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A Japanese tweet/blog aiming to stir up outrage among the “concerned” Japanese public, being taken up by an English-language website for their latest “weird Jap

A Japanese tweet/blog aiming to stir up outrage among the “concerned” Japanese public, being taken up by an English-language website for their latest “weird Japan” article. Being Japanese myself I can share countless horror stories about how English is taught here, but crap article is crap.

bemmu 6y ago
Can confirm that "weird Japan" is the usual variety of story on the blog, but I posted this one after seeing it elsewhere and this article seemed to sum it up well. In reality a teacher wouldn't dock you points for writing the alphabet in the wrong order? If so perhaps the post should be deleted.
- yutopia 6y ago
  Knowing the state of English education here I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if the story was true, especially seeing how the original blog post was written by a tutor in (rather rural) Fukui. I’ve never experienced anything like this myself, but some teachers truly are clueless. However it’s quite a bit of a stretch to call these “Japanese rules for writing your ABCs”. The tweet wouldn’t have gotten 15k likes and retweets if this was a widespread occurrence or the standard way people are taught English here. It’s shocking and outrageous, that’s what made it viral.
numpad0 6y ago
yeah it's a RocketNews story... I wonder what would be the equivalent to RocketNews/Gigazine/itanew in English world, Sputnik US maybe?
TulliusCicero 6y ago
What's the problem? Every country has its quirks. You could write plenty of things about how the US is weird.
Seb-C 6y ago
This is so true. When I learned to write (French) when I was a child, the teacher also gave us strict guidelines to the order and shape of the characters. I don't see any difference except that in my country, most people stop caring about it once the exam has passed. Japan is awesome when you really dive into the culture and language and try to understand it. If you don't, you'll probably have a hard time (hence the number of expats ranting about anything and everything, I guess). I always wondered why it is always the target for articles about "weird stuff". You can find weird people and concepts in any country if you search for it long enough...

bemmu 6y ago

Can confirm that "weird Japan" is the usual variety of story on the blog, but I posted this one after seeing it elsewhere and this article seemed to sum it up well. In reality a teacher wouldn't dock you points for writing the alphabet in the wrong order? If so perhaps the post should be deleted.

yutopia 6y ago
Knowing the state of English education here I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if the story was true, especially seeing how the original blog post was written by a tutor in (rather rural) Fukui. I’ve never experienced anything like this myself, but some teachers truly are clueless. However it’s quite a bit of a stretch to call these “Japanese rules for writing your ABCs”. The tweet wouldn’t have gotten 15k likes and retweets if this was a widespread occurrence or the standard way people are taught English here. It’s shocking and outrageous, that’s what made it viral.

numpad0 6y ago

yeah it's a RocketNews story... I wonder what would be the equivalent to RocketNews/Gigazine/itanew in English world, Sputnik US maybe?

TulliusCicero 6y ago

What's the problem? Every country has its quirks. You could write plenty of things about how the US is weird.

Seb-C 6y ago

This is so true. When I learned to write (French) when I was a child, the teacher also gave us strict guidelines to the order and shape of the characters. I don't see any difference except that in my country, most people stop caring about it once the exam has passed. Japan is awesome when you really dive into the culture and language and try to understand it. If you don't, you'll probably have a hard time (hence the number of expats ranting about anything and everything, I guess). I always wondered why it is always the target for articles about "weird stuff". You can find weird people and concepts in any country if you search for it long enough...