I have spoken Spanish for as long as I have been speaking. In fact, I'm more savvy in fish names in Japanese that even Spanish !!Īnyway, my point is I did at one time or another pull up the "I can't speak English" stunt, but don't do it usually, and people just keep Japanese (even those whom I thought that maybe could speak English since their pronunciation was not the usual broken one.)
which was true since I don't have the slightest idea about fish names in English. Once in a restaurant I was offered an English menu and asked for the Japanese one saying I didn't understand the English one. Either my Japanese skills are top-notch or maybe it is because I love to answer "I can't speak English" in Japanese after some curious person asks me "where are you from?" in English. I don't know about France, but that "Japanese people would rather speak English than to hear their native tongue in a heavy accent" must be an urban myth, since I've never had a conversation -however short- in English in 2 years. I noticed with my first Spanish teacher from México that she didn't like at all when I made errors (even if they didn't give any problems with understanding of what I said), but I don't think that this counts as teachers are supposed to correct their students.įoreign face equals American in the Japanese narrow mind so people do say "hello" or whatever at first but never ever continue in English after I answer in Japanese. Now I don't think that Castellano speakers are too puristic (and certainly Spanish counts as a world language), but probably Spanish is somewhere in-between: some puristic attitutes being present, and on the other hand the local accents (of which there are many) probably being an important ethnical marker. with 'world' languages in cases when puristic attitudes are present and (probably) very pronounced: this probably could be the case for French and Japanese (when native speakers probably prefer to rather speak English than have to hear their native tongue in a heavy accent) and most certainly not for English, probably Russian too counts here (Russians aren't too puristic, but then if you constantly mix up perfective/imperfective verbs and make too many errors with declension communication could become rather difficult) with 'small' languages because the 'ethnical' meaning and background of the language is much more present (that is, Slovenian or Danish or Basque or whatever have a more pronounced 'ethnical' value) and also because oftentimes in these cases native speakers don't feel too comfortable with the standard language and prefer using their dialect or English rather than using their standard language (this probably could be the case for Danes it certainly is for many Slovenians) Typically this attitude (speaking English to foreigners even if they address you in your native tongue) happens:
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