Keeping Busy

[l33tminion]

Tuesday: Talked about "foreigner talk" in sociolinguistics class. Among other features, English speakers are a lot more casual and use a lot less grammar when talking to English learners, whereas Japanese speakers do the opposite (more grammar, more polite wording). Japanese learners also tend to use more grammar than necessary (trying to

Comments

[kihou]

Ironically, your complimenters would be using better grammar if they said きれいな日本語. (な adjectives that end in い, cats and dogs living together...)

One of the things that was notably different between my 2 times in Japan were 7-11 signs. Time #1, just like the US. Time #2, exactly one sign for each 7-11 now says 7&i Holdings. If the store has multiple signs, they almost always still say 7-11. It's how I could tell I wasn't in an evil alternate universe.

I have 1 thing to say about McDonald's Japan: ebi-burger*.

*: Properly エビフィレオ in Japanese, I believe, but I always thought the word フィレオ sounded dumb.

[l33tminion]

I generally don't like McDonald's, but I have to agree that the shrimp-burger is the win.

[l33tminion]

Also, I've rarely (if ever) heard someone use きれいな (or すきな, etc.) in conversation. Although, I'd guess that would depend heavily on dialect...

[kihou]

Well, I guess I've just gotten it beat into my head by Japanese language teachers who leap on me if I leave out particles. Incidentally, I don't think that your dichotomy holds among professional language teachers: at least in my experience, both nonJapanese Americans teaching Japanese and Japanese natives teaching English are grammar-strict. (And the latter are far too in to outlandish set phrases. "I'm fine, thank you, and you?" "I'm fine. Please sit down." You had to be there.)

[chiaki777]

Yep, I drop my kansai accent while I tutor, to prevent horrible habits the students may pick up. XD

Japanese family restaurants are good. They're real restaurants there. >.>