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Speaking English is cool.

A CNET Japan reports on a survey that ranks foreign languages by their coolness:

english-is-cool

English – 64.8%
French – 13.0%
Italian – 5.1%
German – 5.1%
Spanish – 2.0%
Latin – 2.0%
Arabic – 1.4%
Chinese – 1.4%
Korean – 1.0%
Thai – 1.0%
Russian – 1.0%
Portuguese – 0.7%
Other – 1.4%

Update: The full survey results have been translated at posted at What Japan Thinks.

[via FG]

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42 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - December 11, 2008 at 5:44 am

Categories: Teaching English Tags:

Jerry

No Japanese?!?!?!?!?

sliders_alpha

this survey has been asked to japanese, so i don’t see why they would include their own language

edwardhasnewgoggles

Think about what you just said and then think about the ratio of “cool people” who speak Japanese to Otaku who do. Surely, you’ll see why it would never be on any list.

LB

I would imagine something very close to 100% of the “cool people” in Japan already speak Japanese. And about 100% of the Otaku as well.

So, having established that both cool and uncool Japanese people already speak Japanese, when asked for their impression of a “cool foreign language” why would Japanese list their own (non-foreign) language?

ダビ

Pretty much what one would expect from the land of eikaiwa obsession.
http://nonplayercharacter.blogspot.com/ NPC

woot
Peter

Yet they want nothing to do with gaijin’s most often.

ダビ

They usually want plenty to do with English speaking gaijin who will let them practice their English.

Anyway I’m glad at least some people are able to withstand the mania:

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081202p2a00m0na015000c.html

dysthymia7

can someone tell me what that kanji word is for america? I thought they only used katakana for it.

MeAndroo

If you’re referring to 英語, it’s “eigo,” the word for the English language. I believe the kanji for America is 米国 (beikoku).
me

米国
べいこく

http://www.japaneconomynews.com/ Ken

Way back in the day, it was 亜米利加, which is just a phonetic rendering of アメリカ。Does anyone know why the 米　became the character chosen out of the four to represent America in 米国?

AIB

亜 was already used for 亜細亜？（アジア)……maybe?
The Overthinker

Yeah, you couldn’t use 亜 as it was Asia. Fukuzawa Yukichi and his 「脱亜入欧」(datsu-a nyuu-ou) ideas of “leaving Asia and entering Europe” would have taken on an entirely different meaning….

What I find interesting is the way Japan calls the US “rice country”…. (In China, BTW, the US is the “beautiful country,” 美国. Another bizarre choice…)

According to this, the word was originally Chinese:

「亜米利加」を例にあげれば、ペリー提督が開国を迫って寄港した1854年の瓦版には、ペリーの似顔絵に「米利幹(メリケン)」と注釈され、1862年の幕府文書では「亜米利加」と表記され、1871年の木戸孝允渡航日記には「米国」・1878年の報告書には「米欧回覧実記」と記され、1905年明治天皇がルーズベルト大統領に送った書状の宛名が「北米合衆国」と記される等表記が複数存在したようですが、元は中国で音訳された「亜米利加」「亜美利加」の表記からの様子です。

(http://homepage2.nifty.com/osiete/s553.htm)

Wiki Japan states that the Japanese in the bakumatsu and Meiji periods often referred to the Americans as ‘Mericans, which is why it starts with Bei and not A.
Doesn’t say why “米” however. No one seems to know.
The Overthinker

Come to think of it, why Beikoku and not Maikoku? Aside from the obvious, that is….

http://www.animeraku.blogspot.com Matteas

I thought that German would have more percents. It seems to me that Japanese like things related with Germany and German language, since they also use it often in anime, but there’s also a lot of posts by Japanese people looking for a German pen-friend (or rather mail-friend) on the internet.
http://www.hormel.com VonSkippy

They should hunt down the nerds (2%) that said Latin and sterilize them on the odd chance they might actually breed.

//and German is WAAAAAAAY cooler then English

http://bensescapefromny.blogspot.com Ben

If it’s so cool, then why is English becoming more common than German in Germany itself?

LB

I thought it was Turkish that was replacing German in Germany?

http://www.zdwonline.de Haf

No, High German is being replaced by broken German here – the language that all the juvenile gangs speak.

I’m also a bit suprised, that German got this low score, I thought it was at least as popular as French.
I also thought more Japanese people would like to speak Spanish more then Italian.

http://www.japannewbie.com Harvey

I find it hilarious that Latin made the cut.

The Kanji for America is 米国. There are Kanji for almost every country.

I wonder how this would turn out if done in other countries…
jmadsen

I keep telling my wife that just by being an English-speaking foreigner in Japan, I’m so cool that no amount of crappy old clothes wearing or unshavenness could diminish me in the eyes of all who behold me…She has this strange idea that I’m wrong.

kabocha

No, you are right.

Philip

Hawaiian!
momonga

Yeah, because Jack Bauer and the guy from Prison Break speak English.50cent and Ne-Yo too.

I prefer Latin- some of the greatest minds in the history of mankind have spoken it.

Marco Polo

So did Nero. Oh wait. Was he one of “the greatest minds”?

dobokun

Makes sense as English words make some sense with Japanese sounds.
TofuUnion

I speak English. Je parle français. Ich spreche Deutsch.
私は日本語を話します。 (It’s true.)

But I find nothing cool about that.

Bruce Smith

You said「私は日本語を話します。」

Please note it’s better not to start sentences with 「私は」。

Good luck with your studies.
weirdo

That’s an awkward sentence, it would sound much better if you said 「日本語が話せます」 or more accurately 「日本語を勉強しています」.

kabocha

Or “nihongo MO (also) hanasemasu/hanashimasu” since you already listed Eigo, Fransay and Doitch. 4 languages, pretty cool to me. ganbatte

weirdo

I just wrote it the way he was, since he wrote them as if they were all unrelated, instead of using words like “y” for spanish, or “et” for french. But you’re right, it sounds better your way, and I considered writing it that way but I thought it’d be better to be consistent for some reason.

ponta

nihongo perapere gaijin looks cool

Colin

I think thai sounds pretty cool
jb

in my opinion, there’s a very important nuance with regards to the whole “speaking english is cool”. i believe that the japanese don’t think that speaking engish is intrinsically cool, rather that (a japanese) speaking perapera english makes one look “cool” in the eyes of other japanese
Thinker

Speaking Russian is COOOOOOL. English is spoken by like… I don’t know… EVERYONE? How’s that cool? That’s like saying people with a nose are COOOOL !!!1111.
Cockbutts

Russian is the most ungodly language to hear and speak. It seriously gets on my nerves as well as all foreign-language speaking friends of mine.
Crikey

I am an Australian – a lot of overseas people come to my country to learn English. English is an important language to know if you intend to travel to other countries.
LB

Well, there are a whole lot more Chinese and Spanish speakers in the world and in Japan than there are Portuguese speakers. And there are a lot more Arabic speakers in the world than Portuguese speakers as well. As for Thai, it is relatively close and a lot of Japanese go there on vacation. Probably a lot more than go to either Brazil or Portugal.

So what part of this is ignorance?
LB

“You already answered your own question.”

Great – I’m talking to a Zen master who replies in Koans. Lovely.
LB

There is no mistake, at least not on my part unless I am completely misunderstanding you, noname. Languages are ranked by “coolness”, and this also correlates fairly well to the “usefulness” of these languages to Japanese. Unless you live in Nagoya or Gunma, or like to vacation in Brazil, Portuguese is not particularly useful and so (possibly) not particularly “cool”.

There are a lot of Chinese in Japan, and lots of Japanese got to China and Taiwan. It would be “cool” to speak the language.

There are a lot of Spanish-speakers in Japan, a lot of people around the world speaking Spanish, it is a useful language to know plus Spanish has a “coolness” factor not enjoyed by its poor cousin Portugese. Not to mention Spanish is one of the easier languages for Japanese to learn to pronounce correctly – Portugese has some pretty out-there sounds for a Latin language – and if you can speak Spanish you can at least be understood by Portugese-speakers even if you can’t understand them.

Lots of Japanese go to Thailand, so again it would be “cool” to speak the language.

The “coolness” factor of Arabic admittedly escapes me, but there are a whole lot of people out there speaking it, so I can at least see some knowledge of it as “useful” so you can determine if the gentleman gesturing at you is telling you he’s your cabbie or telling you he’s about to blow everyone up and claim his 40 virgins.

Now, again, what part of this decision making process is “based on ignorance”?
jmadsen

By not acknowledging his own mistake, he makes his reply into butterfly wings that ripple across the Universe.

Speaking English is cool.

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