Asia and the language barrier

PharCyDe · Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 64 Location: Tennessee, USA

You never hear of many people in here visiting anywhere in Asia. I am not quite sure, but I know that one reason could be the language barrier. Asian languages are not as commonly studied in the U.S. as Spanish and French, so for people to visit a country in Asia without being able to speak their language is more difficult, I would think, than trying to visit somewhere in South America, Australia, Germany, etc. Quite a few people there speak English. I am actually not sure about in Asia. Does anybody know if they teach their students English as well as their home language in Asia?

cocodrilo · Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 494 Location: Western Japan

PharCyDe wrote: You never hear of many people in here visiting anywhere in Asia. I am not quite sure, but I know that one reason could be the language barrier. Asian languages are not as commonly studied in the U.S. as Spanish and French, so for people to visit a country in Asia without being able to speak their language is more difficult, I would think, than trying to visit somewhere in South America, Australia, Germany, etc. Quite a few people there speak English. I am actually not sure about in Asia. Does anybody know if they teach their students English as well as their home language in Asia?

I've been living/teaching ESL in Japan for 19 years. Your average Japanese person has at least 7 years of Enlgish under his or her belt, yet hardly anyone can speak it! Here lies the reason: the Japanese Ministry of Education, which is made up of well-over retirement age conservatives, has mandatory entrance examinations starting with junior high(or "middle school", if you will) and getting more and more complicated as a student nears higher education. Therefore, the sole purpose of learning English is in order to pass the difficult entrance exams. It is s TOTAL waste of time because WHAT IS ENGLISH ANYWAY? YES!!! A communication tool!
A lot of Japanese have learned to hate Englsih, whcih is a shame, as a lot of people from other countries are fascinated by Japan, yet the Japanese cannot make themselves understood to them. My lessons at the university are FUN and EASY English one would normally use in everyday situations, so I'm hoping my students will 1. Learn to like English by me teaching it this way and 2. Want to use it in the future!

I've found it MUCH easier to communicate with the locals in English when travelling in Korea(their Japanese is GREAT, too, by the way!!!), Hong Kong, Singapore & Malaysia. Thailand was a bit tough(HEAVY accent.)

My advice when travelling in Japan- BRING A PHRASEBOOK! It's fun to try out & actually LEARN some new phrases, and the people will respect and even PRAISE you for making an effort to learn what they themselves deem a "complicated language". :D

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

I love visiting Asia, and don't find the language barrier any less daunting than going to Europe. It was really difficult the time I went to Hungary! If you go to France or Spain there's enough cognates (words that are similar in a foreign language to one's native language) that you can make guesses as to what signs mean, and you can at least read the signs because they use the same alphabet. But Hungary was a different story...at the time it was the most alien place I'd been to. But I got good maps and guide books, and took a walking tour hosted by a Hungarian student from the Univeristy of Budapest, and ended up having an excellent time. She even pointed me to a cool club that had great bands playing, so my nightlife needs were taken care of, too.

Ditto for Asia. I've been to Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Japan (just Tokyo, though), and I'm leaving in two weeks to go to China. Thailand is VERY easy for English-speakers -- even out in the country side you'll see signs written in both Thai and English. Unless you are so timid language-wise that you can't even hack travelling in Spain or France, you'll have no problems at all in Thailand. The roads in the Thai country side are generally very good -- their freeway system is not unlike our own -- so getting around by car or motorcycle is enjoyable too.

Burma and Cambodia are both seriously courting foreign tourist dollars, so both countries have government-sponsored tour guide certification programs. Guides have to become quite proficient in a foreign languge, and to study the history etc. of the areas they work in. Also, every single little kid knows english...mainly so they can sell you stuff, which is another topic in itself....

It's beyond terrible that the government of Myanmar (Burma) is so entirely screwed up because it's an awesome country that is, on a person-to-person level, very welcoming and hospitable. The one good thing the government did, though, was set up a foreign-language training school in the capital with the goal of training guides and buisiness people. Our guide was a Burmese literature major who spoke perfect British english, and one of his friends spoke Spanish beautifully. The British used to have Burma as a colony, and English is becoming the international language of business and tourism, so I hear reports from English-speaking friends of being able to travel independently without problems.

Tokyo is one of the world's great cities, and to me the problem wasn't related to the language barrier, but in understanding how their street address system works!!!!!! Rather than numbering a street in order from north to south or east to west, addresses are based on neighborhood name, block number within the neighborhood, and then building number on the block -- with buildings numbered in the order they were built, not in where they are located! In rectangular shaped neighborhoods laid out on a grid (like the Ginza area), this is really easy to deal with. There are signs showing the grid with the block numbers marked, so you navigate to your block and then start walking around it until you find your building. Other, older neighborhoods are much more difficult, but getting lost in Tokyo is fun. Tokyo's subways are marked in both Japanese and English, and I had this great pocket-sized book full of subway and Tokyo neighborhood maps that were marked in both English and Japanese. So, if I ever got really lost, I could point to the map and a local person would be able to read it if their English was rusty or non-existant.

So, one can definintely get around the major places of interest in Asia without knowing the language. It's a matter of getting over one's own nervousness I think,

As far as learning Asian languges go, I have been studying Mandarin Chinese for a year now and find it much easier to learn than European languages! Why? Because in Chinese you never have to:

* conjugate verbs (so no tenses!!)
* decline nouns (so none of this stuff about masculine or feminine words)
* worry about making sure adjectives agree in number and gender with the nouns they modify

The tones are a little tricky, but it just takes practice to train your ear.

The Chinese character set seems extremely mysterious and daunting to most westerners, but again it's not bad once you start to learn it. There's actually a system of commonly used "radicals" -- which are simple characters like the word for "person" or "water". A good teacher will start you off by learning the 40 or 50 most common radicals (there are 217 of them). These radicals are like root words in English, so as you learn the radicals it helps you to learn and understand more complex characters. Also, a lot of people don't realize this, but there is often a phonetic component in more complex characters to give you a clue as to how to pronounce it. I probably know about 400 characters right now, which puts me about 1/3 of the way to being able to read a newspaper and get the gist of it. Supposedly a functioning adult can get by with about 1200 characters, but a high school student who is being prepped for college knows about 3000. So, it's my goal to get to 3000. All it takes is a lot of straight memorization, so if you're good at remembering visual things it's quite achieveable.

Well, I certainly went on for a long time here...I'll check back in after I come back from China. I'm going with a small group of 12 people, I picked the group rather than going on my own because I don't like travelling completely by myself. The group has handled things like train tickets and hotel rooms, but the itinerary itself has TONS of free time on it so it's not like I'll be following someone with a flag on a stick around for two weeks. It was a good compromise for me. Next time I'll try it on my own (well, I'll bring my husband, but he doesn't speak any Asian languages).[/i]

Jonathan · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 185

Wow. Thanks for the insights Laura... and have a great time in China! :D

....looking forward to the stories too... :)

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

Well, while you're waiting for stories from my upcoming China trip, I'll tell you another one from my trip to Tokyo last year. My husband was there on business, and I tagged along because I was tired of being stuck at home. I kept a blog, which I'll go track down and repost here!!!

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

By the way, somewhere I have a paper journal of my December 2002 trip to Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia. If I ever find it I'll post it here! I think it's in a box in my office somewhere....

Batusai · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 1

i know this is a two year old thread but i really have to post this:

Quote: Communication wouldn't be too much of a hassle for the English speaking traveler since the vast majority of the locals are English speaking. The Philippines also has one of the highest percentages of truly bilingual and multilingual speakers in the world, surpassing other officially bilingual/multilingual nations and territories in Asia, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. English is widely used around the country, particularly in big cities. It is also widely used in government, the media, and in commerce. Street signs and billboards will likely be in English, but public service messages may be in Filipino. English is a compulsory subject in all schools (public and private) from elementary school to university. Practically everyone you meet will understand English, even if s/he may not be completely fluent. In fact, English is the official language of business.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Philippines#Talk

here even the street hawkers will talk to you in english.

Candlelight · Joined: 30 Jun 2006 Posts: 25

Great insights Laura!!! You've made me want to learn Chinese!!! Have a great time in China!!