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From: das@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Getting Japanese to Believe You're Speaking Japanese
Message-ID: <8111@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 18-Dec-85 23:55:55 EST
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.8111
Posted: Wed Dec 18 23:55:55 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Dec-85 05:42:51 EST
References: <1791@uwmacc.UUCP> <839@h-sc1.UUCP> <1809@uwmacc.UUCP> <2528@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Reply-To: das@ucla-cs.UUCP (David Smallberg)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 31
Keywords: easy and difficult

In article <2528@sdcrdcf.UUCP> barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) writes:
>During my four months in Japan, I also repeatedly ran into natives who
>assumed that my (undoubtedly English-accented) Japanese was some weird
>variety of English.  I also found out a way around this problem....
>You sneak up behind them and say (in Japanese), "Excuse me for bothering
>you, but...."  Then ask your question.

Yes!  A quick "Chotto sumimasen ga ..." before the person turns their eyes to
look at you works wonderfully, and a short phrase like that can be spoken with
essentially no accent, so the double-takes can be fun when they finally see
you; at that point, your accent doesn't matter, since they're listening for
Japanese.

When I couldn't use this trick, I noticed an odd phenomenon.  In Tokyo and
Kyoto, most shop clerks, etc., responded to my Japanese in English.  But in
Osaka, Kobe, in suburbs, and in the small (pop. 300) village I was
staying in, people responded in rapid-fire Japanese.  There was no middle
ground -- I never ran into anyone who thought to speak Japanese *slowly* to an
obvious foreigner who addressed them in American-accented Japanese.

Also, no one *ever* obeyed the request "Moo ichido itte kudasai" ["Please say
that again"]  Invariably, they either paused and then tried to say what they
just said in English, or they said it in an entirely different way.  I varied
it by sometimes asking people to repeat in the same words, or more slowly,
etc., but no one *ever* did.  Why is this?  A friend has pointed out that
Americans seem to do this, too (Amer.: "You turn right at the signal, then
go straight for five blocks."  For.: "Could you repeat that, please?"
Amer.: "Sure.  Go down to the light and turn right; go five blocks and you're
there.").

-- David Smallberg, das@locus.ucla.edu, {ihnp4,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!das