RANT 'N' RAVE
Nihongo dake!
To live in a foreign land is to learn
their language... Right? Well, why is it then that I've been here for almost three years
and I sound like a first-grader (at best) when I speak Japanese? I know little more than
how to send a letter or order a beer.
I went back to my small American hometown and was greeted with an array of questions about
Japan. The questions were often related to the assumption that I must be fluent in
Japanese - I mean, after living in a foreign city for three years, how can it be that
fluency is only something to joke about? I'm sure my friends and family are secretly
thinking how stupid I must be.
Of course I back up my response with a whole slew of rehearsed excuses. "I teach
English all day"... "They speak English well enough"... "Japanese is
too difficult"... etc. But again, I'm sure they are secretly dubbing me as the lazy
one!
But I'm not lazy! I study religiously every day! I can honestly say that my rehearsed
excuses do hold a bit of truth for not attaining that almighty rank of fluency. Japanese
is hard! I do teach English all day! However, I bear a slight grudge against the Japanese
people and hold them partly responsible for my jilted Japanese.
I can't even count the number of times I have approached a Japanese person, asked them a
question in Japanese (which may not be 100 percent correct, but is at least
understandable) only to have them answer me in English! Aaaagh! This frustrates me to no
end! On a few occasions I have actually insisted on Japanese. "Nihongo dake!"
has become a standard part of my repertoire of expressions with which I communicate.
I fully understand that Japanese people want to study English as much as possible and I
appreciate their effort, but what about us? Wanting to use the language of the country in
which we live in surely isn't an unreasonable request. Their English responses make my
studies seem futile. If they want to practice English, they should move to an English
speaking country or join an English school.
I don't stand alone in my complaint, as a number of English friends have expressed similar
discontent. A student of mine even complained that when she tried speaking English to some
English tourists, they curtly asked her to speak Japanese and she was offended. I had to
defend these unknown tourists and tell her that this situation is all too common for us
foreigners who have dared to exist in a land with such a difficult language.
So the next time I go home and my friends ask me why I don't speak Japanese, I'm simply
going to say - they won't let us!
Many thanks to reader Kerry Glass for this Rant.
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