Tuesday, June 8

Japanglish
A chronicle of language aquisition and code-switching




No shit, this is what it's actually like.

( Click for BIG size comic. )



I've started to have an interesting problem. I can't seem to speak just English anymore. At any given time in the day, from a quarter to half of the words I use are in Japanese. This is especially problematic when I'm attempting to teach English to Japanese speakers, as I'm prone to speak half in Japanese or switch to a 90% Japanese-English hybrid for explanations instead of helping with proper English. The scary part? It's easier that way.

When people in America ask me if I'm bilingual, I'll still tell them "no." In my mind, I guess I qualify a bilingual person as one who is fluent enough in a language to have little or no problem with it. A friend explained bilingualism as possessing the same ability in a language as a 3rd grade native speaker. Even if that's the case, I'd say third graders (and even the bratty 4-year-old) I teach speak better Japanese than I do... but that's not to say I can't understand them.

Learning Japanese is a bitch-I'm sure I don't have to explain that-but it's quite possibly MORE of a bitch than learning English is, and as teaching English has only just revealed to me how much of a pain-in-the ass English can be, that's saying something.. English certainly has its share of slang, accents and levels of formality, but all revolve around the same verb conjugations (mostly) and can be understood by the average person. Japanese is really three or more languages in one.

Basic Japanese is the everyday desu-masu semi-formal conversation. Outside of that, there are separate sets of informal/casual verb conjugations and formal/polite verb conjugations, as well as a wealth of nouns and verbs that are relationship specific words. That, however, is the icing on the cake. For anyone but native Chinese speakers, Japanese language learning is hell because of the written requirements. Hiragana, katakana and kanji are entirely separate realms of pain.

Hiragana, what I would classify as basic bread-and-butter Japanese, gives me no difficulty at all. On the other hand, katakana makes me perhaps even more frustrated than kanji. Katakana is the Japanese text used for representing foreign words, Japanese-foreign hybrids and exclamations. Unfortunately, the Japanese seem to lack the ability to encorporate foreign words into their language without SEVERE "Japanization" of pronunciation. On top of that, they seem to expect foreign learners (especially English speakers) to easily understand katakana because, well, isn't it ENGLISH? No, Katakana is not English, even though most of the words are bastardized from America. I can't count the number of times I've spend sounding out something like "heu-maa" with no idea of the implied meaning only to find out later that the word I was trying to translate was "humor" or something equally simple.

Katakana is just completely illogical. It requires precise spelling and pronunciation of words that have been so completely misspelled and mispronounced that they no longer resemble their language of origin. Katakana also contains any number of words that come from non-English languages and are equally random and equally bastardized. Did you know that a stapler isn't called a "stay-pu-raa" in Japanese but a "Hotchi-kissu," after the name of the European inventor? Not that the word "stapler" makes any more sense.

Katakana also isn't JUST used for foreign words. Noooo, that'd be too much to ask. Katakana is frequently and randomly used in advertisements for Japanese words like kirei (pretty) and oishii (delicious), among others, to somehow EMPHASIZE that word. *snort*

And then there's kanji. There's not much to say about kanji because anyone with half a brain can understand how difficult it is to go from a syllabic language to a pictographic one. Japanese, unlike Chinese doesn't JUST use kanji for written text, but a mix of hiragana, katakana and Kanji.

I'm still illiterate when it comes to most written Japanese and quite logically so, as I only can read about 400-500 of the 1500 kanji required for basic literacy. However, my listening comprehension has progressed to the point where I understand most Japanese spoken around me and directed towards me. I can watch entertainment TV and understand most of the dialogue and story. TV news is still pretty impossible.

I wouldn't say I've learned to think completely in Japanese and I certainly don't dream in it. That's not to say I DON'T think I Japanese at all. I've ceased to translate Japanese phrases in my head before speaking and often times even during English conversation, I replace English words with Japanese words as they're far more readily accessible than English ones. The dreaming, I expect, will start after I come home to an entirely English-speaking world and find myself code-switching in a room full of people who don't understand me. I'm not sure whether the thought of being able to absorb meaning through unintentional eavesdropping once again is exciting or frightening. I've become used to having to work, even if just a little bit, to have a conversation.

When I first got here, I thought I knew enough Japanese to get by in "everyday conversation." Now I'd certainly say otherwise. I had LEARNED a lot of grammar and vocabulary but couldn't make use of any of it. I didn't understand half of the questions directed at me. I went into frantic overdrive and studied any words I could get my hands on, mostly just to forget them a week later because I was forcing myself too much. As I learned to interact in Japanese, I realized the difference between studying a language and actually acquiring fluency. I wrote this in December as I was riding the train:

I can feel the language centers in my brain beinfg forced open. FEEL IT. Like some physical change is taking place within me. Switches are being flipped, synapses connected, sleeping places awakened. Does this happen to everyone during language acquisition? Will I be a different person for this immersion? Surely I will... but will my very core, my thought centers, have been completely changed?

Even that little notebook sketch was written two months before I stopped getting headaches from the intense concentration required to speak and started to feel comfortable managing my own business transactions on the phone and in person. I didn't really gain confidence in my Japanese abilities-or in myself as a person-until I'd managed to complete Spring Break planning and had returned from traveling to Hokkaido, Okinawa, Kyoto, Nara and Osaka.

I still make a lot of mistakes and sound like an idiot foreigner, but at least I'm confident. Speaking Japanese isn't scary or abnormal any more... it's just part of my daily life. So much so, in fact, that I do it even while speaking English, as I mentioned before. So much so, that I've started to understand song lyrics. Even scarier than the thought of being in an English immersion environment upon coming home is the thought of letting all this work slide away from me and disappear. Though I'm sure I'll be involved in the Japanese Student Organization (JSO) next year and working my ass off in class to maintain a moderate fluency level, I'm afraid of the damage a summer without speaking will do. No matter how much I study, Japanese class is not Japan, and the casual ease with which I can talk about most anything on my mind will slip away. And that, my friends, is just one reason I'll come back here someday.

The questions I asked myself in that December passage are still a mystery that may only be made a bit clearer upon my return to the states. It's impossible, of course, to separate JAPANESE and JAPAN, but I still wonder... Am I different, not for this experience as a whole, but for the language I've learned?