japanese and why they don't speak english

I suppose you don't speak fluently japanese. Why? Because I don't. I tried to learn it two years, that was alright, but it is difficult to find japanese to speak with. When I arrived in France, I had contact with french people from the first day on, I studied. Now I'm working, most other people in the company are japanese, but if you don't need to talk to them, I think it is not easy to start speaking. I know students living in Tokyo for years, studying in english at their university and can't discuss a topic in japanese, just know the words of all day life, how to command food or things like that. But at least it seems they can understand a bit japanese, although by far not a hole conversation.
In fact it is the same problem for japanese people to learn other languages. It is quite difficult to find someone to talk to. If your mother tongue is english and you got a diploma, there will be no problem to find a job in Tokyo as english teacher.
You can read everywhere, in Tokyo there is no problem to get along with english. I don't think so, if you search a bit you will find someone who speaks some words, but don't rely on the this. On my first day I had to change the taxi because the driver didn't speak at all, the next driver spoke some words, just enough I could tell her where to go.
In the countryside it's still worse, we already ordered in a restaurant food just by pointing at it in the menu without knowing what it was, because even knowing hiragana and katakana there are too many kanji you need to know, and the waitress didn't speak english. Well, finally it was eatable, some of it really (!!!) good.
I got friends who want to study in Japan, two years. I don't know how they will make that. In France, if I didn't understand a lesson I took the lecture notes and read. In Japan, if you don't understand your lesson and take your lecture note, you will find out soon, that the 2000 kanji of all day life you don't know wouldn't be sufficient in any way, because there are some kanjis more for technical use. Try to learn another 2000 kanjis... Have fun!

Comments

[bri]

It's so good to read about your experiences! I'm glad to hear that you're having a good time :) It's really interesting to hear that Japanese is such a difficult language to learn...are the sounds quite different? Do you think that the fact that they use symbols more often than their phonetic alphabet makes it more difficult to learn?

[Eyn]

Huhu, I got the solution to keep learning my kanjis: I try to read some Japanese blogs. I do the same in English (I'm French). I think it's the best way to learn a language when you don't have any native to speak with.