Japanese Test English
The other day my son took a standardized test to measure his academic ability compared with other students in Japan. While he aced the math and science sections, his English test result was a surprising 86%. How could a boy whose English is so good he can watch any movie without subtitles and appreciate the subtle humor of Monty Python have gotten anything but an A? It turns out that in Japan, "test English" is a unique subject unto itself, completely separate from the living language used to communicate ideas to people, and when students translate a sentence from English into Japanese they need to follow certain forms to show they understand the underlying grammar. For example, there are different ways to translate "I will study tomorrow" and "I'm going to study tomorrow," although the two concepts are pretty much the same, and not knowing how to do this hurt my son's score. Now that he's starting juken hell, preparing for his high school entrance exams, I'm sure he'll have questions about the correct use of English grammar that I won't be able to answer to his satisfaction. For example, the Japanese spend a lot of time learning the proper use of the pronoun "whom," yet at least in my dialect of English (West Coast United States), it's a totally dead word, only used in certain specific situations (e.g. "To whom it may concern").
Japanese test English is quite unrelated to the living language you or I use.
posted by Peter in Japan at 8:20 PM
16 Comments:
That's disappointing, but it seems true from my experience so far. The rote, sutra-esque memorization of "How are you?/ I'm fine, thank you, and you?" is one glaring example.
10:18 PM
Thankfully, there is an easy rule for determining when to use whom - if you can replace whom with him (some sentence adjustment may be necessary), then you use whom, otherwise you use who.
12:34 AM
2dteleidoscope, yes, our employee from France had also memorized some of the same grammar, that I didn't seem to know anything about. How funny.
Steve, that's very simple, thanks!
2:08 AM
Some of the surprises may also be because there is not one English language. There's "British", "American", and dozens of local dialects. Potato vs. potato, soda vs. pop, bag vs. sack, that kind of stuff.
I have at times surprised my American friend by using (apparently) British-English expressions. That's what the teachers at school try to teach us. Of course, my dialect is Dunglish ;)
4:59 AM
Funny thing, I learned when how to use "whom" when I was taking German, there is a grammatical rule that made sense to me in English. More of less, it's never to who, or with who, but to whom, and with whom.
German improved my English grammer.
5:04 AM
Ooranjin, when I was in the Netherlands I was impressed that people could communicate so well, even young people. Things may not be perfect, but you're doing better than the Japanese ^_^ Yes, it's somewhat convoluted how the Japanese try to treat English as math, e.g. this is "correct" or not, absolutely.
Mark, yes I had to learn Whom from my Japanese students. Kind of embarrassing...
10:12 AM
http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/classicerrors/grammartips/whoorwhom?view=uk
A good website if you want to know obscure things about the English language. You can change from English-UK to English-US at the top right corner of the web page.
I linked to the page on 'whom' above, since you mentioned it. I hope it's useful.
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/?view=get
^Ask the experts main page.
10:54 AM
Peter, you just reminded me that I need to register for the JLPT this year. Plus, I should really order some good study books.
1:50 PM
Careful, I saw a lot of folks on Twitter bummed that their JLPT slots were all full. Get your application in asap!
1:52 PM
People still use "whom." I mean grammatically I know you why you should use it, but with regional accents and dialects it is almost a dead word simply because of the pronunciation issue. Listen carefully in the southern part of the US and even when they say "whom" often times (or oft times) you rarely hear the "m."
6:23 PM
When I was studying abroad I got an 120/200 on my written English test and 80/100 on my oral English test.
I wrote "antique" for "a word that means old starting with A" but got it wrong because the word was "ancient".
If you don't follow what's in the EITANGO TARGET 500 books then you'll fail.
1:20 AM
The difference between will/going to as we were taught:
"I will study tomorrow" - you're announcing your decision (to study tomorrow) you have made right now
"I'm going to study tomorrow" - you have it planned already
and I'm nowhere near Japan :)
1:28 AM
I'm pretty sure whom is archaic in most American regional dialects (I'm American myself, and never use it); at any rate, you really only need to recognise it's related to 'who' when reading or hearing it, you really don't have to be able to use it. So that seems like a big ol' waste of time that other countries put in to learning a dead word...
My experience, having lived in Germany for a year, is that the Dutch have bar none the best English on the Continent, Icelanders have the best probably in any non-native anglophile country, and Norway gets honourable mention.
9:46 PM
I think whom may be more widespread in "English English" (as spoken in England! - or "British English" if you like) - though even here who is now often used instead of whom by many people(but not by all by any means) I use it occasionally - but probably not always when I strictly should.
I went to a UK Grammar school (public funded but selective) - but didn't learn a lot of English grammar there - but did learn a lt of French and German grammar... I have found that learning Japanese and Swedish has improved my knowledge of English grammar far more.
9:20 AM
Can I sign up to take this English test? I'm living in Kyushu, attended one of the best public schools in the states... about a 30 minute drive from Obama's current home. I'd really like to find out how well I know my own language.
2:21 PM
This isn't anything available outside of Japan, although the top test of ESL in Japan is called Eiken, also known as the STEP test, which may theoretically exist in some form elsewhere, although probably not since the Japanese like doing their own thing.
4:44 PM
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