are called "chubby chasers" in North America but, despite his claims of speaking "properly", his other grammar is want. I mean wanting. If he wanted to use it in that context, he could have just written "A fatty wanted". (A fatty is a noun, fat is an adjective). And though he's South Asian, many of my Japanese students make this same error.

Further, this error is especially noteworthy in Japan, where reticence is the order of the day. There's even a saying about this: iwanu ga hana (literally, "not saying is the flower"). However, here the speaker is not only commenting outright on someone's appearance, they are doing so in a negative way (this is debatable, but in my opinion most people would not be flattered to be called "fat"). Also, they are referring to the other person as an object.

Finally, in Japanese, a person is usually said to have become big, to have gained weight*. There is a derogatory slang term, "debu", which is translated in my 2006 Shogakukan dictionary as, wait for it, "a fatty". It's the equivalent of calling someone a pig in another language. So, get it right, damn it! There's no excuse. Let's pass some good time.

* By the way, there's a trend now in Japan to raise consciousness about weight issues. Worry about so-called "metabolic syndrome" is all the rage. This is a kind of PC-speak for being overweight. It's a bit weird to me, because everyone is already pretty thin here - you rarely see a truly overweight person. Every night I ride home after work past the local temple, there's a squadron of people jogging, stretching, doing jumping jacks, etc. there. I'm not really certain of what everyone's training for, but from the time they're kids, people here are training - not exercising, but training.