Rambling about Languages

It's funny. I read an article last week about foreigners in Japan, who have this trouble with being able to speak the language, but having Japanese people continuously speaking English to him. I laughed at this, thinking it was sooo true in Asia in general.

Crystal, the youngest of a family of 3 kids who all go to Fortis.
She is as cute as she is lazy. She can turn her brain off completely
if she doesn't want to learn. Repeat the same thing over 100 times
and still find a way to answer the same question wrong when asked...
luv her.

I thought of when I was in Japan the first time.

I had gone there with next to no knowledge of Japanese, hoping I'd learn quickly. I was right, I did learn quickly. I had no choice: no one spoke anything except Japanese in the small town I got to live in. I communicated with hand gestures for the first few months, and learned Japanese during the long summer vacation so when I came back to school in August, I was fluent, at least in the easy conversational sense of the term. I could get around, but I understood much more than I could say. When you learn a language, there is this phase where there's this inner click that happens and then you start to understand everything that is being said. Sadly, while you listen, you keep going, "Oh! that's a clever way to say this, or that" and while you understand all sort of complex expressions, they never come out of your own head naturally when you want to speak. Then there's the second click, when you realize that you are THINKING in that other language, and you actually don't need to try anymore, words just come out naturally. 

It took me some 6 months to get to that point.

At this point, however, all the people of my school, teacher included, had been so used to have me speak English, and not understanding Japanese, that they didn't expect me to speak Japanese at all. It was frustrating, very frustrating. I tried speaking Japanese, and I knew I was saying stuff perfectly, and my accent was almost inexistent, and then they'd answer in Japanese. What pissed me off was that they kept speaking English to me. I get that at some point, they were trying to do it because they wanted to be polite. Japanese politeness has no bound. However, I didn't see it as polite because my first language is not even English. If you make me speak another language than my own, let it be Japanese, not English. Or speak French to me, if you're so intent in trying to make me feel at ease.

I was not really angry. Not really, but it made me annoyed most of the time.

I did take advantage of their thinking I was unable to comprehend Japanese however, that was my own way of paying them back their lack of noticing my efforts learning the language... but that is another story...

So I thought about that while reading the article, but then I realized something.

I have noticed something in Japan last time I went. I went to a random person in the street to ask for information and I clearly saw the dread in their face as I approached, my and my amazingly not-Japanese-looking-face. They were thinking so hard I could hear them:

"Please please please don't ask me anything I can't do English!"

And then I remember just as clearly seeing the relief in their eyes as I started speaking in Japanese. 

It seems like people who know you, and know you to be able to speak English will do their best to speak English as a sign of politeness. However, people in the street will not necessarily feel confident enough about their English to talk to you at all. If you appear lost in Japan, no one will come to help you, because they simply expect that you can't speak their language. I suppose this will come to change sooner or later, with the crazy amount of foreigners that now speak Japanese fluently.

In Korea, I had a lot of people being surprised when I started speaking Korean. There'd be the usual, how long have you been in Korea? Then the surprise again as I answered, 3, 4, 6 months, then one year, then one year and half (honestly though, the time spent in Korea really does not make a difference in the learning of a language, and people should start noticing. If you have no interest or put no effort in learning the language, spending 30 years won't make a single difference because let's face it: a language does not naturally appear in your head. You need a strong knowledge of the basics before the new words and expressions sink in naturally without effort)... 

Contrarily to Japan, spoken English skills are pretty good. If you are lost somewhere, especially in the subway, wait one minute and you'll have a teenager come up to you and ask you in English if you need help. That's one thing I like about Korea. Another thing is their lack of overbearing politeness. Don't misunderstand me, I am in LOVE with the politeness of Japanese people, and most of the time, the lack thereof we see in Korea is more than frustrating on many accounts. However, that difference in attitude makes it much easier to practice Korean. They know their English is no sufficient (when it's not, anyways) so when they see you speak Korean they don't try to revert to English, they go along with you slowly using their mother-tongue.

I was blessed with the ability of language so I am pretty good at speaking the languages I learn, so it might make a difference with the attitude people have toward me, but since I got to Korea, I noticed that people just go with the flow. Their mentality is more that of "our language is the best, so of course you should speak it". A lot of people ask how long I have been studying, but just as many people don't even raise an eyebrow and just keep talking about what they were talking about when we started the conversation....

So yah. I laughed hard when I saw this video cuz I thought it was SO TRUE but in the end, it's not true, for me in any case.

After watching this video, I took more notice of how people reacted when I spoke Korean to them (of course I am not saying Japan and Korea are the same ^^ but I'd need to return to Japan to compare it to the Japanese counterpart of the story...) and they usually stuck of Korean when they realized I spoke it well enough for them to communicate. I do get, however, almost every single time, a short line like "oh, dear you can't understand how relieved I am that you speak Korean, my English is really bad you see..."

Sorry that's a lot of rambling...

Luv.