Why can't the Japanese speak good English?

I fail to understand why people from Japan in general can't speak good English. After all, Japan is a developed country which should afford excellent learning conditions for its people to learn and speak English well. But it seems that is not the case.
What do you think?

Because they have more selft steem and Japan is an auto sufficient country. They don't need to learn English in the same way the Chinese do to attract foreign investment. The Japanese speak as good English as the US Americans speak Japanese, no more no less. You the Chinese are tho ones who must learn English but nobody learns your language. Don't believe the hype about how important Chinese is. In reality in Western countries nobody studies Chinese.

<<Honda Mon Jan 19, 2009 3:42 pm GMT
Because they have more selft steem and Japan is an auto sufficient country. They don't need to learn English in the same way the Chinese do to attract foreign investment. The Japanese speak as good English as the US Americans speak Japanese, no more no less. You the Chinese are tho ones who must learn English but nobody learns your language. Don't believe the hype about how important Chinese is. In reality in Western countries nobody studies Chinese.>>
Rampant lies!

Some Japanese do speak good English. They just need immersion in an English-speaking culture.

Japanese students have conversation teachers in high school and perhaps junior high as well. Still, the emphasis is on grammar and the goal is to get into Todai (Tokyo University) or Keio University, so students study hard to pass what is on the entrance exams.

Many Japanese are introverted. This makes speaking a chore. If you want to add one more negative, it would be that Japanese has very few sounds, so it requires some effort for the average Japanese to master the sounds of English.

As for Chinese, they teach Chinese where I live. Some people are interested, some are not. Chinese is not some pick-up language. It takes effort. Because the United States is diverse, you will find some people willing to make the effort to learn Chinese to a high level, but not many.

Without good materials or teachers, even intelligent students will struggle.

I did not know that Chinese could speak good English. Their accent are generally horrible and they usually make lots of mistakes because their grammar is even much easier than the English one

Japanese and Chinese have different challenges related to English. I have met some Chinese who speak English well and plenty of Japanese who speak well.

And yet the Japanese seem to do just fine without knowing it... A good argument against Tom's ideal of an English only world!

Quite a few Japanese can read English even if they can't speak it. They aren't totally in the dark.

I don't know how much Tom has travelled. It's much safer to travel if you can read, speak, and understand the language.

Of course having English as a universal language would eliminate that problem. I don't want to do that to people, though, deny them their language.

<<LL Mon Jan 19, 2009 7:06 pm GMT
Some Japanese do speak good English. They just need immersion in an English-speaking culture.>>
That statement can apply to any nation's learners of foreign languages.
But I am refering to people in general, not just a select few.

<<Japanese students have conversation teachers in high school and perhaps junior high as well. Still, the emphasis is on grammar and the goal is to get into Todai (Tokyo University) or Keio University, so students study hard to pass what is on the entrance exams. >>
That is a problem. Exam cramming is not a good way to learn a language, particularly the spoken language.

<<Many Japanese are introverted. This makes speaking a chore. If you want to add one more negative, it would be that Japanese has very few sounds, so it requires some effort for the average Japanese to master the sounds of English. >>
That sounds quite reasonable. I agree.

<<As for Chinese, they teach Chinese where I live. Some people are interested, some are not. Chinese is not some pick-up language. It takes effort. Because the United States is diverse, you will find some people willing to make the effort to learn Chinese to a high level, but not many. >>
Chinese seems to be on the rise for its overseas learners.

The problem with the Japanese isn't only with English, when I taught Portuguese at the Kyoto University of Foreign Languages my students had a hard time saying even the easiest things.
I believe that the phonetic system of the Japanese language is the greatest barrier since they have no L or V and there are only 5 vowels. Also, since the language is totally syllabic, it is difficult for them for pronounce isolated consonants, which leads them to put an "extra vowel" to compensate. Therefore "I speak English because I like this language" would be something like "I sUpiikU ingUrishU bikozU ai raiKU dizU rangeeji" . I apologize for the kind of forced example but that's how they sound in English. Another problem that I've found is that Japanese uses "pitch accent" whereas English and many western languages use "stress accent", which makes it even more difficult for the Japanese to speak English.
But as it has already been said here Japan is a very prosperous nation and one has access to all kinds of information in Japanese. Also, most movies on TV are dubbed so why bother speaking English? Also, if they travel to countries in Asia, for instance, many people speak Japanese (I used it when I went to China, Korea and Taiwan).

Cheers!!

Spanish hasn't got V, SH sounds either, and it's got five vowels too

lovesick: Comparing the difficulty that Spanish speakers (I don't think there's any) have and Japanese is a little too harsh. At least Spanish is an indo-european language, uses the SVO structure and shares TONS of vocabulary with English whereas Japanese has the vocabulary EXTREMELY different from English.

Cheers!!

>>Don't believe the hype about how important Chinese is. In reality in Western countries nobody studies Chinese.

I don't care. The most important task is that they should know (me say, just my opinion) what it means to learn English "crazily". That doesn't mean "to the extent that you start to forget Chinese".

Yep, some dudes do say this when they advertise language products...

Probably because of a cultural-social reason like dubbing, and the educational system. You can't forget about the great difference between English and Japanese either

Most Japanese people can read English easily. The problem with speaking comes from the educational system in Japan. While most Japanese have at least four years of English in school, they can only speak with great difficulty. Generally in English classes you have a Japanese teacher teaching broken English. They try to have an English teaching assistant, from programs such as JET, help the Japanese teacher. During this time, most of the learning is rote memorization of word lists, grammar, and such. Speaking is a very small aspect of the education.

Also, English is akin to a handbag in Japan. Everyone wants the handbag so they can show it off. Many people also take very expensive English lessons here just to be able to tell their friends that they or their children are going to an English school or tutor. These lessons usually are around an hour and they don't study anytime but during these lessons.

Obviously, there are serious learners in Japan. Cities such as Tokyo and Kyoto are exceptions. I live about 30 minutes from Tokyo by train and we usually say Tokyo is not Japan - it is Tokyo. It is leaps and bounds more international than the rest of Japan.

There are many other reasons why Japanese, in general, have a hard time speaking English; but it would take a while to list them :P.