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Finding fault in you…even your english…

I don’t know whether this is just particular to Japan, but one thing that really used to drive me nuts was when they’d start finding fault with my English.

I’ve been speaking English since I was 2 years old so well, there’s nothing wrong with my English beyond the fact that I can’t get an 800 on my SAT because my vocabulary sucks…but I’m not an English teacher just an English speaker so what’s wrong with that?!

Anyhow it was really annoying how they’d make up stories saying I had this Filipino accent for example, just because I lived in the Philippines. Ask any Filipino. I do not have a Filipino accent. They will certify it for you. Ask any American or Brit – they will say I have no accent whatsoever or that I have a Canadian accent.

So you see on top of being told that my Japanese wasn’t up to par everyday of my life – they also started picking on my English – coming up with words I didn’t know and asking me what it meant and using this as evidence against me.

At one job interview where the applicants spoke very poor doddering English, the guy interviewing me went as far as to say: Look. Their English is just as good as yours and your Japanese isn’t as good as theirs.

uhh…..

When a production company asked me to do the narration for a UNICEF video the UNICEF guy insisted I had a Filipino accent and so he had to hire someone who sounded like a native speaker. He went on to hire someone who spoke such horrible English that I actually came down with hives in the editing studio and had to take medication.

And the irony is that many Filipinos speak fluent English. Doesn’t matter that they have a distinctive accent mostly, but they do speak it very very fluently….unlike the Japanese.
Finally I got around this by getting an American to vouch for me for a job. Basically she assumed my Japanese was perfect and since my English wasn’t any worse than any other native speaker she said: Why should we hire these other Japanese when they don’t even speak English very well.

But you know? I think this is ultimately why I left Japan. By the time I left nobody was even questioning my language skills including my Japanese but I don’t think I ever forgot the hell they gave me when I was 18-30 years old.

Is this peculiar to Japan or do they do this in other countries as well?

Just curious.

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Posted by Ayako at 9:34 am on January 3rd, 2008. Comments
Categories: General Forum.

  • Ridiculous huh! One of my coworkers told me that her (leaned, as opposed to bilingual) "Indian English" was the correct way to speak English and the rest of us (native English speakers) spoke English incorrectly.

    My other coworker and I just gave each other this "what the F!" look.

    I was very tempted to send replies to all her emails with all the necessary basic grammar corrections in big red fonts.
  • besu-chan
    Haha when I was in middle school in Japan my English teacher was some Japanese lady who had never been out of Japan and spoke terrible English. Then we got a JETS teacher from Canada. So, all my friends at school told me I didn't speak English properly because I didn't sound like either of their teachers!
  • mmmmmm
    a funny thing i noticed is tat... when it comes to SAT, a lot of my friends who grew up in CHina who can't speak anything can get absolutely amazing marks while the ppl who grew up in english speaking countries cant. i think it has to do with the fact tat all they do in china is study grammar strcture and memorize vocabs.

    the 2 things that real english speakers dunt actually ever do lol
  • corymz
    Whenever people at Spanish uni have seen me reading a book in English, they think that I'm only "trying" to read it to show off. It's impossible for them to understand that I even though Spanish is my native language, I did most of my schooling in English, and I'm comfortable with reading/writing in English.
  • Marie
    people will always assume you have some sort of accent... French people and american people do that to me even though I have no accent...i feel like it's a way for them to fit you in a "foreigner" box because they can't necessarily fit you into their own (at least for me being french-american)....i have to admit though that my accent changes depending on who i'm speaking to...but regardless i don't have an accent in either language (that is foreign to that country/one of the regions) yet people still feel the need to TELL me I have one... fun stuff
  • Marie
    AHHH I HATE it when ppl do this... regardless of the country... if I'm in the US and ppl learn that I'm french it's "OH, I THOUGHT you had an accent" and if I'm in France and they learn I'm 'american' or lived in US they say "OH, I KNEW you had an accent...yeah..."- of course in France the only slight bit of accent I MIGHT have comes from the south of France....not the US...my English accent on the other hand is a mix of Washington DC area and Boston area speak... however NONE of these comprise accents from ANY other country.

    Sometimes in the US I just mess around and start speaking english w/ a really heavy accent for the fun of it....my friends just laugh...or ignore it

    does this happen to anyone: the only time I actually have an accent is when i'm switching from one language to the other (notably french into english)... sometimes when I'm speaking w/ someone new I feel the need to keep the accent throughout the conversation so I don't get called on for it.... it's pretty stupid but I guess I just try to avoid the annoying and probing questions which necessarily follow. (Plus in the US if you've ever been out of the country you're considered a foreigner...and its surprising you even speak english at all).
  • Ayako
    haha...yes that's how they tend to think in Japan too. Especially 'older' people. I had less trouble with younger Japanese with this.

    As for my International School, I took exams when I returned to the Philippines from New Zealand and I overheard them commenting: "How come she's Japanese but her English is so good and her math is so bad??"

    lol

    (I wish my math were up to Japanese standards though. Would have made life much easier for me because people can't be too subjective there...)
  • Tracy
    Ayako,

    that is why I left Beijing a few years ago after trying to move there and start a business. The locals would insist that their English was just as good as mine & I would have people hoving around me when I was typing and each time I had a typo they would yell "See! The wannabe-foreigner has bad English!" or when I hit the spellcheck button, they would all say that was because I really couldn't spell. It almost comes down to some wierd logic that goes: I'm Chinese, you're mostly Chinese so there's no way you can be *that* much better than me. It was so annoying, plus the fact that no-one could concentrate on the work, but was preoccupied with "what" I was. And then decide at the end of the evening that I was such a pathetically flawed individual genetically and envrionmentally to warrant any interest. In short, I was just plain abnormal in their eyes.

    I also find this in my work environment in Canada from new immigrants who come from Mainland China, & I'm desperately wishing to not be in that situation in my next project.
  • Sindhu
    It never ceases to amaze me how bewildered people are that there are others out there who can speak more than JUST one language effectively while ALSO juggling various different accents contextually.

    Seriously, ""common sense is NOT that common!" -- you couldn't have said it better!
  • Cynthia
    I remember this when my brother was still 4 and he didn't like to talk. The teachers didn't think he understood them. I wasn't sure if he did though LOL

    "...imagine someone talking to you so slow, it became hard to understand." Hahaha! Yes indeed hard...
  • 104396
    I swear to god, all international schools look down upon Asian students >< I applied for my current int'l school just a few months back, and they knew my background of 7+ years in an international school, yet they wanted to test the proficiency of my English. Damned idiots. The test was ridiculous, the reading comprehension was basic, the writing was filling out simple forms and writing short essays, the grammar was objective-styled questions and the oral/listening test was just insulting; imagine someone talking to you so slow, it became hard to understand :(
  • mairabay
    "let them think what they want. we're all cool xP"
    very good comment fetus! that's how we have to think of ourselves

    which fits into the other comment "That's my reason for never moving back to Sweden. If I wasn't good enough to fit in on their terms, they can kiss my ass"
    this is why "home" countries suck (hey maybe we should start a thread on this)... people are always expecting things from us...ugh!!!
  • Ayako
    "If I wasn't good enough to fit in on their terms, they can kiss my ass. Yes, that was the culturally American part speaking :)" <---Yeah that was the American side of me coming out of the closet too! :P

    My Japanese is accentless too - you can only see that something is seriously wrong when I have to write things down on a piece of paper with a pen or pencil. If I use a PC, people can't really tell because they can't see my handwriting which is infantile.

    But yeah I agree with your analysis. Any differences however positive can be turned against you...if that's what people want to do.
  • Tess
    I speak English like an American native speaker, but kids in Sweden used to do that 'find obscure words' thing to me too. However, they never found fault with my Swedish (also speak like a native speaker), not even when I made grammar mistakes after speaking English with another TCK friend. Recently, someone considering hiring me told me I have a hint of a Swedish accent after I told her because I'm here on an F-1 visa, she needs to fill out paperwork with whatever the INS is called now. I don't. My mother, who has a vague accent on her English that's hard to place due to various moving around, says that Americans tell her they can tell that she's not a native speaker of English when she makes the kinds of mistakes one does in any language from time to time when you change your mind mid-sentence. I think people make a lot of criticism up anywhere, but I think it's worse in cultures that are ingroup-oriented.

    It's interesting that you wouldn't go back to Japan because of being treated that way. That's my reason for never moving back to Sweden. If I wasn't good enough to fit in on their terms, they can kiss my ass. Yes, that was the culturally American part speaking :) I was too good in school and got teased and ostracized for that. I spoke too many languages, but not all well enough apparently, convenient tool of teasing and ostrazation. My parents had too much money and were bastardly capitalist oppressors, clearly making me one too. If they don't have the good common sense to realize being good in school is a good thing, and that if everyone is average at everything your country's tanked, then they can run their country their way and I can live in another one.
  • Julie
    Wow that is hard. My English has always been good it was my first language but my spelling is horendous (as I believe I jsut proved) so that when I am writting I often switch what I am saying becaus I can't figure out how to spell what I am saying therefore I switchm y hwhole sentence to be something easier to spell. We really need a spell check on here. Anyway we have tourist book somewhere (we have stuff stored in about 3 locations) that is in such bad English that you can't really even read the thing I will have to see if I can find it and post it here sometime. It is so funny I don't know how they even got it printed but I guess the printer couldn't read it either or it seemed right to him.
  • Cynthia
    Wow that's pretty dumb. But I know Japanese tend to be quite critical (according to my Japanese friends, and one refused to repatriate because of that).

    In Taiwan people look at you in awe if your English is very good. I guess it's because it is very common for Taiwanese to go overseas and those that can't wish they could.

    In China, if you're of Asian descendant (doesn't matter if you're ABC, CBC, EBC, or any other foreign BCs LOL) they assume you can't speak English very well LOL It's odd. But when you start talking to them in English or swearing at them in English they stare at you in awe. Hilarious.

    In the States, when you speak English very well and not an American...well we know what the results are. I was told by my college writing class TA that my writing is better than some of the students (who were Americans mind you) and he was surprised to find that I was not American.

    I used to be put in ESL classes before 4th grade. And then for some reason it stopped. I don't really know if my English was that bad...lol
  • priyanka
    "common sense is NOT that common!"

    LOL that's my new catchphrase. These are some of the strangest stories I've heard, considering the English on this site is much better than the English I hear on the streets every day (obviously not counting myself in this group). Warona, I love your story because when I first came here, my *teachers* were like... "Africa? Wow. You speak English?? Wooowww. They speak English there???" Along with hundreds of other languages, moron. Haha I feel your pain, all of you.
  • kristine
    Oooh, ouch. I get crap for not understanding filipino as well as others. Sisters make fun of me cause i cannot read 'filipino txt msging language'. Seriously! And my first language is tagalog. Ugh.

    And then, canadians tell me i have an accent.. I ask them what kinda accent and they say they just can't place it. And then I use english words and they don't even know what it means.. makes me wanna look back to that time when one of my friends in the UAE told me my english was crappy. has she seen or heard her english?

    blah, though. it's not like we gotta impress em. let them think what they want. we're all cool xP
  • warona
    hey ayako, is this the same ayako from facebook? living in spain now? just wondering, anyway, hello and welcome.

    i am a first language english speaker. when my parents first moved, my older sister was 5 years old and i was 11 months old, her teachers told my parents that he english was not good enough and that they needed to start speaking english to her at home or else she'd be left back. it was bullshit but my parents freaked and started speaking to all of us in english, hence english being my first language.

    anyway, the issues i get are not like yours but maybe the other side of the same coin. my accent is sort of southern african come american come english with random bits of "international school" moments happening in there. in the U.S and canada they accuse me of having a british accent, in southern africa they say i sound american etc.

    anyway when i repatriated to botswana as an adult, i got a job reading the news in radio, i was told my acent was WAY too american and that i couldn't even pronounce my own name, which is crap. i then moved to work in a tv station, i was an editor but the position opened up for a continuity presenter (one of those idiots who tell you what's coming up on tv next, not rocket science) and since i am an actor i decided to try out for it. my setswana is crap and was worse then so i couldn't do the setswana bit but my english is impeccable (even though my spelling sucks) so i cleaned up in the english audition. but even though they were going have 2 continuity presenters at a time, one speaking english and one speaking setswana i was told i could not have the job because my setswana was not good enough and if they let me do it in english only it would look like they were playing favourites.

    i was really annoyed.

    anyway, my setswana is a LOT better now, but people always assume i cannot speak it at all because of how i sound when i speak english. like, whoa! you sound so western when you speak english that there just can't be any room in there for an AFRICAN language! what the hell kind of logic is that??

    you know what they say, common sense is NOT that common!
  • Brice
    Wow, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I knew this happened in Japan because I've heard similar stories, but that UNICEF story is just ridiculous.

    But hey, I'm glad you left. It's their loss. Now they'll continue to hire so called "good English speakers" to make more shirts like this.

    <img src="http://www.engrish.com/image/engrish/life-is-a-best.jpg"></img>
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