this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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Summary

Japan’s English proficiency ranking dropped to 92nd out of 116 countries, the lowest ever recorded.

The decline is attributed to stagnant English proficiency among young people, particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Netherlands ranked first, followed by European countries, while the Philippines and Malaysia ranked 22nd and 26th, respectively.

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[–] LiamMayfair@lemmy.sdf.org 24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Which is ironic given how many English loanwords have infiltrated the language in recent times, to the point where sometimes I hear Japanese speak in a not overly formal context and half of the words they say are just English words with Japanese pronunciation.

[–] PlexSheep@infosec.pub 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Having learned both english and now in the process of learning Japanese, katakana English is so confusing sometimes. It's kind of correct when you don't think about what's actually written, but you sometimes have to think long to understand that an エアコン (eakon) is just an air con(dition).

[–] Woht24@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I always found saying katakana out loud made me understand.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just wait til you run into it for languages other than English. Froofy bakeries love throwing French words in as well, so you might be left wondering about the flavor of a ガトーフランボワーズ

[–] Woht24@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I lived in Japan for 3 years mate.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

yah me too bud--not sure what you're on aboutt

[–] Woht24@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You're telling me 'wait until you see katakana for other languages'.

I'm saying I have many times over, it doesn't change my opinion.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I wasn't contradicting you, just adding a bit about how katakana sucks for French (and in general). Guess it could've been phrased better--I agree that saying stuff out loud helps.

[–] Woht24@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

All good bro, likely a misunderstanding on my part 👍

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

True. Also doesn't help when you sometimes mix up シ(shi) and ツ (tsu) because the font (or someone else's handwriting) makes them look very similar.

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Alignment/starting position is the key. The "-like strokes in shi are left-aligned, the "-like ones in tsu are top-aligned. Same for 'so' and 'n'. This is why people talk about stroke order being important (although in this case it's not simply the order).

[–] leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I don't know Japanese at all, but the way my phone renders those characters I can't tell anything about stroke order, and can only tell them apart because they're next to each other...

I imagine there might be larger differences with Japanese specific fonts, but with whatever this one is the difference seems about the same as using italics with Latin characters...

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 3 points 1 month ago

I can see the difference, but I think it takes practice. シ lines coming from left, line align with bottom left and ツ lines coming from top and all 3 roughly align at top.

Edit: maybe ctrl+f 'Happy Lilac' on this page and it may help: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/katakana-chart/

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago

It gets easier and I agree with saying it aloud. Once you start getting used to patterns, you can decipher them more easily (at least the ones from a language you speak). Remember no diphthongs and each syllable gets one beat.

My pet theory is that it's also how the infamous "No Smorking" Engrish came about in reverse. The 'o' in smoking tends to sound long and a lot of times words that sound like that to the Japanese from English will be (long-sounding vowel)+r.

[–] mayhair@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Same in Pakistan. People tend to use a lot of English words in Urdu, even when an equivalent native word exists. For example, the proper way to say "What's the time?" is "کیا وقت ہوا ہے؟" ("kiya waqat hawa hay?"). But a lot of people will say "کیا ٹائم ہے؟" ("kiya time hay?") instead. But of course, there are also loanwords such as "واشنگ مشین" (washing machine) and "کمپیوٹر" (computer).

[–] Badland9085@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago

Having lots of loaned words don’t mean much when English and Japanese have vastly different grammatical structures. There are also lots of non-English loaned words in Japanese, and from experience, the Japanese don’t always know which language a word is borrowed from, nor should the speakers of the language really need to care. In any case, grammar makes up an important part of a language, though it doesn’t come for free if you aren’t already exposed to the grammatical structure before.

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 5 points 1 month ago

Loans from French (either old French or Norman French, some borrowed into/from Latin on either side) comprise a huge amount of English vocab. Does that mean we speak French?

(yes, I know there's a video out there arguing that English is just bad/weird French and no I don't agree with it).