[laurieg]

I've lived in Japan for over a decade and I think this article summarizes some aspects of English education well. I'd like to share a few of my thoughts and experiences too.

English is often put on a very high pedestal. Speaking fluent English is associated with being "elite". A tech company in my city is slowly moving to doing all development work in English. I went to a casual tech talk event they held. Every talk was given in Japanese and most of them started with a joke along the lines of "[In English] Hello everyone, good evening! [In Japanese] Hahah, of course I'm not going to give the whole talk in English" It makes sense to give all the talks in Japanese to a Japanese speaking audience, but the whole vibe was that English was so impossible that the idea of giving a talk in English was absurd.

Some of my friends have kids with mixed-roots. They have grown up speaking English and Japanese. They sometimes modify their English pronunciation to sound "more Japanese" when they start English classes in school. They don't want to stand out amongst their peers.

I remember one kid, who was tri-lingual. He told a story about being called upon in English class to translate the Japanese word for "great-grandfather". He translated it correctly but his teacher said "No, it's grand-grandfather". They teacher and the class laughed at him. Of course, there are bad teachers everywhere but one wonders if the teacher would have tried to take him down a peg so much if he fit in a bit better. He ended up moving to Germany with his family. It makes me feel quite sad that a kid born and raised here can end up feeling more at home in a place he has no connection to.

[Cthulhu_]

That sounds like a universal experience to be honest; a lot of English teachers (that aren't native English themselves) often over-estimate their own abilities.

[partdavid]

And not just restricted to English; it's a very common experience in the U.S. for native speakers of, e.g. Spanish, to end up in Spanish-language courses with non-native Spanish teachers, with modest Spanish skills. I assume it's the case with all language teachers especially at a non-advanced level.

[bondarchuk]

At least having English as an elite-signalling language is still quasi useful. Over here kids slave over ancient Latin or Greek to prove that their parents are elite.

[jhanschoo]

As someone who enjoys languages, I observe with irony that in terms of proficiency per unit of effort spent, at least formal ancient language education isn't a such a waste of effort that formal language education is, in the sense that immersion will teach you language more painlessly, and with more velocity and distance than formal modern language education will; but immersion is quite inaccessible for ancient languages.

[Pamar]

Disclaimer: I am European AND Old, so I studied Latin for 8 years (Middle School + High School).

I am not sure I really understand your comment here. If you are studying an ancient language you acquire zero fluency in it. At best you can read it, unless you were lucky enough to meet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Foster_(Latinist) (and this would apply to Latin exclusively).

So it is a bit like saying, I dunno, "in terms of proficiency per unit of effort spent" playing Street Fighter is more "efficient" than practicing a martial art in an actual gym/dojo.

[jhanschoo]

Indeed, I agree that you acquire hardly any fluency in classical languages with formal education. I suppose that I don't express this well, but I was trying to say that a natural language formally taught does not readily give you much fluency in it either, whereas immersion would give you fluency more readily and pleasurably.

My analogy would be more like this: learning dead languages in the classroom is to playing arcade flying games like how learning modern language in the sterile classroom is to a flight simulator, and immersion is pilot hours spent.

That is, with respect to acquiring skill in flying, time spent in a simulator is inferior to immersion-dominant learning, even with respect to acquiring skill for the simulator. It is in respect to the accessibility of immersion that I say that there is waste in classroom-dominant modern language learning. With arcade flying there is no such thing as arcade physics in the world, so with respect to acquiring what little skill is realistic, there is no better realistically accessible way.

[qingcharles]

I'm also old enough to have been forced to study Latin for years at school, on equal par with Spanish and French. I'm sorry I didn't take it seriously. Latin underpins so many languages, and a basis in Latin can help enormously figuring out strange words.

[Pamar]

In my home country (Italy) the "usefulness" of teaching Latin in non-technical schools (i.e. High School, basically) has been debated for at least one century now.

I do not regret having studied it, especially because I had good grades with little effort, but I came to the conclusion that yeah, maybe it would be better to devote more hours to general purpose stuff (think logic, statistics, basic accountancy and and stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow) which would probably be more useful for people who need to operate in modern society.

If you really want to study Latin or Greek (or anything like that) you can do it as a hobby, or choose a University track that includes those. But as an average citizen I think that an understanding of the numbers published by media, or the ability to manage your own budget with a spreadsheet would be definitely a better investment in terms of time.

EDIT: forgot to add that I am talking specifically of high school in Italy, I do not know if other countries already provide more "practical" forms of education to their general population.

[epoxia]

> He told a story about being called upon in English class to translate the Japanese word for "great-grandfather"

Very similar/relevant shimura ken skit. https://youtu.be/67KlmXYDom4

[RandallBrown]

> They sometimes modify their English pronunciation to sound "more Japanese" when they start English classes in school

I saw a video where an American was trying to order a McFlurry at McDonalds in Japan and the worker couldn't understand "McFlurry" pronounced in English so they had to pronounce it in what (without context) would sound quite racist.

[huehehue]

For the curious, it would be something like "makku-fu-ruri"

This was my experience in Japan as well. So many words we're used to saying in English use mouth shapes that the Japanese language does not, so you really have to tweak how you say things to align with what's available.

"Coffee" is a fun one for the tired westerner

[qingcharles]

I've also had this happen in France and German-Swiss, so I don't think this is unique to Japan! :)

[sjburt]

How is this any different from going into a Panda Express and trying to order in Mandarin?

[lmm]

Because it's called a McFlurry on the menu. Japan is very fond of taking loanwords from English but changing the pronunciation and meaning, which can be one of the hardest parts of any language.

[anal_reactor]

> It makes sense to give all the talks in Japanese to a Japanese speaking audience, but the whole vibe was that English was so impossible that the idea of giving a talk in English was absurd.

When I was a student I took some classes in English, and some in my native language. Having someone speak your native language makes things infinitely easier to understand and more engaging. Even if you're a fluent speaker it's still a foreign language, so it's a mental hurdle. I can compare it to talking to a friend in a casual setting vs having a work meeting.

> He translated it correctly but his teacher said "No, it's grand-grandfather".

It's a trait of hierarchical societies. Questioning your superior is a bigger threat to the society than saying things that are objectively wrong.

While it's a fair argument that English became the lingua franca and if you don't speak it, you will be left behind, I feel like most Americans are completely oblivious to the idea that other cultures might exist. I work for an American company in Europe, and most of Americans don't do any effort to learn the local language, and those who do, simply use local words to express their American thoughts.

[TulliusCicero]

> those who do, simply use local words to express their American thoughts.

I feel like there's almost the reverse stereotype of this for Americans living in Japan. Like, that they're weirdly obsessed with Japanese culture and try too hard to become more Japanese.

[eszed]

> Having someone speak your native language makes things infinitely easier to understand and more engaging.

I don't really disagree with this. However, it's only axiomatically true if you hold teaching skill constant. I once learned far more on Tuesdays and Thursdays from a brilliant teacher who spoke no English than I did on Mondays and Wednesdays from a perfectly bi-lingual instructor who was only meh.

When I taught ESL I held onto English-only except in extremis. Knowing (though only a bit of, in my case) the other language, could otherwise become unproductive. As the teacher, it was on me to find the four or five (or however many were necessary!) ways to get to the concept in English. Hearing all of them may have only been necessary for a few of the students, but hearing them was re-inforcing for the students who had 'got it' first time.

[lmm]

> I feel like most Americans are completely oblivious to the idea that other cultures might exist. I work for an American company in Europe, and most of Americans don't do any effort to learn the local language, and those who do, simply use local words to express their American thoughts.

Yeah. As a Brit living in Japan, the Americans are often a more foreign culture than the Japanese, and far less willing to work to bridge the distance and avoid misunderstandings.

[tayo42]

> doing all development work in English.

You need to do some development work in English. Programing language keywords are all English?

Like there isn't really a python in Japanese?

[ecshafer]

Ironically, Ruby is a Japanese created language, and is outside of cobol the most English word heavy languages I've used.