For some reason Chinese people believe that they can speak English better than Japanese people. I’ve heard this from far too many Taiwanese students and friends. I have Chinese friends and Japanese friends and I really don’t think this is true. In fact, I would say that while both make similar grammar mistakes (forgetting to use the past tense, misuse of articles, etc) my Japanese friends’ pronunciation is better.
Anyone else have any opinion on this? No matter what I tell my Taiwanese friends, they all claim that “everyone knows Chinese can speak English better”. Nothing that I say will convince them otherwise.
I’ve no Japanese friends and or acquaitances, so I’ve no way to compare/contrast.
But, oddly enough, just today at lunch I was asked to listen to some prepared speeches by three (Taiwanese) colleagues and to critique the same. They were all nervous… but one offered that whenever she feels nervous about speaking English to a group of people, it helps her to pretend that the people to whom she is speaking are all Japanese… because the Japanese speak English even more poorly than do the Taiwanese.
18 months of teaching in Japan,and 2 years here, tell me that your Taiwanese friends are right for once. The Taiwanese do grasp English better, usage is a whole nutha story…
In my experience with adults, Chinese pronunciation of English is better. Taiwanese, a close second. Japanese (and Korean sound similar but their) pronunciation is not as clear as Chinese/Taiwanese.
I teach Japanese business people here in Taibei and this is from my experience. They have told me their English pronunciation is worse than their Chinese/Taiwanese colleagues.
(In reading and written English, Japanese and Koreans do better, in my experience. But they’re so shy when it comes to speaking!)
When I went to Japan for a holiday, I had a hard time understanding what people were saying when they were speaking English. To me it felt like lots of people were speaking with a really bizarre kind of Italian accent, with “o” added to the ends of a lot of words. Took a bit to adjust.
But to tell the truth, it’s hard for me to judge who speaks better English, Taiwanese or Japanese, because I am used to the mistakes Taiwanese often make. Also, I find pronunciation-wise, it depends on whether the student (most of my students are young kids) speaks Mandarin or Taiwanese at home. I find the former usually have better pronunciation.
[quote=“L-A”]When I went to Japan for a holiday, I had a hard time understanding what people were saying when they were speaking English. To me it felt like lots of people were speaking with a really bizarre kind of Italian accent, with “o” added to the ends of a lot of words. Took a bit to adjust.
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Odd, sometimes my wife, brother-in-law, etc likes to add the word “la” to the end of English words. Drive me crazy(as in annoying)
I heard this often in Singapore, less so in Taiwan. Although in Singapore I also found that it was a popular syllable to sprinkle liberally into one’s Mandarin.
IME a lot more Taiwanese are willing to open their mouths and speak English, no matter how poor it is. Friends aside, the Japanese are less likely to speak it unless they are quite confident it’s up to the job. So, the total numbers I have no idea of, but the Japanese that will speak English with me tend to have a much higher level than the Taiwanese.
Your theory might also suggest that the same could be true of people from different countries who are trying to speak Mandarin. Curious if any of you native/near-native level Mandarin speakers notice something similar? (Obviously the Japanese have an edge in learning Mandarin because of the writing – but perhaps in the spoken language a similar trend is observed?)
[quote=“Hobbes”]Curious if any of you native/near-native level Mandarin speakers notice something similar? (Obviously the Japanese have an edge in learning Mandarin because of the writing – but perhaps in the spoken language a similar trend is observed?)[/quote]It’s handy for them being able to recognize some characters, but remember the meaning of many of them have been quite static since the Japanese adopted them, while Chinese has drifted somewhat over time.
As to accent, the Japanese have roughly the same challenges as with English.
In my limited experience, I’ve found that the Japanese have worse pronunciation than the Taiwanese on average. The Japanese often pronounce English as if they learned it using Katakana. But then again, I’ve met Taiwanese who have used bopomofo to represent English.