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It's difficult to take the author of the article being repudiated (Wingfield-Hayes) seriously when he has lived here for over 10 years and doesn't speak the lan

It's difficult to take the author of the article being repudiated (Wingfield-Hayes) seriously when he has lived here for over 10 years and doesn't speak the language. Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. Idk, say what you like about how journalists operate but living somewhere for a decade and not speaking the language doesn't sit right with me.

BrandoElFollito 4y ago
In France it is virtually impossible to function of you do not speak good French. In a company you will miss all the important things that are usually conveyed in casual French (this includes subtleties that change the meaning of a sentence). Yes, people will speak English with you, usually fluently (and with plenty of errors), but this is not the language of choice for the off the record conversations. Outside of work you will get by in supermarkets, but for more complicated shops your will have problems. For the administration it is clear: without being fluent in French there is no way to do anything. Even if you are a native speaker you understand just half of it and hope for the best. People in the street speak English [citation needed] but they will get tired after some time and then the English becomes unbearable. Source: native French married to a foreigner who struggles to understand everything (not to mention the subtleties) after 15 years of active use of the language.
jerryzh 4y ago
I don't get all the replies to this comment. hogepiyo was saying someone who lived for a decade and cannot speak native language does not have enough credit for us to believe his/her comment on the entire country's changes. The fact that people do can live this way does not change this point.
rullelito 4y ago
> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. You haven't been to Sweden then.
- woahitsraj 4y ago
  I spent about half my year in Japan and half my year in Sweden and I speak both languages. It's always shocked me how many expats feel it's not necessary to speak the language but the justifications are totally different. In Sweden they say "Everyone here speaks English anyway" In Japan they say "All of my friends are expats anyway" I think if people don't want to learn a language they will come up with any excuse.
  - f5ve 4y ago
    you spent half a year in japan and speak the language?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - junofan 4y ago
    N1? You mastered 敬語 in 6 months?
    - FredPret 4y ago
      I think he spent half a year every year
    - marci 4y ago
      I think they meant for the past x years, they've been spending half of it in Sweden, the other half in JApan, in chunks of 6 months. edit: and you can be fluent in one or more languages without knowing how to read/write them.
  - savanaly 4y ago
    >I think if people don't want to learn a language they will come up with any excuse. In a world where it was actually true that you don't have to learn the language wouldn't it appear that they always have an excuse not to? So how does your experience give evidence we're not in that world?
sho_hn 4y ago
> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. I'm German, living in Berlin, and have wonderful friends who fit that description. They live full lives, and I couldn't care less about their German levels. They do enough good things with their time they put their energy into instead. People should learn languages if they feel a reason to or if they enjoy it. Motivation probably makes it easier. Guilting people by default doesn't sit right with me.
- randomluck040 4y ago
  In my opinion there are lots of external factors to it. I’m also German and we probably both know that especially lots of years back we could’ve set things up differently in terms of integration (which to some degree included learning the language).
- donw 4y ago
  If one can't bother learning the language of the country in which they live, any opinion one might have on that country can be safely discarded.
  - 314 4y ago
    This take is a bit basic.
    - ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
      It's not verbose but it seems pretty self-evident to me. In Europe most people speak only the local language and little English, if you don't speak the language you're not integrated. Your local businesses won't speak English, your baker, the cab drivers, the people working the public transport, at your local convenience store, the government officials, the deliverymen, your child's school-teacher, other parents at school, 90% of the people you will cross path with on the street, most written and recorded information about local events...
      - 4y ago
vasco 4y ago
So if you live in 4 countries over four decades in your adult life you will learn 4 new languages? I don't think you must've lived more than one place abroad, or somewhere with good English. For example I speak 4 languages, understand another 2, but don't speak the language of the country I've lived in for the last 3.5 years, and I'm not even learning. At some point it's just absolutely not worth it and I'm just gonna occupy memory that will be more useful for work or life. This is the most common take you hear from people that never lived abroad, only speak one language, or lived abroad in a single place where they learn their first ever new language. Then judge someone who'd be learning their 4th or 5th. It's absolutely not the same thing for a native english speaker to learn one single foreign language when they move once and compare it under the same light.
- AmericanChopper 4y ago
  > So if you live in 4 countries over four decades in your adult life you will learn 4 new languages? If those 4 countries have 4 different languages then yes… I’ve spent most of my adult life in foreign countries, and I’ve never spent time in a country without starting to pick up the language. I speak 3 languages fluently, another 2 I can have a conversation in, and there’s a few more that I have a decent foundation of the basics with. I don’t even know how it’s possible to live in a country where everybody speaks another language without starting to pick it up rather quickly. Unless… you’re intentionally refusing to or simply do not spend any time with the locals, which is something people should rightfully be judgemental about.
- nohuck13 4y ago
  > I'm just gonna occupy memory that will be more useful for work or life. Well said, though presumably if your work was _BBC Tokyo correspondent_, that would be a weird argument.
- hogepiyo 4y ago
  >So if you live in 4 countries over four decades in your adult life you will learn 4 new languages? Well, first I would argue that you're a massive outlier to the norm. I don't think living in multiple countries for decades at a time each that don't share a language is at all common. >This is the most common take you hear from people that never lived abroad, only speak one language, or lived abroad in a single place where they learn their first ever new language. Then judge someone who'd be learning their 4th or 5th. It's absolutely not the same thing for a native english speaker to learn one single foreign language when they move once and compare it under the same light. I don't really see the need for the presumption. If you move around that much and speak that many languages, all the more power to you. I was just saying generally if you live somewhere for a decade you should (probably) be reasonably competent in the language, especially if you're a journalist attempting to write insightful articles aimed at broadening a foreign understanding of the place.
twelvechairs 4y ago
In the words of the great Cioran "One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language".
deleted 4y ago
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petodo 4y ago
Have you lived in country with completely different language with characters instead of simple <30 letters alphabet for 10+ years? It's very different for English speaker to learn Spanish or German and learn Chinese or Japanese, characters are VERY big barrier when learning, since even when Japanese learns German they just need to learn like 30 letters and they can read and write anything, while vice versa German must learn 500-1000 (Chinese) characters one by one at very least to be able to read some Chinese. It's one thing to see everywhere words you can memorize when seeing it every single day in shops and online and very different thing when you see just bunch of strokes. I lived in China for 5+ years and didn't learn the language because the characters are huge barrier. In a few weeks with Duolingo I learned more Spanish without ever visiting Spain than Chinese in few years living there. Same while travelling in Indonesia (where you are/were forced to learn Indonesian), I picked up comparable amount of phrases within few weeks as in China in few years. Of course I learned some basic Chinese characters at very beginning, so I can read at least menu in restaurants and bunch of phrases (how much does it cost, where is nnn,etc.), but I couldn't have any conversation at all with anyone not speaking English (or my mother tongues) and honestly I was not really interested in people who don't learn at least English as I had to learn as well since it's not my mother tongue. It probably helps I've found girlfriend (wife) who can be my translator if needed (which was not really needed even when dealing with paperwork most of the time). But if author is journalist then I agree there should be set a higher bar for them, so they are able to research independently and make interviews with locals. It's one thing to be journalist covering the country and other thing just living your life working in English speaking enviroment without writing stories for thousands of people abroad.
- tsukikage 4y ago
  > It's one thing to see everywhere words you can memorize when seeing it every single day in shops and online and very different thing when you see just bunch of strokes. They become much, much easier to grasp once you notice they're nearly all composed of the same hundred or so radicals and you can break them down and memorise them that way. > and honestly I was not really interested in people who don't learn at least English That may be the real issue here. Mandarin has nearly as many speakers as English. Why should anyone be interested in people who don't "learn at least" Mandarin?
0xmarcin 4y ago
I agree with you in principle. In practice English is often all you need if you live in a big city. When I look at my country (Poland), I can see that a person can live in Warsaw (capital city) or any of the biggest 5 cities without knowing any Polish. Even having an appointment with english speaking doctor is not a problem. OTOH when you adventure outside of big cities you suddenly find yourself in a land where nobody can understand English very well (in that case it's better to chat with teens than adults, most pupils have B2-level English at school). That being said I know a person that spend 3 years in Denmark and they do not even attempt to learn Danish. Their argument was that the language is very niche, and they are not sure for how long they will stay there. If I was in their place I would probably at least learn Danish to B2 level, just in case e.g. an accident to be able to call a police or an ambulance. I think the real problem here is that learning a language is a lot of work and requires a lot of efford. If you live comfortably with English they why to put extra effort for something that will provide little or not benefit at all.
- djtango 4y ago
  It's about making the effort to assimilate with your host country. Embracing and empathising with their way of life which begins with learning their language. I've always found it frustrating whenever I meet people who don't try to integrate with the country they're living in - both when I've lived at home and in foreign countries...
  - _benedict 4y ago
    Some people are really bad at language, and depending on the context it’s probably fine to let them off the hook. I once participated in a French class in Paris with a guy whose wife was French, and he was utterly hopeless. I’m not sure he was ever going to develop the skill, even though he tried. Though I hope I’m wrong about that. I think a journalist writing about a country is a special case though, that doesn’t get affordancee.
    - blodkorv 4y ago
      Yes, most people just assumes that learning a language is equaly easy for everyone.
kleene_op 4y ago
Seems pretty weird to me as well. I don't understand how you could love a country enough to live and work there for a decade but not try to learn its language.
- petodo 4y ago
  Let me introduce you to wild idea that language is just tool and has nothing to do really with the country/culture. I may loved China (at least first few years) where I lived for years without loving their politicians and learning language (beyond few useful phrase and numbers), same goes actually for many countries I travelled. My kid is citizen of country A, was born in country B and lives in country C speaking languages B, C and D without actually speaking language of his citizenship country, because it's just language, you are not defined by your passport or mother language. I'm from country A, his mother from C and I speak to kid in B and D. The world is not black and white.
  - amrocha 4y ago
    That idea is insane, it's well established that language shapes thought. Ask any multilingual person and they'll tell you their personality changes from language to language. I'm glad your kid speaks a bunch of languages, but if they don't learn A they'll never be able to fully culturally connect with country A either.
    - petodo 4y ago
      > Ask any multilingual person and they'll tell you their personality changes from language to language. I disagree with this, I'm same person whether I communicate in English or my mother tongue, you could ask what people speaking English think of me, people speaking my mother tongue think of me and you would get pretty consistent decription. > if they don't learn A they'll never be able to fully culturally connect with country A either. I'm fine with that since A) they are not living there anyway, B) language of country B is actually very similar to country A, so much that people from these countries can talk to each other in their own local languages, C) I don't have really high opinion about culture of any of these countries or some "country culture" per se. I am beyond some stupid lines on map or languages, although it may be difficult to comprehend for children when their school books are intended for kids born here, so they read there nonsense such as "Our mother country is A" and I have to correct it at home, that this is not our mother country, this is country where we live. As mixed race/country kids living in country of neither of their parents it will be a bit confusing, but not necessarily bad, at least they won't be tied by concept of single home and some single country, which I find limiting when I look at others being proud about country they were born in as if it were some of their accomplishments. I have same attitude about people being happy about some athlete from same country winning some medal as if country had anything to do with that, great for the athlete, but it has nothing to do with you.
lelanthran 4y ago
> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. How many languages do you know? I live in a country with 11 official languages; please come stay for half a decade.
- triyambakam 4y ago
  And no one is expecting you to know all 11. But I'm sure on average most people know more than ONE. which country anyways, India?
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > And no one is expecting you to know all 11. TBH, there's only one you need to know in order to feel like a native - english. > But I'm sure on average most people know more than ONE. Guilty, unfortunately. The non-english one I know is pointless, useless and has too much emotional baggage attached to it to make me happy about speaking it. > which country anyways, India? South Africa.
  - noisy_boy 4y ago
    India has double of that - 22 scheduled languages[0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_with_official_status_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_with_official_status...
ManuelKiessling 4y ago
It’s the one thing where I’m That Old White Man by now. My favorite is user groups meetups in Germany where there are one or two people who don’t speak German, and then request the talk to be held in English. Imagine me attending a meetup in London as the only German and requesting to have the talk held in German. It would be ridiculous.
- petodo 4y ago
  German is not lingua franca spoken by people all around world, so yes, this comparison is ridiculous comparing lanugage taught everywhere in world with niche language, which is less popular than Chinese as foreign language.
  - ManuelKiessling 4y ago
    English is spoken by people all around the world, but not all people around the world speak English. Also, those expats living an English life in Berlin etc. are doing themselves a huge disservice — you learn a language if and only if you are forced to hear and speak it. By attending meetups and softly forcing your language onto the group, you are never going to break out of your bubble. It’s a lose-lose situation for everyone involved, really. The German speaker is limited in what she or he can express, the German audience is limited in what they can understand, the English audience doesn’t progress in learning the language of their new home country.
    - petodo 4y ago
      You are working with assumption people don't live in their bubbles even when living in home country speaking mother tongue and that not breaking bubble is something bad. Many people voluntarily choose to live in bubbles which overlap with other bubbles. For instance I live in bubble where in general I avoid having conversation with obese people, since these people have complete lack of self control. It would be also quite odd to me to have (deep) conversation with person not speaking English (even if we both talk to each other in different language), since that shows ignorance to learn basic necessity to exist in present world and lack of education and world views (I mean how the heck can you learn anything about the world not speaking English just from limited local sources). I'd probably for various reasons avoid talking to people with dreadlocks and/or large amount of tattoos. You may think I am doing disservice to myself by living in bubble without talking to all these people, but I am fine with that and have my reasons for that. How do you know it's disservice, if they are happy with their choice, you know better than them what's good for them? Only thing I agree with you it's forcing 90% of local language speaking group to speak English because of just few people who don't wanna learn language, this will get tiresome pretty quickly, so they better find group with larger percentage of local language non-speakers or just make smaller groups or talk one on one (personally I prefer this option than some big group conversations even in my mother tongue, because there you end up fighting for word).
defrost 4y ago
English speakers are notorious for not bothering to learn local languages, eg: Migrants failing to assimilate, 200-year-study finds Migrants to Australia have displayed an inability to assimilate with local values and refuse to speak anything but their native tongue, a study covering the last 200 years has found. The study confirms a popularly-held belief in parts of the country that migrants simply refuse to fit in. Boat people from as far back as 1788 didn’t bother applying for passports or visas, were set on introducing their own laws, and, in many cases concealed criminal records, according to the damning report. ~ https://www.theshovel.com.au/2023/01/26/migrants-failing-to-assimilate-200-year-study-finds/ https://www.theshovel.com.au/2023/01/26/migrants-failing-to-...
- onethought 4y ago
  This is about non English speakers not learning English. I’m missing some sarcasm?
  - robocat 4y ago
    It is referring to English colonisation of Australia a few hundred years ago. The English did not learn the indigenous languages there, and they brought English law with them. It also refers to the fact that a lot of convicts were sent to Australia. Joke: An Englishman gets off the plane, and immigration asks him if he has any criminal convictions. He replies “I didn’t know you still needed one”.
    - izacus 4y ago
      Yeah, not sure if attitude of english speakers toward natives in Australia is something to be widely joked about or satirized.
      - defrost 4y ago
        Bit late for that now, don't you think? "There's nothing I would rather be Than to be an Aborigine And watch you take my precious land away. For nothing gives me greater joy Than to watch you fill each girl and boy With superficial, existential shit. Now you may think I'm cheeky But I'd be satisfied To rebuild your convict ships And sail them on the tide. I love the way you give me God And of course the mining board, For this of course I thank the Lord each day. I'm glad you say that land rights wrong. Then you should go where you belong And leave me to just keep on keeping on." ~ Jimmy Chi, Bran Nue Dae, 1990 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Nue_Dae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Nue_Dae [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTiXSmQET2E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTiXSmQET2E
ta_lang 4y ago
I've lived abroad for over a decade and spent considerable effort learning the local language but I wouldn't shame someone for not doing the same. Learning a language as an adult is incredibly difficult and imo the benefits are limited unless you are learning the absolute basics (e.g. learning the 200 most common words) or you're able to get to a high level (which again is incredibly difficult to do).
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  But you don't need a lot more than those absolute basics to do day-to-day stuff in that foreign countries, and i despise people who cannot even learn that despite living there for years. If someone lived there for 5, 10, ... years, and cannot order beer, ask for a bag in a store or buy a bus ticket in the native language, that seems really disrespectful to the locals, who are expected to know and use a foreign language all the time to deal with them.
graymatters 4y ago
Ability to learn new languages (as an adult) follows normal distribution. Moreover, the further the new language is from one’s mother tongue the more difficult it is. Furthermore, people who excel in mother tongue (with enhanced writing and expressive abilities) often fall on the lower end of the spectrum with the ability to learn new languages. Shaming people over that is quite … shameful.
- djtango 4y ago
  Whenever I find a language hard to learn, I always remind myself that the vast majority of every population can speak their own language. "Chinese is hard" -> 1.5B people figured it out. More recently, on observing my niece and nephew, something we take for granted is how exhausting it is being a child. You are learning 247 non stop for best part of 2 decades. Can't understate how hardcore it is. No wonder why we adults have less stomach to learn a new language. The kind of immersive learning required for language acquisition is all encompassing, and really kind of needs to take over your life - especially one distant from your mother tongue. I say all this while figuring out how I personally muster the motivation, routine and immersion to gain fluency in Mandarin by the end of this decade (a personal goal).
  - petodo 4y ago
    > "Chinese is hard" -> 1.5B people figured it out. Yeah and at least 90% of them were immersed in it since birth at home. Learning mother language while growing is very different from learning foreign language as adult. > Can't understate how hardcore it is. No, it isn't for kids, my kids are trilingual without any issues and much effort, kids are like sponges absorbing new information/languages easily, if you start early. Btw. you won't be fluent in Chinese without living in China.
    - djtango 4y ago
      >No, it isn't for kids, my kids are trilingual without any issues and much effort, kids are like sponges absorbing new information/languages easily, if you start early. My point isn't that it's hardcore for children to be trilingual. My point is that the way of life of a child is exhausting - learning 247. If you try it later in life, eg doing a masters/bootcamp/intensive hobbies you realise how hard work it is trying to learn. Having met people who have replicated learning like a child in adulthood, I posit that some of it is that children don't have responsibilities and also don't have a choice in the matter. The upside is also considerably greater - learning to walk + communicate. > Btw. you won't be fluent in Chinese without living in China I have lived in China before so this is very apparent to me. When I was there, my brain was always processing the language in the background. Remembering new vocab, trying to recognise new characters. Thinking about how to express specific ideas. That is worth so much more than any class or course can teach - and time spend learning like that really compounds. A week in a country like china can be worth months of study for me. And that style of learning is also how I imagine children are - constantly processing consciously and unconsciously...
saiya-jin 4y ago
You should definitely get off your high horse a bit, world is a bit bigger than your opinions. There are millions of very smart high earning expats all over the world that see no reason to learn local language well if its ie too hard for them, they practically never use it (ie at work its english, at home its XYZ and for basic chit chat you get by with few hundreds of basic words), or simply don't have time to learn due to ie parental responsibilities. I applaud to every parent who rather spends time with their kids rather than studying language because 'you should'. Ideal is both of course, but that's not how reality usually looks like.
- izacus 4y ago
  Look, good for you if you refuse to learn the language of your society.... As long as you don't attempt to write opinion pieces about that society you have no hope of integrating or understanding. That's what the article writer did.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    My country has no official language and the lingua franca of my neighborhood is not a language I speak. Shit just got weird because basically no one would not consider me part of this society and I sure as hell understand it roughly as well as anybody else in my hood. Maybe America is just weird but you can come here and not learn English and if someone refuses your right to comment on our society they'll probably just be called a straight up racist.
    - izacus 4y ago
      Your country isn't the whole rest of the world. I thought that would be obvious for an average HNer?
      - notch656c 4y ago
        I would think one would look at the original quote and see it says: "私は日本語がかなり下手です" [0] Not being good at something is not the same thing as having refused to learn it. From the authors response I honestly can't assess their level of Japanese well. I routinely have had people tell me they don't speak English well but then have a full conversation with them. https://twitter.com/wingcommander1/status/1617060140733337600 https://twitter.com/wingcommander1/status/161706014073333760...
moltar 4y ago
What if a country has two official languages (Canada) or three (Switzerland) or eleven (South Africa)? Do you need to learn them all, as a foreigner? What about as a naturalized citizen? What about as a born citizen? What if a country has adopted English as another official language (Hong Kong, Malaysia). Do you still need to learn the other languages?
- vinay427 4y ago
  Switzerland has four official languages (Romansh was added in 1996 and was a "national language" since 1938). In any case, particularly in Canada and Switzerland the official languages tend to be far more geographically divided than the unofficial languages in those countries, or the many languages in South Africa or much of India, or even Chinese in Singapore, Spanish in the US, etc. It's usually clear which subset of languages, official or otherwise, are useful for the city/region in which you live.
rwmj 4y ago
Although he jokes about not speaking Japanese well in that tweet, I've seen him conversing in Japanese in some reports. I think he probably speaks Japanese well enough, but is lamenting that it's a hard language to get really good at.
commitpizza 4y ago
You should visit sweden, we have a lot of people that have lived here for like 20+ years and don't speak the language. Although, some parts of cities nowadays you don't need to as other languages like arabic is more common.
nmcela 4y ago
I'm finnish and work with a lot of international people, many of whom have lived here for decades. None of them speak Finnish, and I, and all the other Finns I know, would never expect them to speak it. It's not that big of a deal.
- izacus 4y ago
  That's great, but you also wouldn't expect them to write a relevant critique of society and culture since they can't even read the local news paper much less understand the living mindset of people. Everyone here keeps anectoding about their trip to other places when the issue is not daily living but writing an opinion piece about a society they don't understand enough to live in.
  - nmcela 4y ago
    Yeah, I get your point. Of course their point of view about the culture and society is unique and important and absolutely worth listening to, but it is true they will certainly miss a lot of the cultural nyances for exactly the reasons you described.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Why? What's so important about that? Pleasing the locals? Not a hypothetical question for me. I've lived in Germany for fourteen years. And while I can mumble my way through some basic conversations, I'm far from fluent in German. I'm sorry but I'm not interested in sacrificing an enormous portion of my time to such a project either. Seems to be quite common here with foreigners. It's very rare that I get angry/annoyed reactions from Germans on this. The opposite actually, there are quite a few Germans here that are attracted to the notion of living in Berlin partially because it is more international focused. In the time that I've lived here, automated translations have gotten much better. Which helps with the inevitable bureaucratic stuff or interacting with people who only speak German. There is very little practical need for me to speak German beyond that. And otherwise, the business language in the companies I deal with is mostly English. I of course live in a bit of a bubble with lots of foreigners that have invaded Berlin. I've also lived in places like Finland. Finnish is much harder than most other languages to pick up. So, I never even pretended that learning was going to be a thing. This might not even be my last country. Most countries smaller than Germany or the US tend to be a lot more pragmatic about people speaking their language. People appreciate it if you do and generally don't really feel threatened by non native speakers. With some exceptions of course. This is a popular topic with populists/xenophobes worried about people stealing their jobs, women, and real estate, becoming marginalized in their own country. You get that in a lot of places. I tend to not have a lot of sympathy for such people though. The opposite actually. Those aren't their jobs. You need the right skills and typically for skilled labor there isn't a whole lot of unemployment. We foreigners show up because we are wanted and needed to do a job. Women aren't property and are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves whom they form relationships with. Fun fact in Finland, a dis-proportionally large part of the local women end up marrying foreigners. And the real estate value indeed goes up if smart people move in and start creating economical value. Economic growth is generally a good thing but indeed annoying for the locals. I think there's going to be more migration due to technical progress with translations between languages and the removal of language barriers. And I think that is a good thing. While I like English (the only language other than Dutch that I mastered well enough to use it professionally), there are large parts of the worlds where people just don't speak English very well. We literally refer to some parts of the world as third world countries, which is very condescending. It means that they are poor. But the implication of course is also that they are somehow inferior and a bit retarded. And that there are second world countries as well that are slightly less inferior. Language has created this elite bubble that keeps it like that for some of these countries. Being able to go to such places and live there without first having to learn a language is very liberating and is probably also going to be great for e.g. trade relationships. I think that should be welcomed. English optional. Also in the US, which of course has plenty of migrant groups that don't speak that very well.
vintermann 4y ago
Hayes said he didn't speak much Japanese. That he speaks any at all, is probably evidence that he tried. People vastly underestimate how hard it is to learn languages. A few people seem to have the knack for it, but the large majority of us don't. Especially not when we get older. Japanese is also famously hard for native English speakers.
rcme 4y ago
It's fine to live somewhere for many years without learning the local language. Even learning a relatively "easy" language, like German for a native English speaker, takes about a year of full-time dedication. Not everyone has time for that. It's definitely not ok, however, to act as if you're an expert about the local culture. There is so much you can't grasp unless you speak the native language. Talking to people is important, but equally important is consuming native media and the news.
jhbadger 4y ago
Japanese is rated as either the #1 or #2 hardest language for a native English speaker to learn (and the reverse is true which explains why you often run into people with little or no English there as opposed to in, say, Western Europe, where many people are practically natively fluent in English). People can and do learn Japanese, but it isn't something that one can easily learn in their spare time the way English speakers can learn French or Spanish.
- Tangurena2 4y ago
  Written Japanese is a difficult language for native Japanese people. One would be in high school before one has learned enough Kanji to read a typical daily newspaper.
- argiopetech 4y ago
  I hear this frequently, but disagree strongly, at least regarding the spoken language. As a native English speaker who learned Japanese easily to the "could get by as a tourist" level with two semesters of college classes and minimal self study, I find French much harder (and I took 4 years during high school). Unlike many southeastern Asiatic languages, Japanese doesn't have any sounds that the average English speaker doesn't already know how to make (possible exception in the 'l' sound, but, if you can roll your 'r's, it's the same tongue position). There are no articles, only two tenses, relatively normal conjugations (though adjective conjugation is odd relative to English), no declension, and sentence structure has strong hints of Latin. The simple-polite forms of verbs are sufficient for daily use. Pitch accent and ga vs. wa are hard to pick up without immersion, but neither are necessary to be understood. The written language is a different story. Lots of memorization. The hiragana and katakana come quickly, but there are a lot of kanji. Probably not needed for tourists (particularly in the day of image translation on phones), but still a factor. Arguably still easier than Mandarin in that regard, though. Additionally, there are an overabundance of resources for Japanese learners. The economic potential of American occupation under MacArthur and the subsequent boom years, the enduring popularity of Zen Buddhism, and the rise of anime's popularity in the West have likely all contributed to Japanese being one of the best-supported Asiatic languages in academia and self-study courses. Its support in the USA is exceeded (in my estimation) only by Mandarin due to the large immigrant population and ongoing trends in trade. In short, I'm sure the number of native English speakers who can "get by" in Tokyo eclipses the total number of native English speakers with basic Lao, Thai, Khmer, Vietnamese, and probably even Mandarin skills. Just one datum.

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

In France it is virtually impossible to function of you do not speak good French. In a company you will miss all the important things that are usually conveyed in casual French (this includes subtleties that change the meaning of a sentence). Yes, people will speak English with you, usually fluently (and with plenty of errors), but this is not the language of choice for the off the record conversations. Outside of work you will get by in supermarkets, but for more complicated shops your will have problems. For the administration it is clear: without being fluent in French there is no way to do anything. Even if you are a native speaker you understand just half of it and hope for the best. People in the street speak English [citation needed] but they will get tired after some time and then the English becomes unbearable. Source: native French married to a foreigner who struggles to understand everything (not to mention the subtleties) after 15 years of active use of the language.

jerryzh 4y ago

I don't get all the replies to this comment. hogepiyo was saying someone who lived for a decade and cannot speak native language does not have enough credit for us to believe his/her comment on the entire country's changes. The fact that people do can live this way does not change this point.

rullelito 4y ago

> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. You haven't been to Sweden then.

woahitsraj 4y ago
I spent about half my year in Japan and half my year in Sweden and I speak both languages. It's always shocked me how many expats feel it's not necessary to speak the language but the justifications are totally different. In Sweden they say "Everyone here speaks English anyway" In Japan they say "All of my friends are expats anyway" I think if people don't want to learn a language they will come up with any excuse.
- f5ve 4y ago
  you spent half a year in japan and speak the language?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- junofan 4y ago
  N1? You mastered 敬語 in 6 months?
  - FredPret 4y ago
    I think he spent half a year every year
  - marci 4y ago
    I think they meant for the past x years, they've been spending half of it in Sweden, the other half in JApan, in chunks of 6 months. edit: and you can be fluent in one or more languages without knowing how to read/write them.
- savanaly 4y ago
  >I think if people don't want to learn a language they will come up with any excuse. In a world where it was actually true that you don't have to learn the language wouldn't it appear that they always have an excuse not to? So how does your experience give evidence we're not in that world?

sho_hn 4y ago

> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. I'm German, living in Berlin, and have wonderful friends who fit that description. They live full lives, and I couldn't care less about their German levels. They do enough good things with their time they put their energy into instead. People should learn languages if they feel a reason to or if they enjoy it. Motivation probably makes it easier. Guilting people by default doesn't sit right with me.

randomluck040 4y ago
In my opinion there are lots of external factors to it. I’m also German and we probably both know that especially lots of years back we could’ve set things up differently in terms of integration (which to some degree included learning the language).
donw 4y ago
If one can't bother learning the language of the country in which they live, any opinion one might have on that country can be safely discarded.
- 314 4y ago
  This take is a bit basic.
  - ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
    It's not verbose but it seems pretty self-evident to me. In Europe most people speak only the local language and little English, if you don't speak the language you're not integrated. Your local businesses won't speak English, your baker, the cab drivers, the people working the public transport, at your local convenience store, the government officials, the deliverymen, your child's school-teacher, other parents at school, 90% of the people you will cross path with on the street, most written and recorded information about local events...
    - 4y ago

vasco 4y ago

So if you live in 4 countries over four decades in your adult life you will learn 4 new languages? I don't think you must've lived more than one place abroad, or somewhere with good English. For example I speak 4 languages, understand another 2, but don't speak the language of the country I've lived in for the last 3.5 years, and I'm not even learning. At some point it's just absolutely not worth it and I'm just gonna occupy memory that will be more useful for work or life. This is the most common take you hear from people that never lived abroad, only speak one language, or lived abroad in a single place where they learn their first ever new language. Then judge someone who'd be learning their 4th or 5th. It's absolutely not the same thing for a native english speaker to learn one single foreign language when they move once and compare it under the same light.

AmericanChopper 4y ago
> So if you live in 4 countries over four decades in your adult life you will learn 4 new languages? If those 4 countries have 4 different languages then yes… I’ve spent most of my adult life in foreign countries, and I’ve never spent time in a country without starting to pick up the language. I speak 3 languages fluently, another 2 I can have a conversation in, and there’s a few more that I have a decent foundation of the basics with. I don’t even know how it’s possible to live in a country where everybody speaks another language without starting to pick it up rather quickly. Unless… you’re intentionally refusing to or simply do not spend any time with the locals, which is something people should rightfully be judgemental about.
nohuck13 4y ago
> I'm just gonna occupy memory that will be more useful for work or life. Well said, though presumably if your work was _BBC Tokyo correspondent_, that would be a weird argument.
hogepiyo 4y ago
>So if you live in 4 countries over four decades in your adult life you will learn 4 new languages? Well, first I would argue that you're a massive outlier to the norm. I don't think living in multiple countries for decades at a time each that don't share a language is at all common. >This is the most common take you hear from people that never lived abroad, only speak one language, or lived abroad in a single place where they learn their first ever new language. Then judge someone who'd be learning their 4th or 5th. It's absolutely not the same thing for a native english speaker to learn one single foreign language when they move once and compare it under the same light. I don't really see the need for the presumption. If you move around that much and speak that many languages, all the more power to you. I was just saying generally if you live somewhere for a decade you should (probably) be reasonably competent in the language, especially if you're a journalist attempting to write insightful articles aimed at broadening a foreign understanding of the place.

twelvechairs 4y ago

In the words of the great Cioran "One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language".

deleted 4y ago

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petodo 4y ago

Have you lived in country with completely different language with characters instead of simple <30 letters alphabet for 10+ years? It's very different for English speaker to learn Spanish or German and learn Chinese or Japanese, characters are VERY big barrier when learning, since even when Japanese learns German they just need to learn like 30 letters and they can read and write anything, while vice versa German must learn 500-1000 (Chinese) characters one by one at very least to be able to read some Chinese. It's one thing to see everywhere words you can memorize when seeing it every single day in shops and online and very different thing when you see just bunch of strokes. I lived in China for 5+ years and didn't learn the language because the characters are huge barrier. In a few weeks with Duolingo I learned more Spanish without ever visiting Spain than Chinese in few years living there. Same while travelling in Indonesia (where you are/were forced to learn Indonesian), I picked up comparable amount of phrases within few weeks as in China in few years. Of course I learned some basic Chinese characters at very beginning, so I can read at least menu in restaurants and bunch of phrases (how much does it cost, where is nnn,etc.), but I couldn't have any conversation at all with anyone not speaking English (or my mother tongues) and honestly I was not really interested in people who don't learn at least English as I had to learn as well since it's not my mother tongue. It probably helps I've found girlfriend (wife) who can be my translator if needed (which was not really needed even when dealing with paperwork most of the time). But if author is journalist then I agree there should be set a higher bar for them, so they are able to research independently and make interviews with locals. It's one thing to be journalist covering the country and other thing just living your life working in English speaking enviroment without writing stories for thousands of people abroad.

tsukikage 4y ago
> It's one thing to see everywhere words you can memorize when seeing it every single day in shops and online and very different thing when you see just bunch of strokes. They become much, much easier to grasp once you notice they're nearly all composed of the same hundred or so radicals and you can break them down and memorise them that way. > and honestly I was not really interested in people who don't learn at least English That may be the real issue here. Mandarin has nearly as many speakers as English. Why should anyone be interested in people who don't "learn at least" Mandarin?

0xmarcin 4y ago

I agree with you in principle. In practice English is often all you need if you live in a big city. When I look at my country (Poland), I can see that a person can live in Warsaw (capital city) or any of the biggest 5 cities without knowing any Polish. Even having an appointment with english speaking doctor is not a problem. OTOH when you adventure outside of big cities you suddenly find yourself in a land where nobody can understand English very well (in that case it's better to chat with teens than adults, most pupils have B2-level English at school). That being said I know a person that spend 3 years in Denmark and they do not even attempt to learn Danish. Their argument was that the language is very niche, and they are not sure for how long they will stay there. If I was in their place I would probably at least learn Danish to B2 level, just in case e.g. an accident to be able to call a police or an ambulance. I think the real problem here is that learning a language is a lot of work and requires a lot of efford. If you live comfortably with English they why to put extra effort for something that will provide little or not benefit at all.

djtango 4y ago
It's about making the effort to assimilate with your host country. Embracing and empathising with their way of life which begins with learning their language. I've always found it frustrating whenever I meet people who don't try to integrate with the country they're living in - both when I've lived at home and in foreign countries...
- _benedict 4y ago
  Some people are really bad at language, and depending on the context it’s probably fine to let them off the hook. I once participated in a French class in Paris with a guy whose wife was French, and he was utterly hopeless. I’m not sure he was ever going to develop the skill, even though he tried. Though I hope I’m wrong about that. I think a journalist writing about a country is a special case though, that doesn’t get affordancee.
  - blodkorv 4y ago
    Yes, most people just assumes that learning a language is equaly easy for everyone.

kleene_op 4y ago

Seems pretty weird to me as well. I don't understand how you could love a country enough to live and work there for a decade but not try to learn its language.

petodo 4y ago
Let me introduce you to wild idea that language is just tool and has nothing to do really with the country/culture. I may loved China (at least first few years) where I lived for years without loving their politicians and learning language (beyond few useful phrase and numbers), same goes actually for many countries I travelled. My kid is citizen of country A, was born in country B and lives in country C speaking languages B, C and D without actually speaking language of his citizenship country, because it's just language, you are not defined by your passport or mother language. I'm from country A, his mother from C and I speak to kid in B and D. The world is not black and white.
- amrocha 4y ago
  That idea is insane, it's well established that language shapes thought. Ask any multilingual person and they'll tell you their personality changes from language to language. I'm glad your kid speaks a bunch of languages, but if they don't learn A they'll never be able to fully culturally connect with country A either.
  - petodo 4y ago
    > Ask any multilingual person and they'll tell you their personality changes from language to language. I disagree with this, I'm same person whether I communicate in English or my mother tongue, you could ask what people speaking English think of me, people speaking my mother tongue think of me and you would get pretty consistent decription. > if they don't learn A they'll never be able to fully culturally connect with country A either. I'm fine with that since A) they are not living there anyway, B) language of country B is actually very similar to country A, so much that people from these countries can talk to each other in their own local languages, C) I don't have really high opinion about culture of any of these countries or some "country culture" per se. I am beyond some stupid lines on map or languages, although it may be difficult to comprehend for children when their school books are intended for kids born here, so they read there nonsense such as "Our mother country is A" and I have to correct it at home, that this is not our mother country, this is country where we live. As mixed race/country kids living in country of neither of their parents it will be a bit confusing, but not necessarily bad, at least they won't be tied by concept of single home and some single country, which I find limiting when I look at others being proud about country they were born in as if it were some of their accomplishments. I have same attitude about people being happy about some athlete from same country winning some medal as if country had anything to do with that, great for the athlete, but it has nothing to do with you.

lelanthran 4y ago

> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. How many languages do you know? I live in a country with 11 official languages; please come stay for half a decade.

triyambakam 4y ago
And no one is expecting you to know all 11. But I'm sure on average most people know more than ONE. which country anyways, India?
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > And no one is expecting you to know all 11. TBH, there's only one you need to know in order to feel like a native - english. > But I'm sure on average most people know more than ONE. Guilty, unfortunately. The non-english one I know is pointless, useless and has too much emotional baggage attached to it to make me happy about speaking it. > which country anyways, India? South Africa.
- noisy_boy 4y ago
  India has double of that - 22 scheduled languages[0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_with_official_status_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_with_official_status...

ManuelKiessling 4y ago

It’s the one thing where I’m That Old White Man by now. My favorite is user groups meetups in Germany where there are one or two people who don’t speak German, and then request the talk to be held in English. Imagine me attending a meetup in London as the only German and requesting to have the talk held in German. It would be ridiculous.

petodo 4y ago
German is not lingua franca spoken by people all around world, so yes, this comparison is ridiculous comparing lanugage taught everywhere in world with niche language, which is less popular than Chinese as foreign language.
- ManuelKiessling 4y ago
  English is spoken by people all around the world, but not all people around the world speak English. Also, those expats living an English life in Berlin etc. are doing themselves a huge disservice — you learn a language if and only if you are forced to hear and speak it. By attending meetups and softly forcing your language onto the group, you are never going to break out of your bubble. It’s a lose-lose situation for everyone involved, really. The German speaker is limited in what she or he can express, the German audience is limited in what they can understand, the English audience doesn’t progress in learning the language of their new home country.
  - petodo 4y ago
    You are working with assumption people don't live in their bubbles even when living in home country speaking mother tongue and that not breaking bubble is something bad. Many people voluntarily choose to live in bubbles which overlap with other bubbles. For instance I live in bubble where in general I avoid having conversation with obese people, since these people have complete lack of self control. It would be also quite odd to me to have (deep) conversation with person not speaking English (even if we both talk to each other in different language), since that shows ignorance to learn basic necessity to exist in present world and lack of education and world views (I mean how the heck can you learn anything about the world not speaking English just from limited local sources). I'd probably for various reasons avoid talking to people with dreadlocks and/or large amount of tattoos. You may think I am doing disservice to myself by living in bubble without talking to all these people, but I am fine with that and have my reasons for that. How do you know it's disservice, if they are happy with their choice, you know better than them what's good for them? Only thing I agree with you it's forcing 90% of local language speaking group to speak English because of just few people who don't wanna learn language, this will get tiresome pretty quickly, so they better find group with larger percentage of local language non-speakers or just make smaller groups or talk one on one (personally I prefer this option than some big group conversations even in my mother tongue, because there you end up fighting for word).

defrost 4y ago

English speakers are notorious for not bothering to learn local languages, eg: Migrants failing to assimilate, 200-year-study finds Migrants to Australia have displayed an inability to assimilate with local values and refuse to speak anything but their native tongue, a study covering the last 200 years has found. The study confirms a popularly-held belief in parts of the country that migrants simply refuse to fit in. Boat people from as far back as 1788 didn’t bother applying for passports or visas, were set on introducing their own laws, and, in many cases concealed criminal records, according to the damning report. ~ https://www.theshovel.com.au/2023/01/26/migrants-failing-to-assimilate-200-year-study-finds/ https://www.theshovel.com.au/2023/01/26/migrants-failing-to-...

onethought 4y ago
This is about non English speakers not learning English. I’m missing some sarcasm?
- robocat 4y ago
  It is referring to English colonisation of Australia a few hundred years ago. The English did not learn the indigenous languages there, and they brought English law with them. It also refers to the fact that a lot of convicts were sent to Australia. Joke: An Englishman gets off the plane, and immigration asks him if he has any criminal convictions. He replies “I didn’t know you still needed one”.
  - izacus 4y ago
    Yeah, not sure if attitude of english speakers toward natives in Australia is something to be widely joked about or satirized.
    - defrost 4y ago
      Bit late for that now, don't you think? "There's nothing I would rather be Than to be an Aborigine And watch you take my precious land away. For nothing gives me greater joy Than to watch you fill each girl and boy With superficial, existential shit. Now you may think I'm cheeky But I'd be satisfied To rebuild your convict ships And sail them on the tide. I love the way you give me God And of course the mining board, For this of course I thank the Lord each day. I'm glad you say that land rights wrong. Then you should go where you belong And leave me to just keep on keeping on." ~ Jimmy Chi, Bran Nue Dae, 1990 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Nue_Dae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Nue_Dae [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTiXSmQET2E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTiXSmQET2E

ta_lang 4y ago

I've lived abroad for over a decade and spent considerable effort learning the local language but I wouldn't shame someone for not doing the same. Learning a language as an adult is incredibly difficult and imo the benefits are limited unless you are learning the absolute basics (e.g. learning the 200 most common words) or you're able to get to a high level (which again is incredibly difficult to do).

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
But you don't need a lot more than those absolute basics to do day-to-day stuff in that foreign countries, and i despise people who cannot even learn that despite living there for years. If someone lived there for 5, 10, ... years, and cannot order beer, ask for a bag in a store or buy a bus ticket in the native language, that seems really disrespectful to the locals, who are expected to know and use a foreign language all the time to deal with them.

graymatters 4y ago

Ability to learn new languages (as an adult) follows normal distribution. Moreover, the further the new language is from one’s mother tongue the more difficult it is. Furthermore, people who excel in mother tongue (with enhanced writing and expressive abilities) often fall on the lower end of the spectrum with the ability to learn new languages. Shaming people over that is quite … shameful.

djtango 4y ago
Whenever I find a language hard to learn, I always remind myself that the vast majority of every population can speak their own language. "Chinese is hard" -> 1.5B people figured it out. More recently, on observing my niece and nephew, something we take for granted is how exhausting it is being a child. You are learning 247 non stop for best part of 2 decades. Can't understate how hardcore it is. No wonder why we adults have less stomach to learn a new language. The kind of immersive learning required for language acquisition is all encompassing, and really kind of needs to take over your life - especially one distant from your mother tongue. I say all this while figuring out how I personally muster the motivation, routine and immersion to gain fluency in Mandarin by the end of this decade (a personal goal).
- petodo 4y ago
  > "Chinese is hard" -> 1.5B people figured it out. Yeah and at least 90% of them were immersed in it since birth at home. Learning mother language while growing is very different from learning foreign language as adult. > Can't understate how hardcore it is. No, it isn't for kids, my kids are trilingual without any issues and much effort, kids are like sponges absorbing new information/languages easily, if you start early. Btw. you won't be fluent in Chinese without living in China.
  - djtango 4y ago
    >No, it isn't for kids, my kids are trilingual without any issues and much effort, kids are like sponges absorbing new information/languages easily, if you start early. My point isn't that it's hardcore for children to be trilingual. My point is that the way of life of a child is exhausting - learning 247. If you try it later in life, eg doing a masters/bootcamp/intensive hobbies you realise how hard work it is trying to learn. Having met people who have replicated learning like a child in adulthood, I posit that some of it is that children don't have responsibilities and also don't have a choice in the matter. The upside is also considerably greater - learning to walk + communicate. > Btw. you won't be fluent in Chinese without living in China I have lived in China before so this is very apparent to me. When I was there, my brain was always processing the language in the background. Remembering new vocab, trying to recognise new characters. Thinking about how to express specific ideas. That is worth so much more than any class or course can teach - and time spend learning like that really compounds. A week in a country like china can be worth months of study for me. And that style of learning is also how I imagine children are - constantly processing consciously and unconsciously...

saiya-jin 4y ago

You should definitely get off your high horse a bit, world is a bit bigger than your opinions. There are millions of very smart high earning expats all over the world that see no reason to learn local language well if its ie too hard for them, they practically never use it (ie at work its english, at home its XYZ and for basic chit chat you get by with few hundreds of basic words), or simply don't have time to learn due to ie parental responsibilities. I applaud to every parent who rather spends time with their kids rather than studying language because 'you should'. Ideal is both of course, but that's not how reality usually looks like.

izacus 4y ago
Look, good for you if you refuse to learn the language of your society.... As long as you don't attempt to write opinion pieces about that society you have no hope of integrating or understanding. That's what the article writer did.
- notch656c 4y ago
  My country has no official language and the lingua franca of my neighborhood is not a language I speak. Shit just got weird because basically no one would not consider me part of this society and I sure as hell understand it roughly as well as anybody else in my hood. Maybe America is just weird but you can come here and not learn English and if someone refuses your right to comment on our society they'll probably just be called a straight up racist.
  - izacus 4y ago
    Your country isn't the whole rest of the world. I thought that would be obvious for an average HNer?
    - notch656c 4y ago
      I would think one would look at the original quote and see it says: "私は日本語がかなり下手です" [0] Not being good at something is not the same thing as having refused to learn it. From the authors response I honestly can't assess their level of Japanese well. I routinely have had people tell me they don't speak English well but then have a full conversation with them. https://twitter.com/wingcommander1/status/1617060140733337600 https://twitter.com/wingcommander1/status/161706014073333760...

moltar 4y ago

What if a country has two official languages (Canada) or three (Switzerland) or eleven (South Africa)? Do you need to learn them all, as a foreigner? What about as a naturalized citizen? What about as a born citizen? What if a country has adopted English as another official language (Hong Kong, Malaysia). Do you still need to learn the other languages?

vinay427 4y ago
Switzerland has four official languages (Romansh was added in 1996 and was a "national language" since 1938). In any case, particularly in Canada and Switzerland the official languages tend to be far more geographically divided than the unofficial languages in those countries, or the many languages in South Africa or much of India, or even Chinese in Singapore, Spanish in the US, etc. It's usually clear which subset of languages, official or otherwise, are useful for the city/region in which you live.

rwmj 4y ago

Although he jokes about not speaking Japanese well in that tweet, I've seen him conversing in Japanese in some reports. I think he probably speaks Japanese well enough, but is lamenting that it's a hard language to get really good at.

commitpizza 4y ago

You should visit sweden, we have a lot of people that have lived here for like 20+ years and don't speak the language. Although, some parts of cities nowadays you don't need to as other languages like arabic is more common.

nmcela 4y ago

I'm finnish and work with a lot of international people, many of whom have lived here for decades. None of them speak Finnish, and I, and all the other Finns I know, would never expect them to speak it. It's not that big of a deal.

izacus 4y ago
That's great, but you also wouldn't expect them to write a relevant critique of society and culture since they can't even read the local news paper much less understand the living mindset of people. Everyone here keeps anectoding about their trip to other places when the issue is not daily living but writing an opinion piece about a society they don't understand enough to live in.
- nmcela 4y ago
  Yeah, I get your point. Of course their point of view about the culture and society is unique and important and absolutely worth listening to, but it is true they will certainly miss a lot of the cultural nyances for exactly the reasons you described.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Why? What's so important about that? Pleasing the locals? Not a hypothetical question for me. I've lived in Germany for fourteen years. And while I can mumble my way through some basic conversations, I'm far from fluent in German. I'm sorry but I'm not interested in sacrificing an enormous portion of my time to such a project either. Seems to be quite common here with foreigners. It's very rare that I get angry/annoyed reactions from Germans on this. The opposite actually, there are quite a few Germans here that are attracted to the notion of living in Berlin partially because it is more international focused. In the time that I've lived here, automated translations have gotten much better. Which helps with the inevitable bureaucratic stuff or interacting with people who only speak German. There is very little practical need for me to speak German beyond that. And otherwise, the business language in the companies I deal with is mostly English. I of course live in a bit of a bubble with lots of foreigners that have invaded Berlin. I've also lived in places like Finland. Finnish is much harder than most other languages to pick up. So, I never even pretended that learning was going to be a thing. This might not even be my last country. Most countries smaller than Germany or the US tend to be a lot more pragmatic about people speaking their language. People appreciate it if you do and generally don't really feel threatened by non native speakers. With some exceptions of course. This is a popular topic with populists/xenophobes worried about people stealing their jobs, women, and real estate, becoming marginalized in their own country. You get that in a lot of places. I tend to not have a lot of sympathy for such people though. The opposite actually. Those aren't their jobs. You need the right skills and typically for skilled labor there isn't a whole lot of unemployment. We foreigners show up because we are wanted and needed to do a job. Women aren't property and are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves whom they form relationships with. Fun fact in Finland, a dis-proportionally large part of the local women end up marrying foreigners. And the real estate value indeed goes up if smart people move in and start creating economical value. Economic growth is generally a good thing but indeed annoying for the locals. I think there's going to be more migration due to technical progress with translations between languages and the removal of language barriers. And I think that is a good thing. While I like English (the only language other than Dutch that I mastered well enough to use it professionally), there are large parts of the worlds where people just don't speak English very well. We literally refer to some parts of the world as third world countries, which is very condescending. It means that they are poor. But the implication of course is also that they are somehow inferior and a bit retarded. And that there are second world countries as well that are slightly less inferior. Language has created this elite bubble that keeps it like that for some of these countries. Being able to go to such places and live there without first having to learn a language is very liberating and is probably also going to be great for e.g. trade relationships. I think that should be welcomed. English optional. Also in the US, which of course has plenty of migrant groups that don't speak that very well.

vintermann 4y ago

Hayes said he didn't speak much Japanese. That he speaks any at all, is probably evidence that he tried. People vastly underestimate how hard it is to learn languages. A few people seem to have the knack for it, but the large majority of us don't. Especially not when we get older. Japanese is also famously hard for native English speakers.

rcme 4y ago

It's fine to live somewhere for many years without learning the local language. Even learning a relatively "easy" language, like German for a native English speaker, takes about a year of full-time dedication. Not everyone has time for that. It's definitely not ok, however, to act as if you're an expert about the local culture. There is so much you can't grasp unless you speak the native language. Talking to people is important, but equally important is consuming native media and the news.

jhbadger 4y ago

Japanese is rated as either the #1 or #2 hardest language for a native English speaker to learn (and the reverse is true which explains why you often run into people with little or no English there as opposed to in, say, Western Europe, where many people are practically natively fluent in English). People can and do learn Japanese, but it isn't something that one can easily learn in their spare time the way English speakers can learn French or Spanish.

Tangurena2 4y ago
Written Japanese is a difficult language for native Japanese people. One would be in high school before one has learned enough Kanji to read a typical daily newspaper.
argiopetech 4y ago
I hear this frequently, but disagree strongly, at least regarding the spoken language. As a native English speaker who learned Japanese easily to the "could get by as a tourist" level with two semesters of college classes and minimal self study, I find French much harder (and I took 4 years during high school). Unlike many southeastern Asiatic languages, Japanese doesn't have any sounds that the average English speaker doesn't already know how to make (possible exception in the 'l' sound, but, if you can roll your 'r's, it's the same tongue position). There are no articles, only two tenses, relatively normal conjugations (though adjective conjugation is odd relative to English), no declension, and sentence structure has strong hints of Latin. The simple-polite forms of verbs are sufficient for daily use. Pitch accent and ga vs. wa are hard to pick up without immersion, but neither are necessary to be understood. The written language is a different story. Lots of memorization. The hiragana and katakana come quickly, but there are a lot of kanji. Probably not needed for tourists (particularly in the day of image translation on phones), but still a factor. Arguably still easier than Mandarin in that regard, though. Additionally, there are an overabundance of resources for Japanese learners. The economic potential of American occupation under MacArthur and the subsequent boom years, the enduring popularity of Zen Buddhism, and the rise of anime's popularity in the West have likely all contributed to Japanese being one of the best-supported Asiatic languages in academia and self-study courses. Its support in the USA is exceeded (in my estimation) only by Mandarin due to the large immigrant population and ongoing trends in trade. In short, I'm sure the number of native English speakers who can "get by" in Tokyo eclipses the total number of native English speakers with basic Lao, Thai, Khmer, Vietnamese, and probably even Mandarin skills. Just one datum.