when I started dating my girlfriend, she was very insecure about her English, so she answered to me everything in Japanese, so I had to get used to that and picked up a lot of vocabulary from her. She got me to improve a lot and she became more confident at the same time, we both won.
This is really true that you forget your language if you don't use it. I use a lot of English alongside my native language. Like 80% of the day I use English I watch English and I consume English stuff. And after a while you realize that you can't speak flowing in your own language. Some words are more fitting in English and that is what came to your mind first, and you want to use them, but you can't because your surrounding can't understand sh*t about English, so you are in a situation where you know the English word, but you can't remember what is it in your native language.
This happened to me on a bigger scale with German I knew it better when I was very little since family members spoke it But when it came to things like school I needed to know English and since I was young I probably picked it up easily and I gradually lost touch with German as time went on I did technically go to German school for a while but when I was doing so when I was living in Canada it was on Saturdays and I also kinda felt like it wasn’t as helpful as it could be and eventually my parents let us quit (we already low key hated weekend school) Unfortunately I only understand minimal German as a result
My friends and I just speak 80% swedish with 20% English words just stuck in every once in a while. Don't remember the Swedish word? Just swap language for half a sentence.
I'm a Brazilian who lives in the Dutch speaking area of Belgium, living with a German with whom I speak English, and working mostly in French. I struggle immensely when I have to speak with anyone who only speaks one language.
I speak almost no Japanese and very little French, but I once served as an interpreter between a group of Japanese travelers and a group of French travelers who all spoke some broken English. The French and the Japanese could not understand each other's English, but I could understand both groups pretty well and talk in a way that each group could understand.
I was a teacher in Korea for a year, and I was really proud- my students had the best listening comprehension skills because I never dumbed down my words or spoke in a different intonation. I would speak clearly, but naturally, and taught students if they didn't know a word I used to ask. I'd repeat the sentence using the same word and ask them what they thought it'd be, or use a similar-meaning word or just further explain what I meant.
The merging of secondary languages was really relatable to me, as someone who speaks French, Spanish and Japanese to varying degrees of skill I'm constantly accidentally crossing languages mid sentence when I speak.
It is interesting. As someone that grew up in London, you can tell that Chris is British from a mile away. He has that typical contemporary RP accent generally found in the upper class and some areas in the Uk. Gigguk, however, doesn't really have a distinctive accent but you can definitely tell that he is British from his word choice and pronunciation on some words.
@Lil PUMP I grew up in London and yh, we all speak differently. The problem is, most foreigners learners think that all British People speak like the “Queen” “James Bond”, Tom Huddleston and etc. In reality, this particular upper class speech style only makes up a minority of people and is not as common as it was maybe 20-30 years ago.. This preconception of British English almost certainly stems from from the way English characters are portrayed in American movies and tv shows. They American shows always have the characters speak with an exaggerated“posh” accent when almost nobody speaks like that. Most people In London speak like Gigguk. 2nd or 3rd generation foreigners
@Lil PUMP Essay incoming Yeah, as a scots person I feel like when people think about the UK and the stereotypes they just think about London. No-one when they hear the words UK overseas thinks about the sheep-shaggers (the Welsh), the Liam Neesons (Irish Twa[Redacted], AKA Northern Irish), and the Kilt wearing incomprehensible drunks (The Scottish) that I am proud to be a part of. You know those red double decker buses? Yeah, those are only in London. The posh ass accent? That's mainly in Southern England and more specifically Greater London. Telephone Boxes? I have seen a handful in some of the biggest cities, however barely any were red. Most red telephone boxes are for the tourism industry (a bit like the double decker buses). There are more territories in the United Kingdom (all over the world) than the big four, N. Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales. Britain only means the island that has Scotland, England and Wales (Not even N. Ireland). List: Anguilla, Ascension, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands, Montserrat, St Helena, Tristan de Cunha, and Turks and Caicos Islands. On top of that there are 3 other islands that are more closely related that are the Isle Of Man, Guernsey, and Jersey. Basically if you're gonna take away anything from my comment, just call that posh accent English.
As somebody born to immigrants (Ex-Yugoslavian in Austria) my Serbian deteriorated simply due to learning it exclusively verbally and a lack of formal education in that language.
My German has died. I used to be one of the most eloquent persons around here but then it happened : my English grew better and i stopped using German. Everything i do happens in english. Whether it be books music or tv. Everything English. It's so bad that i forgot lots of German grammar and can't hold a german conversation without using English words.
For me it’s the opposite problem. I haven’t had much chances to use my second langauge that it’s starting to suffer after studying it for 12 years and I’m learning a 3rd so it’s like I gotta try to find a way to keep the second language at a reasonable pace
I grew up trilingual, and it has had a weird effect on how I speak. I frequently and unconsciously mix the 3 languages into a single sentence or two and don't even realise it. Like, I'll forget the word for something and my brain will just seamlessly replace it with the corresponding word in another language. I've also been learning Japanese for the past 3 years now, and now, I do this with 4 languages (and it gets really awkward when the person I'm speaking to doesn't speak one or more of those languages.) I've just started learning Russian as well very recently, and I'm afraid of accidentally summoning Satan or something someday when I eventually start speaking in the weird abominable pseudo-language that will most definitely be birthed from my mouth sometime in the near future. Also, I have a Japanese friend who is learning English atm, and when I'm speaking to him, I have to speak very slowly and over-enunciate every word in order for him to understand me (which is completely normal and understandable since he's just learning the language, and especially with English being so different from Japanese.) I've also had to speak wrong English with some people in my country before for them to understand me (English is not the first language for the majority of people here, including me.) It was frustrating but also fascinating that the only way I could get through to those people was by using wrong grammar and pronunciation.
Anyone who progress past bilingual reports severe language mixing issues. I personally have Danish as a native language and beyond that have studied English, Spanish, German, Latin and French (in descending order of how good I am at them). English and Danish I can mostly keep apart from the rest, but if I start speaking say Spanish or German I might start the sentence in one and finish in the other. My brain will also consistently do this thing where it digs out a word for something in a random language and then when I try to find it in the "correct" language for the conversation/writing I am doing it will just go "no, fuck you, I already gave you the word for this" and refuse to come up with context correct alternatives. Really odd and annoying.
9:11 "That's like teaching algebra before you've learnt multiplication" Hahaha, oh wait that's actually not that far from the truth in the school I went to
Algebra and multiplication are orthogonal. Algebra is the grammar and multiplication is the vocab. You don't need to know one to learn the other. I think students would do better in math if the two were taught in parallel. A more accurate analogy would be learning factorial before multiplication, since one is directly defined in terms of the other. Kanji is defined in terms of hiragana.
@@heroclix0rz I think from a kid's perspective algebra somehow seems a bit more complicated than multiplication and are therefore taught multiplication first, which is the the analogy they were going for.....
I took Japanese and Spanish around the same time in school and I have the same sort of issue as Connor. I legit said to a customer at work who spoke no English “totemo poquito” 🤣😂🤣😂
Dude same. There are times I'm thinking in Spanish and fucking the Japanese word of what im thinking in Spanish just pops in my head. Like I dont want that one right now
Everyone does the broken language to help people understand, kinda force of habit and like, I don't even know if it's helpful. XD It does force me to speak more slowly and and enunciate my words more clearly, so I can see the theory behind it. Languages are as finicky as they are fascinating at times.
Definitely not helpful. I tell my japanese friends do not break it down for me. Or it ruins my progress. Unless it is a word I do not know. I did not know 先 ,can be used as a destination and used as before something.
Yeah, whenever I hear somebody speak to another person whose native language isn't English and they dumb it down, I just think they sound kind of condescending. But I've never been on the receiving end of a conversation like that so I don't even know if they take it to be condescending or not. I suppose that would be down to each individual tbf.
@@amarntsitran3406 actually it depends on the situation. I'm not a native speaker and I hat it when English people speak with me like I am dumb. But sometimes I don't understand people with accents I'm not used to. More than once I was in a situation where I told someone that I didn't understand them and asked them to tell me again and then they said the same things in the same speed and used the same wording. When you ask a couple of times and people won't speak slower or use easier words I feel worse than when they speak dumb to me.
@@Thlayli09 It's also really frustrating for the English speaker to not be understood. (It's like talking to a wall!) So we rather dumb it down in an attempt to make ourselves understood, than be forced to repeat ourselves and have to rephrase the same thing 3 times before we can get the message across. Of course, it depends on how big the knowledge gap is from the non-native speaker. To some people I'll speak normally, and then just wait for them to ask in case something isn't clear. But when someone gives me the impression that they don't understand half of what I'm saying, I'm not going to worry about sounding condescending. I'm going to worry about making myself understood. idk, maybe it's just me; I don't enjoy talking in general, unless it's about a topic I'm passionate about, and don't often get opportunities to discuss. So I really want to avoid having to repeat and rephrase.
I'm 100% Vietnamese, never gone abroad. Yet I speak and interact with the English language so much that that I occasionally forget my own mother tongue, every time someone ask me to translate something from English, I was just struggling to remember words
Me trying to get to the point I can know and fluently speak 4 languages that is a reasonable problem I see coming up in the future. I already started accidentally speaking Spanish in Japanese class once once
Spanish is my first language, but since I live in the US, I had to learn English and my Spanish has been slowly getting worse and worse despite it being my first language and speaking it all the time at home.
LOL, my husband's parents first language is Cantonese, from Southern China, not HK... His mother has almost no English. Bless her heart, she tries super hard when I'm around. She once said to me, "Summah Cahmin" and my husband responded in English, which he almost never speaks English to her, and said, in her accent, "Mami, Summah Hee-yah." Later, privately, I was like, "Honey, that wasn't nice." and he flat out said, "If I didn't say it that way, she wouldn't understand." And I thought about it with my great grandpa, and how we'd all slip into a weird broken English with a Russian accent to talk to him, and yeah... I got it. He wasn't mocking, she just really did understand better that way.
“Has almost no English”. Are you by chance Irish or Scottish, or live in those places? I’ve only come into contact the “Having (x language)” construction when listening to those particular speakers.
@@theblackryvius6613 My grandfather is Irish, from outside Cork, lol. I probably picked up that construction from him when I was little or something, as I've always said it that way. I was born and raised in the USA by Russian/Ukrainian immigrants on my mom's side, and Scots-Irish immigrants on my dad's side. I lived in Japan for a decade, and have since immigrated to Canada.
I'm Cantonese too. As in, my family is from Canton, not Hong Kong, but I was born and raised in Australia. I sometimes hear my mum describe my terrible Cantonese as "gigigokgokgok" and I thought it was a legit way for a Cantonese person to describe terrible Cantonese for nearly my entire life, until my older sister told me that it's our mother's specific way of describing MY terrible Cantonese and NO ONE does that 🤣.
@@qwmx LOLOLOL, I'm sorry, that's so funny. Luckily for him, my husband's Canto is actually really good. When he speaks Canto with people they're usually super surprised he was raised in Canada... Until he speaks English, which his English is also unaccented and fluent. He really is a true bilingual who could walk the streets of Shenzhen, Cholon (a Chinatown of Vietnam, where the Hoa people live, which is his ethnic group), or Hong Kong, and get along just fine. He can even switch between accents and dialects of Canto pretty easily, because while his parents have their roots in Southern China, they came from Vietnam, and his brother in law is from HK... he's been able to speak Canto with a very wide variety of Cantonese speakers here in Canada.
@@mufasathor8525 As an Australian I can confirm. I always thought because I don’t sound like Steve Irwin then I don’t sound Australian. Now I’m just realising it’s because you don’t normally hear general Australians in mainstream media (at least not until recently anyway) so I didn’t know people perceived us differently
I'm French and I lived 15 years in Ireland. I used to go home once a year and I always struggled to speak my own language ... One time I had to get a new ID, because I lost the one I had. At the time, you had to go to the "Gendarmerie" to report lost/stolen, and after only 5 minutes, the Gendarme said to me : "I'm sorry sir, but you'll have to go to your own embassy to report it, because we can't do anything for you here". I was born in the hospital 200 meters away.
My German level was about the same as my Japanese level when I moved to Japan. I would go all cross-eyed trying not to slip random German words in everywhere. There were no other Danes so I didn't speak Danish for half a year. When I moved back, people thought I was having a stroke, not only stumbling around in four different languages, but doing exaggerated Japanese back-channeling like unnh, eeeeh and ever so slightly bowing... It was weird 😂
I think it’s worth considering that an Australian accent is much closer to an RP accent than a Scouser’s or even Geordie accent. In that regard, Australian accents actually sound more English, than actual English accents.
English is my second language, and what gets me when I try to construct sentences is the absolutely huge vocabulary you need to know to not sound like you are 12. In my native language a lot of the meaning of words is derived from context, but in English it seems that there is always a specific word pertaining to the exact situation you are in that you need to use. Unless that word is the F-word, that is.
My partner is originally from a non-English speaking country and constantly feels the same way. Hilariously she teaches English and is a qualified translator, and hates reading.
My Japanese friends always say they have an easier time understanding EU English rather than American but yeah sometimes I make sentences really simple to make it easier for them to understand.
Yo fam, last nite was pretty lite, for a bonkars fella lika ya, we went fo da pub, for a pint for a fiver, fo sho thought ya were a gonner, focking coppas beheaded yas, whif da queen on manchester takin a spot of tea on da telly
Both my parents are from Poland, so polish is my native language. However I was born and raised in Germany so german is my second language. Since 3rd Grade I learned to speak English as my third language and since 8th Grade I learned how to speak Spanish as my fourth language. And now I’m trying to learn Mandarin, Japanese and Russian lol
4:14 The reason why Welsh words are popping up when trying to speak Japanese is because of L1 (=first language) suppression. L1 suppression is when the brain hinders the processing of the mother tongue, whereas L2s (non-native languages) are stored separately and do not undergo this same degree of suppression. As a result, it is very noticeably easier to switch between L2s than to switch back to the L1, which takes measurably more time and effort (although on the scale of milliseconds) 👍🏻👍🏻
deconstructing your sentences to make them more understandable is 100% relatable. grammar is just so dif and esp sticking to the most simple form of grammar makes me at least believe it's easier to understand me 😭 i think one of my biggest pet peeves is when someone keeps talking like they normally would, when speaking to someone who isn't native (something i've experienced a lot from americans myself actually). if you know that the person will be able to keep up with you, go ahead, but if you know they won't pls just stop 😭
As a multilingual person I can relate to Connor so much. Since I know quite a few languages, some words in other languages can better express the meaning of what you're trying to convey. An example, I frequently use the Chinese word for 'troublesome' which is 麻烦 (má fán) as I think it suits what emotion I'm trying to convey
As someone who is semi-competent (just barely so) in Serbian who is also actively trying to learn Russian, Connor's "nope that's… that's the Welsh word" is *such* a mood.
I lived in japan for two years (okinawa specifically) and I remember I was in a language club where the Japanese practice their english and the English speakers vise versa and my most vivid memory is of a young woman asking me about President Donardu Trumpu, just the way she said it really caught me off guard.
My wife and I mainly argue in English as my Japanese is not good enough yet to argue with her. It’s also very strange to be annoyed at her about something but grateful she is venting in English so I can argue back. Also no matter how good you are in a second language chances are there will be times you will be too tired to speak in anything other than your mother tongue!
In regards to Connor merging Welsh and Japanese together, the exact same thing happens to me all the time as a Welshman who studied Japanese. I'm constantly mixing words from the two languages together and it gets quite annoying sometimes.
I'm not english native speaker and I totally understand Japanese people when they need proper english to understand what you're trying to say to them. When I started really studying english, it was really hard to understand someone speaking english even with the slightest accent (american accent, for example). Not I'm used to it, so I can understand really hard ones like southern accent or australian accent. Still can't understand the irish accent, and I think I'm not the only one XD So even me, at the beginning who was surrounded by some english wasn't able to understand, I can't imagine Japanese people who don't have a single english word and the only ones they have are katakanisation...
In my house, my parents mainly speak Spanish, so sometimes I speak in Spanish then forget the word in Spanish then say it in English. Same thing happens when I try and speak in English. It makes for some fun and awkward situations.
I think anyone living in a country where English isn’t the first language, you have no choice but to simplify. I live in France and omg my English is going down the drain despite it being my mother tongue. My sister now picks up french words because I can’t remember words now and I’ll just use the french words full time 😂
I adapt my english for my Dutch family. Most of them (like most of the Netherlands) can speak english but I often lower my vocabulary and speak in "broken" English for the less fluent members of my family
Long before I went to Japan, I started studying Japanese in university. I started to forget French. Then I lived in Japan for 11 years, and I completely understand losing vocabulary. I found that I was also speaking more slowly in English. My Japanese study was terrible. It was all English at work, my girlfriend only wanted to speak English, and then later, my wife and I only spoke English to each other, though she spoke Japanese to our daughter. After returning to Canada, everyone commented that I was speaking slowly and I had adopted a lot of Japanese gestures and body language. I was totally messed up. Of course, my daughter completely forgot Japanese.
I spent 11 months in Japan a few years ago. I still haven't lost the bowing when saying sorry, goodbye, or when crossing the street and acknowledging cars who stopped for me. I usually don't do it with people I know well, but if they're strangers I do it every time without thinking about it.
5:52 listening to this realised something I hadn't really thought of before, in finnish "curse words" are also called power/strength words and while the terms are used interchangeably these days I think a distinction makes sense. cursing typically happens post-hoc for tension release or just casually in sentences for social reasons, where as power words are used with intention prior to doing something, ie. when struggling and needing to summon strength (from the gods or from within depending on worldview). "perkele" is the most popular power word and some researches say it was the original name of Ukko the chief god of local pagan religions before early christians rebranded all pagan things to be evil. which would make sense, people were originally just calling out to god for strength but after rebranding perkele to mean the devil without getting rid of the social habit finns have since then been cursing to gain strength.
Yeah, I have talked with Thai people a lot and I've become accustomed to using what I call "simple English", which usually had bad grammar but is easy to understand. It's mimicking how Thai people with bad english speak. Same grammar they use. My gf has been telling me to stop though because she's trying to learn proper English lol. My Japanese and Thai aren't good enough yet to speak for the rest though. But I do know the feeling of being surrounded by the cultures and feeling odd going back to my own.
Being a truck mechanic for 6.5 years brought my English down from PhD level to basement level Aussie slang. Sigh... After 18 mths in Indonesia and not speaking much English, I found it difficult to regain my English fluency. Took a few months to build up.
ngl that one British guy's very short impression of a Japanese person saying "we don't know what you are saying" had an almost clinical precision that was REALLY impressive. how am i supposed to feel about this?
I used to pull out all the vocabulary in the lexicon until I started focusing on French and then Irish. I could only think of the basic words everyone uses when talking casually. Even then it took me a little bit of time to think of it. I wish I had continued practicing one of them on top of English, eventually those problems would disappear through practice
Having a strong South Derbyshire accent I can relate to this. It didn't matter what country or even continent I was on everybody has this stereotypical image of an English speaker talking like a 1950's BBC presenter. There were times I had to just over enunciate and really put effort into how I spoke just to get them to understand me. It makes you realise how lazy we are as native English speakers...
That bit where you guys said '私は/Watashi wa" is the biggest lie you'll ever learn IS SO TRUE. After diving into JP Vtubers and observing the way they talk and write (tweet) to help me get better, I realized no one ever uses "Boku, Watashi, Atashi wa" unless they're referring to themselves specifically or a subject of actual people. I learned that textbook Japanese is a LIE and no one rarely ever speaks or writes that way in real life unless you're being professional/polite. Everyone speaks in casual, simplified forms with a lot of slang that is SO HARD to understand if you don't immerse yourself enough. Having to search up shortened words or slang to understand a sentence is so hard, but interesting and worth it. People always said once you learn, understand, and speak slang of a language, that means you're fluent.🤷🏻♀️
Yep exactly. That's why most textbooks and learning courses are fuckin trash. Native input from media like CZcams videos, twitter and books (even manga! especially slice of life manga) is KING for learning real japanese.
I lived in Taiwan for awhile and rarely met native English speakers. I was there for about 9 months, and by the time I came back, I really struggled with English.
Outside of the US knowing 2 languages is common, I don’t really know why people in the US just refuse, but like in Japan, English classes is required starting at elementary
@@Kuraakka it’s not that we refuse lol. if your family doesn’t teach you a separate language you have to wait until at least high school before you get language resources
@@jonahamvs7229 I wasn’t referring to the people I was referring to the government, for that exact reason, but also society imo it should be customary to know 2 languages before highschool, especially since in America we have a lot of Spanish speakers, Arabic speakers, and Mandarin Speakers
I do this when Im talking to somebody online who is obviously beginner or intermediate level at english (usually with customer support but sometimes people on social media from non english countries) I always try to think about how google translate could misinterpret what I’m saying, so if a word I used could have multiple meanings I try to switch to a different word that has one clear cut interpretation. I also try my best to avoid long sentences and contractions like and,but,or etc as I’m just assuming the longer and more compounds a sentence has the harder it is to translate into languages with entirely different grammar. To be honest it’s kind of a fun exercise!
the ceo of volvo back in the day had a pretty good quote back in the days "people from english speaking countries think that english is the lingua franca but actually broken english is the lingua franca"
I spent 2 months in Ghana working mainly with Arabs/Ghanaians and had the funkiest broken English lol. Felt great coming home and chatting in a normal British dialect
I’m from Northern Ireland so we speak very fast, so when I’m talking to someone who is British or not from Northern Ireland, they would not understand what I’m saying
Something I can’t stop doing is changing the way I speak Spanish depending on who I’m speaking with. Like the way I speak Spanish to people from Spain and people from Cuba is slightly different and I don’t know why I keep doing it. Nowadays I only mainly only speak Spanish with my mother. I tried learning French in college but I kept mixing Spanish with it by accident and didn’t get far.
3:07 Oh man, Gon speaking truth. Every time I go to the old home I find myself dropping articles, flipping my verbs and nouns, and repeating words for emphasis. Like saying "~same same~" reflexively. That phrase has been branded into my soul.
My native language is Arabic and I use it with family and friends. Ever since childhood French has been my academic language - school and now Uni - and it's all around me (I moved to French-speaking Switzerland for Uni) I've used English on a daily basis ever since I was 12, with friends, on the internet, and for research and entertainment, as well as in the books I read and the such... I was also taught Spanish in High School, and I'm now taking a course in German, and MY SPANISH AND GERMAN ARE TURNING INTO THIS HORRIFIC AMALGAMATION AND NOW I CAN'T SPEAK A WORD OF EITHER😭
me... (now 36) studied foreign language correspondent 2 years after school (i was 17 at that time and finished when i was 18). So basically for 2 years straight we only heard / spoke english with our teachers from scotland, wales, and Ireland during classes (you only had 8 lessons in a week in your second foreign language and only 6 lessons economy which was taught in German)... so yeah you came out of the school at the end of the day, drove home (for me via train), read the books again and maybe doing homework and THEN tried to talk to your parents while forgetting several words in German which you totally would know the english word for it. Now it's even harder since most of the videos i watch per youtube are from UK / US guys so now i'm even in more contact with english than before. It happens on a regular basis that i talk and try to get a word which i know in english but can't get the german word for it (especially funny when you playing Dungeons and Dragons or any other TTRPG as a GM and playing with your friends and try to get the german word for Archway or pillar) sadly i'm starting to forget my french which i had to use for 10 years straight while at work (working at the export sales department and was responsible for the french clients as well as asian countries (and japan *lol*)
I used to try to learn japanese but I stopped after having to deal with highschool classes but imma pick it back up as soon as this school year is over and I'm excited
Omg so much. Esl instructor in Vancouver and I've lived in Japan. I find myself saying Konbini, jet coaster, other loanwords. Code switching between teacher-chat and student-teaching is a beautiful thing.
When Connor talked about Welsh and Japanese like melding together brought back so many memories from secondary school. I’m Irish and have been learning Irish in school since I was 4. In secondary school I began studying Spanish and by my third year, I was constantly getting them confused in little ways, a big one was the word “and”. I’d accidentally use the Spanish “y” in my Irish essays and sometimes the Irish “agus” would pop up in my Spanish orals. I haven’t studied either since I left school four years ago and have begun studying Japanese recently and it is now happening all over again 😂
I want to only understand & speak Japanese language not the writing part... How can i do that? As quickly as possible ... So i can watch Kochikame whose English subtitles aren't available.
London/Home counties pronunciation does sound similar to Australian. I'm from the East Mids, and remember meeting some southern kids during my childhood and was like "You sound like you're off Neighbours".
So true about dumbing down the language with non-natives (parents)! Kind of funny how Joey admires Connor and Gant for learning a 3rd language... I guess that's the mind set of English native speakers... I'm a German native and had to learn English and French at school so 3 languages is the minimum! (I also speak Portuguese fluently, Korean poorly and bits and pieces of other languages)
Very interesting! I work with a good amount of Japanese people where English is a second language and I realize their comprehension of English is great but they just cannot speak it very well. Anyways, I always make a point to try to still speak in full sentences with them but I do dumb it down and use hand motions more when speaking to my coworkers. I have a few people who are VERY guilty of dumb-ing it down too much. I just shake my head and want to tell them that they are speaking to an adult.. not a kid. Over the years I also developed a different emailing style depending on if the audience of the email is "American" or "Japaneses". I do not dumb it down much, but I use smaller concise sentences not over burdened with a million details. The emails are always more straight to the point.
*Scottish people:* _* speaks *_
*Japanese people:* Understandable, have a great day
been living in scotland past 3 years, still cant understand half of what they are saying
especially older people
As an Austrian I find Scouse insufferable, though that's more my 20ish years of Man Utd support speaking.
Awright thare mukker. Scots is easy tae ken if ye juist awauken tae yer inner scots
edit: By th' wey ah'ament scots
@some name, is it the speed at which we can talk or the slang? Maybe both. Would also depend on where you are aswell
@LIL PUMP not chavs but NEDs
I was in Japan for a month and forgot the word pomegranate.
Cool story bro
NO POMEGRANATES!
Or just Grenade Apple in Swedish.
@@RezEverday Pomegranate is basically French for Grenade Apple
@@jarumboy1 And thats exactly how it's called in German: Granatapfel (Grante + Apfel)
Why do English people refuse to use Terms for that?
I wouldn't be surprised if I forgot the word for pomegranate next time I see one
when I started dating my girlfriend, she was very insecure about her English, so she answered to me everything in Japanese, so I had to get used to that and picked up a lot of vocabulary from her. She got me to improve a lot and she became more confident at the same time, we both won.
Aww that's actually really sweet =^_^=
Wow.....that is so sweet.
Stop acting like your waifu's real
Then everybody clapped
I like eating pumpkins
This is really true that you forget your language if you don't use it. I use a lot of English alongside my native language. Like 80% of the day I use English I watch English and I consume English stuff. And after a while you realize that you can't speak flowing in your own language. Some words are more fitting in English and that is what came to your mind first, and you want to use them, but you can't because your surrounding can't understand sh*t about English, so you are in a situation where you know the English word, but you can't remember what is it in your native language.
This happened to me on a bigger scale with German
I knew it better when I was very little since family members spoke it
But when it came to things like school I needed to know English and since I was young I probably picked it up easily and I gradually lost touch with German as time went on
I did technically go to German school for a while but when I was doing so when I was living in Canada it was on Saturdays and I also kinda felt like it wasn’t as helpful as it could be and eventually my parents let us quit (we already low key hated weekend school)
Unfortunately I only understand minimal German as a result
My friends and I just speak 80% swedish with 20% English words just stuck in every once in a while. Don't remember the Swedish word? Just swap language for half a sentence.
This is why I have a hard time speaking in my native tounge, since I use English a lot in my mind it feels like I'm translating as I'm speaking
This phenomenon is called the English sickness
A legjobbakkal is előfordul ;)
I'm a Brazilian who lives in the Dutch speaking area of Belgium, living with a German with whom I speak English, and working mostly in French. I struggle immensely when I have to speak with anyone who only speaks one language.
dude you know how to communicate in at least 4 languages - that is beyond "good enough" in my book
Hi, glad to see another Brazilian, I've been studying english during this pandemic, want to learn japanese too, it really can get confusing sometimes.
Damn bruh
Wooooooowww. That’s pretty hardcore. I salute you.
Most people in belgium speak at least 2 languages tho .
I speak almost no Japanese and very little French, but I once served as an interpreter between a group of Japanese travelers and a group of French travelers who all spoke some broken English. The French and the Japanese could not understand each other's English, but I could understand both groups pretty well and talk in a way that each group could understand.
i would be very interested in your life story (no sarcasm)
@@Seánasadventure nothing too exciting. I am from Chicago, I live in Seattle. The story I posted above occurred in a youth hostel in Paris in '88.
That is a very interesting story.
Using Human Japanese for a few months now, and I love it. I'm still learning, but it's been extremely helpful.
make sure you're also getting your hundreds of hours of comprehensible native input. because courses and shit like that are only a tiny supplement.
I prefer Robot Japanese
@@aleide2980 Neat!
Read this comment before I finished the video and was like human.... As opposed to doge??
fuck man.. u speak Human Japanese? me n the bois are still speaking broken Japanese that we learned from anime and Vtubers
I feel like If I talk to a Japanese person I’ll mess up my language
“私の名前は16歳です”
something like
“my name is 16 years old” 😭
Hi 16 years old, I'm dad :)
The struggle is real. Why I say どうも はじめまして、ジェームズです。。
😂 i said it outloud as "watashi no namae wa ju roku sai desu"
@@Mitaka-Asa exactly I was like huh cause I didn’t read the comment fully
damn that confused me a little. i didn't read your comment fully and just started reading the japanese and was just like "what"
I was a teacher in Korea for a year, and I was really proud- my students had the best listening comprehension skills because I never dumbed down my words or spoke in a different intonation. I would speak clearly, but naturally, and taught students if they didn't know a word I used to ask. I'd repeat the sentence using the same word and ask them what they thought it'd be, or use a similar-meaning word or just further explain what I meant.
Ohhh you sound like a great teacher! Your teaching style sounds awesome and so helpful 🌸🌸🌸
Japanese guy : magnum ochinchin
Me: ah yes, tomura obaasan I see
oops i dropped my magnum condom for my monster ochinchin
@@greensike8516 *oops*
Papa franku, perhaps?
@@greensike8516 now imagining the Always Sunny anime
The merging of secondary languages was really relatable to me, as someone who speaks French, Spanish and Japanese to varying degrees of skill I'm constantly accidentally crossing languages mid sentence when I speak.
Even worse when you know the name of a thing, but not in the language you’re speaking right now.
@@fan9775 "sumimasen I'd like ichi pannekaker with jam"
@@fan9775 I relate to that so hard. One time I out of panic started speaking Spanish in Japanese class
@@lssjgaming1599 they sound similar enough. No one will notice.
Ah we speak two of the same languages, anyways true I kinda find it hard to just speak in one language
I just say "Pardun" and add "peko" to the end of my words and Japanese people somehow seem to understand me.
And say" hey moona" everytime you see them
Pain-peko
Ah⬆️Ah⬇️Ahh⬆️
Headooo..... Headoooo
I bet Cannur won't get this
It is interesting. As someone that grew up in London, you can tell that Chris is British from a mile away. He has that typical contemporary RP accent generally found in the upper class and some areas in the Uk. Gigguk, however, doesn't really have a distinctive accent but you can definitely tell that he is British from his word choice and pronunciation on some words.
British may call it posh 'mercans say British
@Lil PUMP I grew up in London and yh, we all speak differently. The problem is, most foreigners learners think that all British People speak like the “Queen” “James Bond”, Tom Huddleston and etc. In reality, this particular upper class speech style only makes up a minority of people and is not as common as it was maybe 20-30 years ago.. This preconception of British English almost certainly stems from from the way English characters are portrayed in American movies and tv shows. They American shows always have the characters speak with an exaggerated“posh” accent when almost nobody speaks like that. Most people In London speak like Gigguk. 2nd or 3rd generation foreigners
@@GXrevolution96 The easiest way to know if someone is British is just see if that person speaks like Paul McCartney, so they are definitely British
@Lil PUMP Essay incoming
Yeah, as a scots person I feel like when people think about the UK and the stereotypes they just think about London. No-one when they hear the words UK overseas thinks about the sheep-shaggers (the Welsh), the Liam Neesons (Irish Twa[Redacted], AKA Northern Irish), and the Kilt wearing incomprehensible drunks (The Scottish) that I am proud to be a part of.
You know those red double decker buses? Yeah, those are only in London.
The posh ass accent? That's mainly in Southern England and more specifically Greater London.
Telephone Boxes? I have seen a handful in some of the biggest cities, however barely any were red. Most red telephone boxes are for the tourism industry (a bit like the double decker buses).
There are more territories in the United Kingdom (all over the world) than the big four, N. Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales. Britain only means the island that has Scotland, England and Wales (Not even N. Ireland).
List: Anguilla, Ascension, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands, Montserrat, St Helena, Tristan de Cunha, and Turks and Caicos Islands. On top of that there are 3 other islands that are more closely related that are the Isle Of Man, Guernsey, and Jersey.
Basically if you're gonna take away anything from my comment, just call that posh accent English.
@@z_zenith do you classify the Birmingham accent as gibberish? Ozzy Osbourne pulled out his deep accent once and I couldn't understand shit.
That's true it's kinda scary, I speak too much english and now my first language vocab has dumbed down. I feel stupid 😢
Yeah my Spanish has suffered because of me learning Japanese for 3 years.
As somebody born to immigrants (Ex-Yugoslavian in Austria) my Serbian deteriorated simply due to learning it exclusively verbally and a lack of formal education in that language.
My German has died. I used to be one of the most eloquent persons around here but then it happened : my English grew better and i stopped using German. Everything i do happens in english. Whether it be books music or tv. Everything English. It's so bad that i forgot lots of German grammar and can't hold a german conversation without using English words.
Yeh...
I've turned everything in my life to English...
And I'm "scared" of having Finnish conversations.
For me it’s the opposite problem. I haven’t had much chances to use my second langauge that it’s starting to suffer after studying it for 12 years and I’m learning a 3rd so it’s like I gotta try to find a way to keep the second language at a reasonable pace
Growing up with a Japanese grandmother I didn't know what she was angry about either half the time.
Dude, Genki is the shit 👌. I got so immersed in Takashi and Mary's relationship and conversations. Great foundation.
LMAO Same here man
Lol. relatable.
Tfw Takeshi doesn’t show up to the movie in Kyoto
Genki is a good textbook for beginners
I'm more of minna no nihongo guy and I learned about Tanaka and friends lol~
I grew up trilingual, and it has had a weird effect on how I speak. I frequently and unconsciously mix the 3 languages into a single sentence or two and don't even realise it. Like, I'll forget the word for something and my brain will just seamlessly replace it with the corresponding word in another language. I've also been learning Japanese for the past 3 years now, and now, I do this with 4 languages (and it gets really awkward when the person I'm speaking to doesn't speak one or more of those languages.) I've just started learning Russian as well very recently, and I'm afraid of accidentally summoning Satan or something someday when I eventually start speaking in the weird abominable pseudo-language that will most definitely be birthed from my mouth sometime in the near future.
Also, I have a Japanese friend who is learning English atm, and when I'm speaking to him, I have to speak very slowly and over-enunciate every word in order for him to understand me (which is completely normal and understandable since he's just learning the language, and especially with English being so different from Japanese.) I've also had to speak wrong English with some people in my country before for them to understand me (English is not the first language for the majority of people here, including me.)
It was frustrating but also fascinating that the only way I could get through to those people was by using wrong grammar and pronunciation.
Anyone who progress past bilingual reports severe language mixing issues.
I personally have Danish as a native language and beyond that have studied English, Spanish, German, Latin and French (in descending order of how good I am at them). English and Danish I can mostly keep apart from the rest, but if I start speaking say Spanish or German I might start the sentence in one and finish in the other.
My brain will also consistently do this thing where it digs out a word for something in a random language and then when I try to find it in the "correct" language for the conversation/writing I am doing it will just go "no, fuck you, I already gave you the word for this" and refuse to come up with context correct alternatives. Really odd and annoying.
9:11 "That's like teaching algebra before you've learnt multiplication"
Hahaha, oh wait that's actually not that far from the truth in the school I went to
Algebra and multiplication are orthogonal. Algebra is the grammar and multiplication is the vocab. You don't need to know one to learn the other. I think students would do better in math if the two were taught in parallel.
A more accurate analogy would be learning factorial before multiplication, since one is directly defined in terms of the other. Kanji is defined in terms of hiragana.
@@heroclix0rz I think from a kid's perspective algebra somehow seems a bit more complicated than multiplication and are therefore taught multiplication first, which is the the analogy they were going for.....
@@heroclix0rz Lol what? You need to learn multiplication with numbers first to know what multiplication means with variables.
3N=X where X=6, if you dont know multiplication how would you get N????
@@hby7768 well you can't ...however, if you have 3 + N = X where X = 6, you can figure it out without knowing how to multiply
English in Japan is just English with a "u" at the end
Engrishu
@@jimtsap04 Japanesu
@Emma Jamieson thanksu*
penisu
Pantiesu
I took Japanese and Spanish around the same time in school and I have the same sort of issue as Connor. I legit said to a customer at work who spoke no English “totemo poquito” 🤣😂🤣😂
Dude same. There are times I'm thinking in Spanish and fucking the Japanese word of what im thinking in Spanish just pops in my head. Like I dont want that one right now
this happens to me aswell, its only ever with spanis and japanese tho
I thought that the: views gets stuck at 301 thing was a lie, but the views actually were like that.
the views haven't done that in years, they fixed it
the god ol' days of the 301 views
@@Zodiaxx no, they intentionally made the view count show 301 as a joke/easter egg.
Everyone does the broken language to help people understand, kinda force of habit and like, I don't even know if it's helpful. XD
It does force me to speak more slowly and and enunciate my words more clearly, so I can see the theory behind it.
Languages are as finicky as they are fascinating at times.
I don't think you have to force it too much but, I find it helpful if you compare it to 00:52 where I just understood "fuck" and maybe "tired"
Definitely not helpful. I tell my japanese friends do not break it down for me. Or it ruins my progress. Unless it is a word I do not know. I did not know 先 ,can be used as a destination and used as before something.
Yeah, whenever I hear somebody speak to another person whose native language isn't English and they dumb it down, I just think they sound kind of condescending. But I've never been on the receiving end of a conversation like that so I don't even know if they take it to be condescending or not. I suppose that would be down to each individual tbf.
@@amarntsitran3406 actually it depends on the situation.
I'm not a native speaker and I hat it when English people speak with me like I am dumb.
But sometimes I don't understand people with accents I'm not used to.
More than once I was in a situation where I told someone that I didn't understand them and asked them to tell me again and then they said the same things in the same speed and used the same wording.
When you ask a couple of times and people won't speak slower or use easier words I feel worse than when they speak dumb to me.
@@Thlayli09 It's also really frustrating for the English speaker to not be understood. (It's like talking to a wall!) So we rather dumb it down in an attempt to make ourselves understood, than be forced to repeat ourselves and have to rephrase the same thing 3 times before we can get the message across.
Of course, it depends on how big the knowledge gap is from the non-native speaker. To some people I'll speak normally, and then just wait for them to ask in case something isn't clear. But when someone gives me the impression that they don't understand half of what I'm saying, I'm not going to worry about sounding condescending. I'm going to worry about making myself understood.
idk, maybe it's just me; I don't enjoy talking in general, unless it's about a topic I'm passionate about, and don't often get opportunities to discuss. So I really want to avoid having to repeat and rephrase.
I'm 100% Vietnamese, never gone abroad. Yet I speak and interact with the English language so much that that I occasionally forget my own mother tongue, every time someone ask me to translate something from English, I was just struggling to remember words
Me with Spanish.
I'm Swedish and often have the same issue.
I always find it hilarious that Americans think Chris has a "posh" English accent.
Anything that's phonetically and grammatically correct is considered "posh" in America.
@@cicolas_nage yeah, that's bullshit.
Basically he's from the south and he doesn't speak like Michael Caine. Therefore everyone thinks he's posh for whatever reason.
I've meet so many British people I don't know what is posh
@@TupocalypseShakur it's the accent most rich people have.
i know 4 languages and sometimes when trying to remember one word in a specific language i get stuck
Me trying to get to the point I can know and fluently speak 4 languages that is a reasonable problem I see coming up in the future. I already started accidentally speaking Spanish in Japanese class once once
Spanish is my first language, but since I live in the US, I had to learn English and my Spanish has been slowly getting worse and worse despite it being my first language and speaking it all the time at home.
Read a book once in awhile and it will come flooding back. Sometimes all you need is just a bit more word exposure beyond casual conversations
LOL, my husband's parents first language is Cantonese, from Southern China, not HK... His mother has almost no English. Bless her heart, she tries super hard when I'm around. She once said to me, "Summah Cahmin" and my husband responded in English, which he almost never speaks English to her, and said, in her accent, "Mami, Summah Hee-yah." Later, privately, I was like, "Honey, that wasn't nice." and he flat out said, "If I didn't say it that way, she wouldn't understand." And I thought about it with my great grandpa, and how we'd all slip into a weird broken English with a Russian accent to talk to him, and yeah... I got it. He wasn't mocking, she just really did understand better that way.
“Has almost no English”. Are you by chance Irish or Scottish, or live in those places? I’ve only come into contact the “Having (x language)” construction when listening to those particular speakers.
@@theblackryvius6613 My grandfather is Irish, from outside Cork, lol. I probably picked up that construction from him when I was little or something, as I've always said it that way. I was born and raised in the USA by Russian/Ukrainian immigrants on my mom's side, and Scots-Irish immigrants on my dad's side. I lived in Japan for a decade, and have since immigrated to Canada.
@@RavynSkye617 wow...
I'm Cantonese too. As in, my family is from Canton, not Hong Kong, but I was born and raised in Australia. I sometimes hear my mum describe my terrible Cantonese as "gigigokgokgok" and I thought it was a legit way for a Cantonese person to describe terrible Cantonese for nearly my entire life, until my older sister told me that it's our mother's specific way of describing MY terrible Cantonese and NO ONE does that 🤣.
@@qwmx LOLOLOL, I'm sorry, that's so funny. Luckily for him, my husband's Canto is actually really good. When he speaks Canto with people they're usually super surprised he was raised in Canada... Until he speaks English, which his English is also unaccented and fluent. He really is a true bilingual who could walk the streets of Shenzhen, Cholon (a Chinatown of Vietnam, where the Hoa people live, which is his ethnic group), or Hong Kong, and get along just fine. He can even switch between accents and dialects of Canto pretty easily, because while his parents have their roots in Southern China, they came from Vietnam, and his brother in law is from HK... he's been able to speak Canto with a very wide variety of Cantonese speakers here in Canada.
Joey definitely sounds Australian; he has a pretty obvious accent.
@@mufasathor8525 As an Australian I can confirm. I always thought because I don’t sound like Steve Irwin then I don’t sound Australian. Now I’m just realising it’s because you don’t normally hear general Australians in mainstream media (at least not until recently anyway) so I didn’t know people perceived us differently
@@aprilblenk wym, u have frends right
Makes you wonder how much more Australian he was if this is him watered down. 😳
@@kirstydepaor547 Have you heard his dad speak? Joey's accent is quite mild.
As someone who is bilingual (Lithuanian and English) I can confirm that I forget words from both languages when I need them the most lmao
I'm French and I lived 15 years in Ireland. I used to go home once a year and I always struggled to speak my own language ... One time I had to get a new ID, because I lost the one I had. At the time, you had to go to the "Gendarmerie" to report lost/stolen, and after only 5 minutes, the Gendarme said to me : "I'm sorry sir, but you'll have to go to your own embassy to report it, because we can't do anything for you here". I was born in the hospital 200 meters away.
My German level was about the same as my Japanese level when I moved to Japan. I would go all cross-eyed trying not to slip random German words in everywhere. There were no other Danes so I didn't speak Danish for half a year. When I moved back, people thought I was having a stroke, not only stumbling around in four different languages, but doing exaggerated Japanese back-channeling like unnh, eeeeh and ever so slightly bowing... It was weird 😂
the "unnh" and "eeeeh" are pretty univeral, imo
I've noticed that being subbed to a lot of people all around the world makes you not notice accents at all after some time
"He hasn't said WATASHI HA once!"
Lmao...
I think it’s worth considering that an Australian accent is much closer to an RP accent than a Scouser’s or even Geordie accent. In that regard, Australian accents actually sound more English, than actual English accents.
This is even more true of Kiwi accents!
With all these "how do japanese/why do japanese/how japanese ___" videos, I feel like you'll need a degree to before you live in japan.
Well you kinda do for most visas
You technically need a degree
English is my second language, and what gets me when I try to construct sentences is the absolutely huge vocabulary you need to know to not sound like you are 12. In my native language a lot of the meaning of words is derived from context, but in English it seems that there is always a specific word pertaining to the exact situation you are in that you need to use. Unless that word is the F-word, that is.
My partner is originally from a non-English speaking country and constantly feels the same way.
Hilariously she teaches English and is a qualified translator, and hates reading.
I'm going to be entering the foreign exchange program to japan, wish me luck
keep the weight down, the food is so good there - and good luck!
Connor loves talking so much i dont think he realized how much he interrupts people
It's probably the drink
I enjoyed the conversation but nobody seems to get a word in. Not because of Connor exclusively, i just think a better moderator is needed.
The Anime Commonwealth Podcast
Brought to you by the Queen and Her Bishops of Anime
My Japanese friends always say they have an easier time understanding EU English rather than American but yeah sometimes I make sentences really simple to make it easier for them to understand.
Yo fam, last nite was pretty lite, for a bonkars fella lika ya, we went fo da pub, for a pint for a fiver, fo sho thought ya were a gonner, focking coppas beheaded yas, whif da queen on manchester takin a spot of tea on da telly
@@msnl_ is crazy bruv innit?
@Slasher Tommyinnit does not sound remotely like that.
@@OLBarbok Geordies are special and I mean that in the Ralph Wiggum way.
What’s EU English?
Because people from Spain and Germany sound very different when they speak English.
I think "magnum ochinchin" was probably a meme. I think it's referring to "magnum dong" from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Both my parents are from Poland, so polish is my native language. However I was born and raised in Germany so german is my second language. Since 3rd Grade I learned to speak English as my third language and since 8th Grade I learned how to speak Spanish as my fourth language. And now I’m trying to learn Mandarin, Japanese and Russian lol
4:14 The reason why Welsh words are popping up when trying to speak Japanese is because of L1 (=first language) suppression. L1 suppression is when the brain hinders the processing of the mother tongue, whereas L2s (non-native languages) are stored separately and do not undergo this same degree of suppression. As a result, it is very noticeably easier to switch between L2s than to switch back to the L1, which takes measurably more time and effort (although on the scale of milliseconds) 👍🏻👍🏻
deconstructing your sentences to make them more understandable is 100% relatable. grammar is just so dif and esp sticking to the most simple form of grammar makes me at least believe it's easier to understand me 😭 i think one of my biggest pet peeves is when someone keeps talking like they normally would, when speaking to someone who isn't native (something i've experienced a lot from americans myself actually). if you know that the person will be able to keep up with you, go ahead, but if you know they won't pls just stop 😭
As a multilingual person I can relate to Connor so much. Since I know quite a few languages, some words in other languages can better express the meaning of what you're trying to convey.
An example, I frequently use the Chinese word for 'troublesome' which is 麻烦 (má fán) as I think it suits what emotion I'm trying to convey
Ayy same dude, I'm from Malaysia, and though English is my 1st language, I use 麻烦 a lot more lol
As someone who is semi-competent (just barely so) in Serbian who is also actively trying to learn Russian, Connor's "nope that's… that's the Welsh word" is *such* a mood.
I lived in japan for two years (okinawa specifically) and I remember I was in a language club where the Japanese practice their english and the English speakers vise versa and my most vivid memory is of a young woman asking me about President Donardu Trumpu, just the way she said it really caught me off guard.
My wife and I mainly argue in English as my Japanese is not good enough yet to argue with her. It’s also very strange to be annoyed at her about something but grateful she is venting in English so I can argue back.
Also no matter how good you are in a second language chances are there will be times you will be too tired to speak in anything other than your mother tongue!
In regards to Connor merging Welsh and Japanese together, the exact same thing happens to me all the time as a Welshman who studied Japanese. I'm constantly mixing words from the two languages together and it gets quite annoying sometimes.
Garnt: calls duolingo a "minigame"
Duolingo owl: **and i took that personally**
I'm not english native speaker and I totally understand Japanese people when they need proper english to understand what you're trying to say to them. When I started really studying english, it was really hard to understand someone speaking english even with the slightest accent (american accent, for example). Not I'm used to it, so I can understand really hard ones like southern accent or australian accent. Still can't understand the irish accent, and I think I'm not the only one XD
So even me, at the beginning who was surrounded by some english wasn't able to understand, I can't imagine Japanese people who don't have a single english word and the only ones they have are katakanisation...
English is my primary language since immigrating to the US over 30years ago and i still cant understand some super heavy Irish accents
My father was a native English speaker but couldn't understand accents other than American.
In my house, my parents mainly speak Spanish, so sometimes I speak in Spanish then forget the word in Spanish then say it in English. Same thing happens when I try and speak in English. It makes for some fun and awkward situations.
Magnum Ochinchin is going to be my new email sign off.
I think anyone living in a country where English isn’t the first language, you have no choice but to simplify. I live in France and omg my English is going down the drain despite it being my mother tongue. My sister now picks up french words because I can’t remember words now and I’ll just use the french words full time 😂
Honestly a colab with Geoff from Mother’s basement would be cool. But love u guys tho
Nah he won't fit imo. Good guy but seems too much of a shut in.
I think talking to Geoff would be cool
I adapt my english for my Dutch family. Most of them (like most of the Netherlands) can speak english but I often lower my vocabulary and speak in "broken" English for the less fluent members of my family
Long before I went to Japan, I started studying Japanese in university. I started to forget French. Then I lived in Japan for 11 years, and I completely understand losing vocabulary. I found that I was also speaking more slowly in English. My Japanese study was terrible. It was all English at work, my girlfriend only wanted to speak English, and then later, my wife and I only spoke English to each other, though she spoke Japanese to our daughter. After returning to Canada, everyone commented that I was speaking slowly and I had adopted a lot of Japanese gestures and body language. I was totally messed up. Of course, my daughter completely forgot Japanese.
I spent 11 months in Japan a few years ago. I still haven't lost the bowing when saying sorry, goodbye, or when crossing the street and acknowledging cars who stopped for me. I usually don't do it with people I know well, but if they're strangers I do it every time without thinking about it.
6:38 Remembers the streams where Kiryu Coco taught the other members english.
5:52 listening to this realised something I hadn't really thought of before, in finnish "curse words" are also called power/strength words and while the terms are used interchangeably these days I think a distinction makes sense. cursing typically happens post-hoc for tension release or just casually in sentences for social reasons, where as power words are used with intention prior to doing something, ie. when struggling and needing to summon strength (from the gods or from within depending on worldview).
"perkele" is the most popular power word and some researches say it was the original name of Ukko the chief god of local pagan religions before early christians rebranded all pagan things to be evil. which would make sense, people were originally just calling out to god for strength but after rebranding perkele to mean the devil without getting rid of the social habit finns have since then been cursing to gain strength.
I love Human Japanese. My biggest tools for learning Japanese are Human Japanese, the Learn Japanese to Survive game series, Memrise, and Kanji Study.
Yeah, I have talked with Thai people a lot and I've become accustomed to using what I call "simple English", which usually had bad grammar but is easy to understand. It's mimicking how Thai people with bad english speak. Same grammar they use. My gf has been telling me to stop though because she's trying to learn proper English lol. My Japanese and Thai aren't good enough yet to speak for the rest though. But I do know the feeling of being surrounded by the cultures and feeling odd going back to my own.
Being a truck mechanic for 6.5 years brought my English down from PhD level to basement level Aussie slang. Sigh...
After 18 mths in Indonesia and not speaking much English, I found it difficult to regain my English fluency. Took a few months to build up.
Chris looking like that principal who hangs out with his students lmao
8:29 It's to prepare you for any Japanese city pop song ever.
ngl that one British guy's very short impression of a Japanese person saying "we don't know what you are saying" had an almost clinical precision that was REALLY impressive. how am i supposed to feel about this?
Awesome to see you all in the same room having these discussions.
I used to pull out all the vocabulary in the lexicon until I started focusing on French and then Irish. I could only think of the basic words everyone uses when talking casually. Even then it took me a little bit of time to think of it. I wish I had continued practicing one of them on top of English, eventually those problems would disappear through practice
Having a strong South Derbyshire accent I can relate to this. It didn't matter what country or even continent I was on everybody has this stereotypical image of an English speaker talking like a 1950's BBC presenter. There were times I had to just over enunciate and really put effort into how I spoke just to get them to understand me. It makes you realise how lazy we are as native English speakers...
That bit where you guys said '私は/Watashi wa" is the biggest lie you'll ever learn IS SO TRUE.
After diving into JP Vtubers and observing the way they talk and write (tweet) to help me get better, I realized no one ever uses "Boku, Watashi, Atashi wa" unless they're referring to themselves specifically or a subject of actual people. I learned that textbook Japanese is a LIE and no one rarely ever speaks or writes that way in real life unless you're being professional/polite. Everyone speaks in casual, simplified forms with a lot of slang that is SO HARD to understand if you don't immerse yourself enough. Having to search up shortened words or slang to understand a sentence is so hard, but interesting and worth it.
People always said once you learn, understand, and speak slang of a language, that means you're fluent.🤷🏻♀️
Yep exactly. That's why most textbooks and learning courses are fuckin trash. Native input from media like CZcams videos, twitter and books (even manga! especially slice of life manga) is KING for learning real japanese.
I lived in Taiwan for awhile and rarely met native English speakers. I was there for about 9 months, and by the time I came back, I really struggled with English.
it’s really interesting how each of the boys already know another language other than english.
Outside of the US knowing 2 languages is common, I don’t really know why people in the US just refuse, but like in Japan, English classes is required starting at elementary
@@Kuraakka it’s not that we refuse lol. if your family doesn’t teach you a separate language you have to wait until at least high school before you get language resources
@@jonahamvs7229 I wasn’t referring to the people I was referring to the government, for that exact reason, but also society imo it should be customary to know 2 languages before highschool, especially since in America we have a lot of Spanish speakers, Arabic speakers, and Mandarin Speakers
@@jonahamvs7229 and that's what we refer to, second language in rest of the world starts at elementary school
@@Kuraakka cause there’s no real reason to learn a new language if your first language is English in America
I do this when Im talking to somebody online who is obviously beginner or intermediate level at english (usually with customer support but sometimes people on social media from non english countries) I always try to think about how google translate could misinterpret what I’m saying, so if a word I used could have multiple meanings I try to switch to a different word that has one clear cut interpretation. I also try my best to avoid long sentences and contractions like and,but,or etc as I’m just assuming the longer and more compounds a sentence has the harder it is to translate into languages with entirely different grammar. To be honest it’s kind of a fun exercise!
the ceo of volvo back in the day had a pretty good quote back in the days "people from english speaking countries think that english is the lingua franca but actually broken english is the lingua franca"
I spent 2 months in Ghana working mainly with Arabs/Ghanaians and had the funkiest broken English lol. Felt great coming home and chatting in a normal British dialect
I’m from Northern Ireland so we speak very fast, so when I’m talking to someone who is British or not from Northern Ireland, they would not understand what I’m saying
Not gonna lie, as an American, sometimes I get Irish and Scottish accents mixed up lol
Something I can’t stop doing is changing the way I speak Spanish depending on who I’m speaking with. Like the way I speak Spanish to people from Spain and people from Cuba is slightly different and I don’t know why I keep doing it. Nowadays I only mainly only speak Spanish with my mother. I tried learning French in college but I kept mixing Spanish with it by accident and didn’t get far.
3:07 Oh man, Gon speaking truth. Every time I go to the old home I find myself dropping articles, flipping my verbs and nouns, and repeating words for emphasis. Like saying "~same same~" reflexively. That phrase has been branded into my soul.
Girl who sweet on me is Irish & Japanese mix, makes for some interesting transitions when her brain want to switch accents mid conversation.
My native language is Arabic and I use it with family and friends.
Ever since childhood French has been my academic language - school and now Uni - and it's all around me (I moved to French-speaking Switzerland for Uni)
I've used English on a daily basis ever since I was 12, with friends, on the internet, and for research and entertainment, as well as in the books I read and the such...
I was also taught Spanish in High School, and I'm now taking a course in German, and MY SPANISH AND GERMAN ARE TURNING INTO THIS HORRIFIC AMALGAMATION AND NOW I CAN'T SPEAK A WORD OF EITHER😭
the advise about human Japanese has been great, thank you !!
*M A G N U M O C H I N C H I N*
After living in England for about a year (from America) I saw a diversion sign on the road and it took days to remember I call it detour.
Wait, I started off with the Genki 1 and 2 textbooks.
Was I supposed to start with something easier? lmao
Those are the traditional ways to learn....
me... (now 36) studied foreign language correspondent 2 years after school (i was 17 at that time and finished when i was 18). So basically for 2 years straight we only heard / spoke english with our teachers from scotland, wales, and Ireland during classes (you only had 8 lessons in a week in your second foreign language and only 6 lessons economy which was taught in German)... so yeah you came out of the school at the end of the day, drove home (for me via train), read the books again and maybe doing homework and THEN tried to talk to your parents while forgetting several words in German which you totally would know the english word for it. Now it's even harder since most of the videos i watch per youtube are from UK / US guys so now i'm even in more contact with english than before.
It happens on a regular basis that i talk and try to get a word which i know in english but can't get the german word for it (especially funny when you playing Dungeons and Dragons or any other TTRPG as a GM and playing with your friends and try to get the german word for Archway or pillar)
sadly i'm starting to forget my french which i had to use for 10 years straight while at work (working at the export sales department and was responsible for the french clients as well as asian countries (and japan *lol*)
I agree about the "私" thing omg
I used to try to learn japanese but I stopped after having to deal with highschool classes but imma pick it back up as soon as this school year is over and I'm excited
its called "Code Switching" folks who grow up bilingual do this all the time
6:12 LOL! So true. its literally in the Danish dictionary now.
Me too
Omg so much. Esl instructor in Vancouver and I've lived in Japan.
I find myself saying Konbini, jet coaster, other loanwords.
Code switching between teacher-chat and student-teaching is a beautiful thing.
You ain't experienced Duolingo until you learn Klingon 😂
Do they have klingon in written form as well?
When Connor talked about Welsh and Japanese like melding together brought back so many memories from secondary school. I’m Irish and have been learning Irish in school since I was 4. In secondary school I began studying Spanish and by my third year, I was constantly getting them confused in little ways, a big one was the word “and”. I’d accidentally use the Spanish “y” in my Irish essays and sometimes the Irish “agus” would pop up in my Spanish orals. I haven’t studied either since I left school four years ago and have begun studying Japanese recently and it is now happening all over again 😂
I've never heard garnt speak thai before. I kinda want to hear it.
Yes me too! I'm very curious! :)
6:38 I actually started choking at MAGIUM-
I want to only understand & speak Japanese language not the writing part... How can i do that? As quickly as possible ... So i can watch Kochikame whose English subtitles aren't available.
try to learn basic words( about 1000) and simple dialoges about Daily things, maybe some simple grammar. You can study from N5-N4 materials and books.
London/Home counties pronunciation does sound similar to Australian. I'm from the East Mids, and remember meeting some southern kids during my childhood and was like "You sound like you're off Neighbours".
So true about dumbing down the language with non-natives (parents)!
Kind of funny how Joey admires Connor and Gant for learning a 3rd language... I guess that's the mind set of English native speakers...
I'm a German native and had to learn English and French at school so 3 languages is the minimum!
(I also speak Portuguese fluently, Korean poorly and bits and pieces of other languages)
k
@@Qulize Yeah like that’s a random flex.
Very interesting! I work with a good amount of Japanese people where English is a second language and I realize their comprehension of English is great but they just cannot speak it very well. Anyways, I always make a point to try to still speak in full sentences with them but I do dumb it down and use hand motions more when speaking to my coworkers.
I have a few people who are VERY guilty of dumb-ing it down too much. I just shake my head and want to tell them that they are speaking to an adult.. not a kid.
Over the years I also developed a different emailing style depending on if the audience of the email is "American" or "Japaneses". I do not dumb it down much, but I use smaller concise sentences not over burdened with a million details. The emails are always more straight to the point.
Like for magnum ochin-chin
Magnum ochinshin is probably the name of a doujin novel