Japanese tourists have a tenancy to say “I am sorry” during almost any verbal encounter with strangers while overseas. They are renowned for saying sorry in the most unlikely situations. This is because Japanese have been culturally and socially conditioned to “apologize” to strangers or people they don’t know well. However, it doesn’t quite work well in English and with the western mindset. The problem also lies with the Japanese interpretation of “I’m sorry” - Introducing SU-MI-MA-SEN.
SU-MI-MA-SEN is a great power word. This one word has three meanings. It can be used to say;”Excuse me”, to get someone’s attention, “I’m sorry”, to apologise or “Thank you”, to express appreciation.
How to say sorry in Japanese
Most Japanese take “sorry” to mean SU-MI-MA-SEN. This is the reason why Japanese will often say “I’m sorry” instead of “Excuse me” or “Thank you”. I consider SU-MI-MA-SEN a power word because of its versatility, social and cultural importance and colloquial nature. You will be scoring big points with your Japanese friends if you can use SU-MI-MA-SEN to express the three meaning I explained earlier.
More Common Japanese Words
Japanese can communicate a lot with few words. I strongly believe in learning vocabulary from Japanese rather than textbooks. Text books generally go into the grammar to much. It is somewhat typical and and very “Japanese” that many Japanese authors teach how the the Japanese language should be spoken rather than how it actually is spoken. Text books generally avoid colloquial Japanese and go for polite “textbook” language and grammar. Japanese Grammar is very confusing and difficult to learn for the beginner. So if possible make some Japanese friends and get them to teach you heaps of vocabulary.
The Japanese language has some single word expressions will that translate to phrases in English. These words are amazing as they can express the speaker’s feelings, thoughts and intentions without being direct. This is the real spoken language. Japanese teachers and authors will generally teach phrases with the subject and polite verb forms. This is not how Japanese genrally speak when relaxed with friends. Japanese teachers feel compelled to teach “correct Japanese” with a strong emphasis on grammar. Here are some one word phrases you would learn from your regular Japanese guy or girl.
Wanna learn how to speak Japanese? Well, first of all, it is not easy unless you have a great teacher who is honest enough to teach you how Japanese do speak instead of text book nonsense. Learning how to speak Japanese is basically learning how to become Japanese. If you want to speak like a native you need to learn how Japanese behave. You ‘ll need to adopt many Japanese customs and mimic Japanese behaviour as well.
Most students learn Japanese the wrong way for several months or even years. Text book lessons at school and university can only give you a basic understanding of the Japanese language – grammar structure, vocabulary, the kana syllabaries and maybe a few hundred kanji. Learning how to speak Japanese involves a lot of cultural understanding and social conformity.
Japanese use very few words to express their thoughts and feelings. You’ll hear Japanese say the same things all the time. More often than not Japanese express interest, surprise, happiness and other emotions with only a few quirky phrases and sometimes with wordless cries and grunts. If you watch a game show you’ll audiences scream out the same wordless expression in unison when something shocking is presented to them. Very bizarre.
You’ll discover that for the most of their time Japanese don’t speak politely at all. For example, Japanese has no equivalent for “Pardon”. Instead when something is misunderstood in a conversation the confused listener will just blurt out “Ha!”. Sometimes my wife speaks to me and I have to control myself from feeling a little abused or offended. She’ll “rudely” blurt out one word and expect me to understand whatever it is she is trying to tell me. I used to get home from work and the first thing she would say to me as I walked in the door would be an aggressive “Gohan ha?”. This basically means something like “Do you want dinner?” or “Have you had dinner?”. However, if you translated the expression it would be just “Dinner!!?” . It would often give me the impression that my wife wasn’t happy to see me return home and that getting dinner was something she wanted to get quickly out of the way.
To be Japanese you got to do what everyone else does. I am often amazed at how easily Japanese can be assimilated and culturally conditioned. The peace sign is a classical example of this. Every time a Japanese has a photo taken of themselves they will do the peace sign. I found this to be extremely frustrating when having photos taken with Japanese. I went to great lengths to prevent my 4 year old son from being peace sign brain washed while he attend kindergarten in Japan.
How To Speak Japanese Like a Native
To speak Japanese like a native you’ll need to have a split personality. You can be yourself for most of the time, but when you meet acquaintances or work colleagues you will have to put on a bit of an act and meet certain social criteria – being polite or ass kissing.
And finally speaking Japanese will mean you won’t be able to say what you feel or believe for part of the time. The worst thing you can do is cause any kind of conflict or trouble for anyone. So you have to learn to hold back your real thoughts and bite your tongue. So the challenge for speaking Japanese is learning who Japanese are and how they behave. Accepting the culture and learning not to be always yourself is what it takes to be a good speaker of the Japanese language.
When I first came to Japan I worked as a trainee in a restaurant. This was obviously great for my Japanese. I was hearing Japanese all day long. Those first few weeks were tough trying to understand what my co-workers and customers were saying. One of the first words I learned at my restaurant was “Okyakyu-San” which I took to mean just “customer’. Every time customers walked into our restaurant they were greeted by shouts of “Irasshaiiamse” and then asked how many were in their party. One thing that surprised me was the staff would address the customers “Okyakyu-San”. I thought it a bit odd to be be calling or addressing customers with the word “customer/s”. In English we only use customer to refer to patrons or guests. We never actually say customer to someones face. As my Japanese in the following months improved I think I wrote this term off as just another polite but impersonal Japanese word.
Okyaku-San
Now that I am a little older with close to a decade of living in Japanese under my belt I believe I do understand the word “Okyakyu-San” on a deeper level. “Okyakyu” means “honored guest” as well as customer. Adding san gives it a Mr., Mrs, or Miss. meaning. Like with most things in Japan it is all about history. Back in the good old Samurai days the hierarchically arranged society meant that in order to survive the inferior class had to provide “service”, extreme politeness and deference to their superiors. The common people were at the mercy or the elite Samurai ruling class. Although the Samurai were a “barbaric sword wielding mob” ( in Western eyes) , they did have extremely high etiquette standards. The Samurai were also in charge of enforcing them. To put in vulgar Western terms:It was kiss ass or your ass would be kicked.
This sort of set in a superior/customer is GOD type social conditioning that was ingrained in the Japanese over a period of more than a thousand years. It became an integral part of social and political systems. Etiquette was everything. It also evolved the Japanese language to extreme mind boggling polite standards. Nowadays, the concept of “Okyakyu” has weakened – there are no sword wielding mobsters keeping the high etiquette standards alive. Particularly, the formal language and certain social customs among younger Japanese is disintegrating at an alarming rate and is in fact something of a major concern.
In business customer is still God and Japanese go to great lengths to build harmonious relationships even before actually doing business. It is very different to the somewhat self absorbed “Lets do business” mentality of the west. However, it can take a while to found out just what your prospective business associates want and when and how they want to get business done. Japanese tend to build business relationship with a long term vision in mind, rather than building business to serve short term purposes or meet goals.
Japanese classes are like a sushi platter – you never know what you are going to get and you’ll always be unsure of the quality of the fish. I have had my fair share of Japanese classes, both group and private. In Japan I took volunteer lessons at the local ward office, then several years later I studied at a Japanese language college for several months full time. I took private lessons from several teachers in preparation for the Japanese language proficiency test at great expense. I also did a certificate course in Japanese back home in Australia. I have done more than enough study, but I could certainly learn more.
Looking back at my Japanese language education I would have to say the majority of my classes weren’t very beneficial considering the amount of money I invested. I say this because all but a few of my teachers rarely taught Japanese to suit my needs and goals. Most of them just taught what they thought I should know or what they had to teach.
Finding a Good Japanese Teacher
Finding a teacher who can understand your needs and deliver a lesson that will actually teach you something worthwhile is something few students consider. As a complete beginner you will most likely walk away from any lesson having learned something regardless of the quality of the teaching. You will probably find the going slow and develop a mindset that Japanese is difficult to learn and just accept the teacher you have. The problem comes to light once you have the fundamentals of the language under your belt and are ready for the next level. Few teachers will ever really ask you what you want to learn and customize lessons to met your needs. You need to be pro-active in finding a good tecaher or school.
Paid Japanese Classes
Before taking lessons, especially paid lessons, you should think about what you want you want to learn. For example, do you want to learn Japanese grammar? Spoken Japanese? How to read and write Kanji? Are cultural activities important to you? You should also set goals and share them with your teacher. Do you want to study Japanese to get into a Japanese university? Are you wanting you communicate with your Japanese in-laws? Are you interested in taking JLPT? Don’t ever pay for lessons until you know what you want and are sure you will receive lessons that will help and not hinder your progress.
My paid Japanese lessons at a school in Japan were a disaster. My level assessment and induction to the college went very well. However, after a few lessons I found myself in a very frustrating situation. I enrolled to the school with the hope an intention of taking a course to improving my spoken and written Japanese. I soon realized that I had been enrolled to classes for students wanting to take JLPT levels 1 or 2. Most of my students were studying Japanese with the intention of enrolling to a Japanese university.
On my first day I was quite shocked to find out that I was one of only four English speaking students in the whole school. The rest were Korean and Chinese students. Although I made some great friends, I found myself stuck in a class with students far beyond my level who could read and write Japanese. I had only knew a few hundred Kanji and certainly couldn’t read. Most of the classes were reading focused and very difficult. I spent the majority of my classes trying to work out just the readings of Kanji. I would work out their stroke order and then search for the kanji in an electronic dictionary. Just to work out the reading and then the meaning of a single kanji would take me up to 3 or 4 minutes. I rarely finished any of the in class work in time and found the homework far beyond my abilities.
I spoke to teachers and explained my situation. I was unable to change classes and just told to hang in there (Ganbatte kudasi) and keep at it. Eventually I become so frustrated and I started skipping classes. Some mornings I just couldn’t get myself up knowing I would be spending 5 hours frustrated and completely lost with a growing list of kanji and grammar I couldn’t understand. I kind of felt like the classroom pet. And I mean the animal kind because I couldn’t understand a bloody thing and everyone kept patting me on the back offering words of encouragement. No matter how motivated I tried to get myself in the morning the day would always end with me close to losing my sanity. So you have been warned – learning Japanese isn’t always fun. Find yourself a good school or teacher.
