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Mr. James makes English mistakes on his blog

Update: They’ve corrected the error, but it will live on thanks to the screen capture I saved.

A funny discovery on the official blog of Mr. James, the American mascot of the McDonald’s Japan “Nippon All-Stars” campaign:

The American who speaks wacky Japanese can’t even write in his native language! I guess this is proof that his blog, like many Japanese celebrity blogs, is probably the work of a ghost writer. (Was there anyone out there that actually believed he was actually writing all those katakana NIPPON-GO blog posts himself?)

A comment on the blog entry points out his grammatical error and concludes that Mr. James is so used to speaking Japanese that he forgot some of his English.

[hat tip to Debito]

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22 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - September 29, 2009 at 7:11 pm

Categories: Foreigners in Japan Tags: Mr. James

PoKuTe

Considering the amount of grammatical and spelling errors that can be found in any blog / forum post written by native speakers I don’t see what’s so surprising.

Karisu

There are some grammar/spelling errors that can be made by native speakers, and then there are those that would be literally impossible.

This one is impossible.

The Overthinker

Probably ghost written? You mean “probably” as in “the sun will probably rise tomorrow”, right?
Ajapa

I am surprised on that this campaign is still continueing…

This kind of grammatical error is typical of English written by a Japanese person who use English only occasionally. And I often do the same grammatical mistakes yet. There are no strict rules for distinguishing between countable and uncountable nouns in Japanese. Thus a typical mistake is like that: I drink many waters everyday. And also, many Japanese are often troubled about the use of the articles, “a”, “an”, and “the”, which does not exist in Japanese. And another common grammatical mistake is concerned with the sequence of tenses. An example is like that: I liked turtles when I am very young.

How many grammatical mistakes I made here (except intentional mistakes I made as examples)?

The Overthinker

“And I often do the same grammatical mistakes yet.”
–> And I often make the same grammatical mistakes still.

“Thus a typical mistake is like that:” (also below)

–>Thus a typical mistake is like this:

“And also, many Japanese are often troubled about the use of the articles”

–>And many Japanese also often have problems with the use of the articles
But especially “about the use of” vs “with the use of” (or even just “using”).

Two sentences in a row starting with “And” is not good either, leaving aside the debate on starting a sentence with And in the first place.

Also: “continueing” –> continuing.

しかし、かなり高度な英語力です。尊敬します。自分があのように書こうとしたら、きっと何箇所に間違いをするでしょう。素顔に直してくれる方がなかなか無いので、結局同じ間違いを何度も繰り返して起こすことになります。あとは、もう一つの問題は、ネーティブに直してもらっても、その人の「正しい」が必ずしも「正しい」といえないのです。学生のころ、後輩に文章を直してもらっても、先生に文句言われる事もしばしばありました。最善の方法はやはり、ひたすらに本を読み続くことでしょう。お互いに頑張りましょう。

Ajapa

ご指摘ありがとうございます。しかし思わぬ所に間違いが…変な癖がついちゃっていますね。数年前から英語を使う必要性がなくなってしまって、最近になって再び始めたのですが、なかなか難しいです。失敗を恐れずに、とにかくやるしかないですね。
Karisu

Yes, let’s not get into the “and” at the start of a sentence debate. Because I’m pro starting “and”.

The Overthinker

I consider it something to be avoided if possible, and certainly in formal writing (academic reports etc), but for normal writing there are just too many precendents by too many very good writers to claim it is “wrong”. And that’s the truth….
Ajapa

I was told that repeated use of a same conjunction at the beginning of subsequent sentences should be avoided. But unfortunately, my English vocabulary is getting poorer nowadays, thus my writings might be terribly monotonous and are heavily reliant on “And” and “But”. I also take care on reducing redundancy and avoiding monotony, but it often fails…
hl

Even if the over-use of ‘and’ is to be avoided it doesn’t out you as a non-native writer. It’s something anybody might do.
The Overthinker

No, I agree–which is why I did not say it was an error, merely not good (for the grammatical errors that Ajapa asked us to point out, I used a standard format of –> on a lower line). It’s a stylistic point, not a grammatical one.
hl

I wasn’t trying to disagree with you, I just thought I’d point that out.

Because it’s something I’d wonder about if the situation was reversed.

popo the great

hahaha.. they got him! he is way to long in japan!
http://yokohamavibe.blogspot.com rafracia

My favourite part of this is that ‘we like dog’ is not a grammatical error if they mean they like *eating* dog…
I think I’ll pass on those McNuggets…

The Overthinker

I wondered if it referred to [hot] dogs, but McD’s doesn’t have any.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

http://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/menu/morning/index.html

Not a fan of breakfast McHotDogs?

The Overthinker

Huh. Serves me right for not bothering to actually check. Not being sold at times I am awake, I didn’t know. In that case, maybe it does refer to hot dogs.

But in answer to your actual question, I rather think I’d prefer to stave until lunch than touch anything on that menu: drinking the Dead Sea would probably be healthier.

Eddie

I love that Mr.James character, he’s genuinely funny.
http://www.usguyintokyo.com Dave Faulkmore

Maybe “dog” is referring to the girls that frequent Roppongi?!

Making the misleading accusation that foreign guys go for Roppongi girls. If anyone has seen the Roppongi ghost town recently that’s obvious a vicious lie.

Lets all hope…
LB

I can’t believe people are still getting their panties in a knot over this character. Oh well – I guess getting outraged over a goofy commercial image and writing angry, grammatically tortured letters to company headquarters beats actually doing anything productive.

Karisu

Not everything in life needs to be “productive”. If it was, life would be terribly tedious and boring.

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Mr. James makes English mistakes on his blog

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