Friday 24 April 2009

Speaking english is.... Weird!!

First let me state that I am no fluent in Japanese. Far from it, if u consider reading and writing. But what happened during my trip to Praha was just amazingly weird.

Since I left Tokyo and arrived Munich, I have this huge urge to speak nothing but Japanese. In Japan i would be extremely happy if I met a Japanese person who can make a conversation longer than 30sec in English, beside ofcoruse university professors. And now because I have the chance to babble in English, the words refuse to exit my mouth except in Japanese!!

In addition, English words sounded heavy on my ear and annoying too! I felt the language is slow and contains many unneeded particles. For example, I say to someone: “would you please do me the favor of buying this for me?” In English, or “kattekuremasenka” in Japanese! Yup! Short, fast, and delivers the same exact meaning you want.

After taking a break for one week from Japanese, I returned to feel that the language feels much easier, smoother and more understandable. Right now, I have no problems at all in detailed shopping, making long phone calls (like customer support calls) or understanding what my lab mates are talking about. I can also express myself and deliver the message I want to a person infront of me. In the class room, now I only ask my questions in Japanese. Ofcourse, that is in addition to daily life conversations that cause me no problems.

A strong language is defined as a language where you can express more in shorter time, or using fewer components. We say this man is a great speaker if he delivers his ideas using clear definite short words. And that is the case of Japanese compared to English.

Still, I have to apologize to the Japanese before I state, without any doubt, that Arabic is even stronger than Japanese. Since in Arabic you can express and deliver much better using much less components and in shorter time than Japanese.

I am sure now readers would be wondering why i am typing this English then.

I did not use Japanese because as I stated above I am not a fluent. And I also did not write in Arabic because simply typing in English is much faster. In addition, I have a lot of foreign readers of this blog and English would be the only suitable language for this.

Still, maybe in a couple of years I open a Japanese-language version of this blog! Who knows?!

9 comments:

Summer said...

interesting take on the English language.

Haitham said...

I can not see the point of a Japanese version of this blog if it targets people who know nothing about Japan!

NasEr said...

so where does Arabic fall in your scale ?
I myself discovered that i hate far eastern languages and dialects in general ,they annoy me so much.and i realized how much i love Arabic too

Unknown said...

I enjoy reading your posts about your experience -you and wife- in Japan! way to go Jubilean one;) You make us proud!
keep them coming!

momiji said...

I agree with you that Japanese is easier and faster than English in speaking and expressing feelings, but not in writing.

Many of my friends say that Arabic is difficult because every word differs depending on the subject relating to the word, but as you said actually this is a strength point in the language.
From single word in Arabic, you can understand wither the subject is male or female, and wither it is one or two or more, wither the subject is you or he/she/they or I, without the need of using separate pronouns.

subzero said...

Summer-san,
Thanx for visiting.

Haitham-san,
If I reach a state wer i actually CAN write a blog in Japanese, trust me I wont need a reason then to write haha!

Naser-san,
I talked about Arabic in the main topic. The best of all, in my opinion.

nido-san,
Thank you!

momiji-san,
Writing is another point here that gives Japanese a point. When I am asked to submit a report, usually professors say: "Write a report 5-pages (japanese) or 7-pages (English)". It is known that you can express more with fewer Japanese words.

Blue Rose said...

Well, as someone new in learning Japanese, the use of few components leads to an endless loop in trying to say what you want.. When I started to make very short conversations in my daily life, i was really struggling to express what i wanted because i always tried to translate my long English sentence into a Japanese-form and that leaded most of the time to a non-understandable sentences. But the longer you live here, the shorter this loop becomes.

Another point, I think subzero not only kept speaking in Japanese, i think you also used Japanese gestures.

Anonymous said...

とってもおもしろいポストでした。
the others comments as well.

and Blue Rose san,
yes,>the longer you live here, the shorter this loop becomes.
it's sure.
you will be able to guess the point of context without reaching to the end of the sentence.

K-s

Amani AbuQdais أماني أبوقديس said...

I'm glad its not only me..
English phrases like "you go?","you like?" are replacing correct english and "eetto" just pops up on its own whether I'm talking English or Arabic.
Let's not talk about the infamous "heeee!" or the convenient "sou!" or the synchronizing "A!" :D
Nice post!