Why are Americans so arrogant that they talk to us in English in Japan?

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Selena

It is not only that way in Japan but worldwide! What makes me angry is when some of them come up to you and bombard you with questions in a loud voice without even asking in a polite manner if you could speak English!

@jettoblack: I understand your feelings, I experienced the same and it often puts me off too from speaking Japanese!

Smelly Cat

Might be because they don't know any Japanese. Many Americans don't even know proper English...

jettoblack

At first, I tried to speak Japanese everywhere I went in Japan. My Japanese is quite good (JLPT2), but still, most of the time when I speak Japanese, the person will reply with "eigo wakannai!"

Every time I go out with my wife (who is Japanese) and start speaking Japanese to clerks or waiters or whatever, after I finish speaking, the person always then looks at my wife as if she is going to "translate" my Japanese into Japanese for them. (It is not a problem of my Japanese being poor. Even my wife gets frustrated by this, because she says my Japanese is almost perfect and still nobody will listen to me.)

Eventually I just gave up and now speak English most of the time, because most Japanese people are too arrogant to believe that (some) foreigners can speak Japanese well.

P.S. I am American. I don't own any guns, I have never been violent or committed any crimes, I don't eat hamburgers 3 meals a day. I am a loving father and husband who cares about the environment and world peace and poverty. I'm always patient and understanding and do my best to be kind and polite and help people every chance that I can. Please stop being so bigoted against Americans. Some of us are good people. I don't think you are such a "very kind person" as you believe yourself to be. These kinds of stereotypes and racist attitudes held by some Japanese people towards Americans make me sad inside.

thecheapest902

This question doesn't make sense.

I have seen many Japanese tourists in other countries who does not try to speak in English or other languages at all. Or there are many Japanese students or businesspeople who are staying in US or other countries but do not try to talk to local people in English or whatever.

So it's not limited to Americans.

It's more difficult for Americans to learn Japanese than for Japanese to learn English.

ALL Japanese learn English for 6 years between age 12-18. But FEW Americans learn Japanese during school years.ã€€That's the difference.

Maybe???

Point 1. How do you know that a foreigner who speaks English to you is American?
Point 2. How do you distinguish between Americans and Canadians, for example?
Point 3. Japanese is NOT a worldwide language, but English IS. How many foreigners do you know that can speak Japanese at a Japanese University's level?
Point 4. It is rather ignorant in my opinion to believe that most foreigners are as fluent in Japanese as you are in English.
Point 5. I teach English to Japanese students in Canada. During this 8-year period I have found that these student's English is fairly good when it comes to pronunciation and grammar, and vocabulary. However, invariably, their understanding of phrases are almost always incorrect. This is due to the fact that a Japanese phrase means exactly what it says, whereas an English phrase can have 3 or more distinctly different meanings. Therefore it is easy for a Japanese person to infer that an English sentence is intended to be 'arrogant', while in fact the reverse could very well be true.
Point 6. Just like Westerners cannot fully comprehend culture, traditions and language differences, Japanese also can NOT fully understand these things, unless they were born in a foreign country(and then they would not be Japanese).
Point 7. If you were to travel to Spain, would you expect the citizens to speak Spanish to you since you would be in Spain, and not Japan?
Point 8. Why are Japanese(and Chinese and other nationalities for that matter) so 'arrogant' when they are in Canada and/or the US, and only speak Japanese to each other in public?

Antonio

It is easy. They do not know Japanese. Learning Japanese in America is a luxury, like learning oil painting or other worthwhile
endeavour. The Japanese learn English because it gives them better job opportunities and is the global international language.

Japanese students must study English. American students must study a language too, but it is a choice as to which one.
Since Spanish allows for job opportunities, many students study that or Chinese.

When I am in Italy (part of my family lives there) I see many Japanese tourists. They do not speak Italian, they speak Japanese.

Once I asked a Japanese businessman who is often in Italy why he does not learn Italian. He answered, "It is not useful to me."

So no, we don't know what you mean and we are tired of your racist and bigoted attitude.

webangelpb

jettobla...I feel your pain. Nothing got me sooo frustrated in Japan as Japanese looking at me and not understanding what I'm saying when I know that my pronunciation and grammar were right on!

I can't tell you how many times I have to wait for them to find the one person who speaks a wee bit of English so that I can repeat the same thing in Japanese again to get service.

Unlike you though, I refuse to speak English to them. Sometimes I ask them if they understand my question. They always say "Yes." Then I'd ask "Then why don't you answer me in Japanese since I asked you in Japanese?" Often they'd smile/laugh and say something like "Soo desu ne!" At which I usually just roll my eyes.

FumiA

I don't agree with you fully.
However I think you have a point.

I like traveling abroad, so I've been to many countries.
Each time I go abroad, I would triy to speak their local languages, such as Spanish, French, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai etc..., I go there because I'm interested in their cultures! Though my foreign languages are not always successful, at least I'd try,(or I'd write them) that's part of the joys of travel, isn't it?

Then I've found most native English speaker I met tended to speak only English wherever they were!
I have to admit English is a universal language in modern society.
But it doesn't mean they don't need to show a little respect for other languages wherever they go, does it ?

Sonya A

You have so much anti-American sentiment and you spend so much of your time pandering it away on yahoo answers it makes me wonder- did some American guy steal your girlfriend away?

Tony

Not really. If I was, as an American, going to learn a foreign language, it wouldn't be Japanese. Btw, we're not all arrogant. I know I wouldn't be. I would be polite to you.

ecoguy

First of all, Iâ€™m tired of all your questions, they are all aimed at making Americans look stupid and arenâ€™t even real questions.

But anyway, English has become an international worldwide language, it's not just in Japan that there is a lot of English speakers. So get used to it. Also, i don't know if you remember a little something called WWII where Japan lost and signed a treaty which meant US is pretty much in control of Japan, that's why Japan doesn't have a real military or can't even speak in most of the United Nations meetings. Which is also why Japanese have to learn English in school.

Most Americans arenâ€™t being arrogant, they are just hoping they can find someone to communicate with and their chances are very good. If Japanese was the international language being studied everywhere and a Japanese person came to U.S. and tried to speak to me in Japanese i wouldnâ€™t find it weird, and i for sure as heck wouldn't be an asshole and pretend I don't know what theyâ€™re saying, like you do.

Angel

its not that they are arrogant, its just that not a lot of people can speak Japanese and they have difficulty learning it
I know some Japanese words but I want to learn more
its just that English is the most use language (I think) and maybe they thought that they understand what they are saying
but I guess not everyone in Japan knows English
so its the same way the other way around
hehe Sorry if I confused you~~
this is just my opinion

Ken C

It is bigoted people like you who make Asians look bad. Cut it out.

Ken Chin

megaman EM wave

do you know where he got the question idea from, I asked a question if japanese people can speak english, and he started yelling at me, and he said "keep poking your ugly nose" to me, so he took me as an ignorant american, but the truth is that I am learning japanese, but I just wanted to know if japanese understand english

EDIT: I can speak three languages, and I am from india, and we see an american in india, we dont expect them to know hindi or punjabi, we speak to them in english, because punjabi and hindi are only spoken in india, but english is spoken all over the world, but we dont feel unfairly treated just because we have to speak their language

oncoshishin

I can't get the point.
Just speaking English toward Japanese people is not arrogant.
But I think that's not what you are talking.

I guess you got upset foreigners who live in Japan for long times but never speak or try to learn Japanese?
If so, leave them alone. They'll learn how difficult would it be living in Japan only using English.

azmosis

we had an american student at our university who didn't want to learn Tagalog. I told him that he has to learn even some simple phrases. he said it was useless. It was useless because everyone knew English anyway.

I hate him. hahah. but he had a valid reason. He also had to learn german, so he was more into learning german.

minna jijou ga arimasu yo ne.
I hope that was correct. :)

sarrafzedehkhoee

Hey, I love Japan MORE than any country. You're absolutely right, of course. You are obviously a person who can speak two languages. That makes you bilingual. Three languages would make you trilingual. One language would make you. .. American! I wish I lived in Japan again. I was learning Japanese. You know there are good hearted Americans who visit you. I know the kind you're talking about, though, and don't like them much myself.

Kei5

Because they believe they are ruling the world and have the right to do like that ?....just a joke.

I know some Americans who speak quite good Japanese ?
It's all depends on the person some are and some are not.
Besides,English is fairly spoken around the world that makes them think easily they probably be able to manage only in English.

Imagene,If you thought you wanted to go somewhere people speak and write totally unfamiliar language like maybe Arabic ? And if you knew poeple living there somewhat understood your Japanese,woudn't you try to speak in Japanese with only little native language ? Or you wait till you get fluent in the language with years of study and confident of it ?

Don't be so narrow minded rude people are everywhere we also have here you know ?

notyou311

Japanese is a very difficult language. It is totally different from English with different roots and alphabet. American who come to Japan boost your economy and are interested in your culture. They are not trying to be rude. It is rude of you to think that way.

JJJ

To someone earlier, Japanese staying in the U.S doe not talk to local person cuz, Americans do not like people with broken English, Iv tried many times to immerse while I stayed there, but I kinda got ignored. Unlike Japanaese, they dont listen to people

Wasabee^Love

It's not arrogance i think...It's simply because they don't understand japanese. besides english is a universal language, so their expectation is you could understand them

Jay K

Japanese are the most arrogant people I've met so far. Maybe that's why they thought it was their right to destroy asia in the 1940's

bluemoonmemory

I think you probably are teasing intentionally a bit too much to American to try to know what kind of reaction they gave against to your fishing.

You should know there are many American as well as Japanese, some of whom is decent to others or not or does know when in Rome do as the Romans do or doesn't.

Speaking in Japanese in Japan is natural for Japanese though, as you should know too, Japanese is not easy for foreigners of not only American but also any others.

Even still there are lots of Japanese who live in USA speak only Japanese there too, who although should spend a lot of English compulsory study in Japan.

We might better consider English as a kind of Esperanto language so that everybody could communicate each other without any basic misunderstanding in future.

For American studying Japanese is a kind of pastime in a sense. You should not look forward to speaking Japanese automatically for all American who comes to Japan.

Not speaking Japanese is not related to any arrogance to Japan indeed.

Nevertheless, I somehow might know what really you want to mean to American. Speaking English itself ought not to be a part of Americanization but just a part of globalization for all of us.

Delita

Why did you learn English if you associate it with "arrogant" people?
Why did you go to America if you have such anti-american sentiments?
You speak of Americans as if they were arrogant. Perhaps you should look yourself in the mirror.
Don't return to the United States if you carry such a bad attitude about Americans. Stay in japan and be a farmer or something where you won't deal with Americans.
You give Japanese people a very bad name with your attitude. Thankfully my b/f and his family (Japanese natives) think nothing like you and instead embrace English and have an open mind.

Angela T

Oh calm down. If Japan had surrendered to Russia instead of the USA, you would all be speaking Russian and drinking vodka instead of sake. Tokyo would have become New Leningrad. Have you forgotten history?

aminook

How many people speak Japanese in the world? Give me a reason why I should learn your language to be able to speak only in Japan.

Michael J

why did the Japanese want to rule the world?i would call that extreme arrogance!!

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