Why japanese people don't speak well english ?

Question

Why japanese people don't speak well english.. contrary to Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines.. ?

It's a simple question.. my english is bad too..

Answer 1

iTS NOT ABOUT JUST JAPANESE PEOPLE. BESiDES i KNOW SOME JAPANESE PEOPLE WHO SPEAK PERFECT ENGLiSH MAYBE EVEN BETTER THEN AMERiCANS. BUT U SHOULDNT BE PiCKiNG ON JAPANESE PEOPLE OR ANY GROUP OF NATiONALiTY. SOMETiMES QUESTiONS LiKE URS ARE THE QUESTiONS THAT U REALLY DiDNT HAVE TO SAY. WHAT KNOWLEDGE WOULD iT REALLY GiVE U?

Answer 2

I think the answer would be in asking yourself if you speak well in Japanese. I mean if a Japanese goes to America he should not expect people to understand and speak Japanese because he is, it is only reasonable that he speak the native language of the country he is visiting. And likewise if an American goes to Japan he should not expect the people there to speak English because that is not their native language , but the American should learn to speak Japanese.
This is how I perceive it.

However, the other reason , this will be the point of your question is because of a more Western influence on Hongkong, Singapore and the Philippines. The Japanese are very nationalistic people. And I don't think they see it as a problem whether they can speak english or not. I mean let's face it , in terms of technology and quality of technology the Japanese are number 1. Even if their culture is one of the youngest in the world they were able to nourish and enrich it in such a short span of time.

Answer 3

First of all Tex, from you question it does not seem like you speak English very well, but the answer to you question is simple, firstly, there are sounds in the English language that don't exist in the Japanese language, therefore this leads to difficulties in pronunciation, secondly no one ethnic group can speak a language better than another it is simply a matter of practice maybe the answer is that the Japanese people which you have met, have not practiced enough or that your grammar is so bad that even if they were speaking correctly you would not even know it.

Answer 4

Two main reasons.

One: there has never been a serious need for ordinary Japanese people to speak English or any other foreign language. Unlike many of its neighbors, Japan has never been colonized by Western countries, and people can get their education and jobs entirely in Japanese.

Two: As many answeres have already pointed out, the pronunciation is totally different as well as the langage structure itself, including grammer and vocabulary.
When a Spanish speaker tries to speak English, once he gets hold of basic grammer, the rest is just a matter of replacing words and the resulting sentence generally makes sense. And the worls themselves are often similar: president/presidente, etc. It's not like that between English and Japaness.

Answer 5

Well they speak pretty good English considering that it is a foreign language for them. I am sure they speak better English than many English speaking people speaking Japanese. Actually, their language has a different set of sounds and they are not familiar with the English sounds, so they will not know how to creat that sound, where to put the tongue etc.

Answer 6

There are certain sounds that we use in our words such as the sound of the letter L makes that are not used in the Japanese language. Our children were taught from infancy to make these sounds. They do not teach their childre these sounds.
If you are not taught these sounds since infncy, it is a lot harder to learn it as an adult.
It should be noted that the Chinese use all the same sounds that we do. It is for this reason they speak better English.

Answer 7

There are some sounds in english that the japanese don't even have. Like "th". That's why they say, "Sank you very much" instead of "thank you very much". English is actually one of the hardest languages on earth to learn because of the amount of our words that are the same but mean different things, plus the billions of ways to spell words and the fact that our language is constantly changing.

Answer 8

English and Japanese are so different. For Asian people to learn English is very hard. The sounds are so much different and there is very little in common. Just keep working on it and you will be fine.

Answer 9

that's real, relying on the guy. however it is not very distinct from how some English-speaking human beings imagine that "foreigners favor to study English, why ought to we study their's?" also, many Asian human beings take their paintings heavily, so in the journey that they have got not mastered many skills contained in the English language, they could somewhat not problem about speaking in undesirable English and somewhat talk of their gifted language. study better...precise? nicely in this get mutually of businessmen, they maximum likely have little loose time to sleep, or a lot less study a language. Businessmen who opt for his or her close by language for engaging in company will maximum likely employ a translator, till one or better of those company-companions are smooth adequate to apply their knowledge of a 2d-numerous language. in spite of the variables, (non-verbal) politeness and appreciate are all that ought to count number number.

Answer 10

All those places have english as their official language, meaning its probably put to more use and they are more immersed in the english language to build up their language capabilities. Not to mention they were colonized by the British or America. Japan has put a major importance on learning English in their school systems however its hard to learn a language when you rarely use it.