From: davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane)
Newsgroups: fj.misc
Subject: Re: complement/compliment (was NG for gaijin topics.) (English)
Date: 22 Jul 92 01:32:19 GMT
Distribution: fj
Organization: Aegis Society, Kyoto Japan

ishikawa@ds5200.personal-media.co.jp (Chiaki Ishikawa) writes:

>>On the other hand, there *are* differences between 'assure' 'ensure'
>>and 'insure'. Here I use Longman's Dictionary of Contemporary
>>English as there are differences between U.S. and British usage: 1.
>	I thought you teach English to Japanese people. Which
>dialect(?) do you teach them? Your daughter lives in L.A. Are you from
>the West Coast of U.S.A? So you teach (Sourhthern) West Coast accent?

No source indicated, but I said it so let me reply. While some people
say I'm a "teacher" (and I myself say so when I go to get a visa), I
don't really think I'm teaching. The people who come to me (even
with only JHS English) have had enough teaching to last them a lifetime.
IMHO, what they need is some practical skills in how to use the language
to communicate. 

I grew up in the suburbs of NYC. My father was from Missour and my
mother grew up in Canada so I never had a strong NY accent. I've
also lived in Iowa, Texas for a year or so and California for 11
years. Also, England for 6 months, France, Turkey, .... Phillipines,
etc. So I don't teach them any particular dialect. 

What I try my best to do is to help them realize that there are lots
of Englishes but the one most people *speak*, no matter what their
dialect, is very much Anglo-Saxon. If you what to know what this is,
pick up an English language newspaper and read the sports page. Look
at the kind of (short) words that people use when they speak,
compared to the words the writer uses to describe the situation. For
example, from today's Daily Yomirui (92/07/22):

   "Hampstein won Sunday's leg between Sestriere,  Italy and Alpe
   d'Huez in the French Alps. During the stage, fellow American an
   three time champion Greg LeMond quit the race, citing exhaustion."

This is *NOT* Anglo-Saxon and is meant to be read. Try saying it
out loud and you'll understand what I mean.... But LeMond himself
says:

   "There are always first times for everything in life," LeMonde
   said. "All the riders pass through things like that."

IMHO, the single biggest reason why people in Japan have such a
hard time speaking English is they are trying to speak what's meant
to be read.

>	The reason I am asking is that when I began learning English
>long time ago, the teacher didn't bother to let us know that there are
>regional differences (not that I think I would understand it well).  I
>went to a local public school, mind you.  For that matter, I wonder if
>the teacher himself knew exactly what kind of English he had learned
>himself.  When I landed in Vancounver, B.C., Canada, there were lots
>and lots of surprises to me.  The English I had picked up was a
>combination of mostly Eastern Seaboard English and British vocabulary
>thrown in to good measure.

I think this comes from two reasons. First off, it is pretty much a
given in Japanese culture that there is one, and only one, correct
way to do everything: thus there must be one, and only one correct
English.  Second, the kind of teacher you are talking about has
probably never been exposed to other Englishes, or if so, has
branded them as "incorrect" as they don't make his dialect. 

As a very simple test to find out how this "teacher" thinks, you
could try this. Which of the following are correct, a), b), or 
a) and b):

    The pope is in the hospital. 
    The pope is in hospital.

If you're in the U.S., a). If you're in U.K., more probably b).
Just like color/colour, etc., etc. Case by case.

>	I think it is best to warn the learner of English and other
>foreign languages that the regional differences are large.  The
>difference is so obvious and ought to be crystal clear to everyone,
>but somehow it was not stressed in the lessons I took. (Was it Mark
>Twain or Kippling who said that England and U.S.A. are two countries
>separated by one common language or something to that effect?)

Yes, excatly. And it even goes further than that, I think. Each
local group of communcators develops there own communly used
expressions so to be able to communicate (not be "correct", whatever
that is :-) I think you need to listen to what people are saying for
a while to pick up on which way the wind is blowing. 

>>And I myself suspect
>>that one of the reasons English is used by so many people all over
>>the world is that it is flexible enough to allow constant additions
>>of new words and phrases. 
>	One reason, to be sure. But, I suspect that English
>colonianism may have more to do with it. In the major sea ports of the
>world, there are be people who understand English (be it Pigin(?),
>Middle Eastern, African, Russian, etc..). French, for example, could
>be as universal as English (despite all those Gaulic(?) French
>purists).  The use of French in Vietnam and other countries in the
>South East Asia clearly shows that French could be learned and used
>well by the local population (just like English). When there is a
>compelling reason to learn a foreign language, people will.

Perhaps. But which came first, the language or the colonies? 

While French can certainly be learned by non-natives, there is a
great deal of work done to keep French *pure*. Only last year I read
where they had finally decided that it was "le hotdog" and not "la
hotdog". 

It's only an idea, but I think that perhaps the success of English
and the American colonialism was related to the flexibility of the
language to accept new words easily. According to "The Story of
Language" by Mario Pei (long, but not academic, and very
interesting) current English is only approx. 25% of the original.
The rest is loan words from other European languages, India Indian
(khaki, and pyjama), American Indian (Manhattan, Los Angeles),
Japanese (hibachi, soy), etc., etc. 

>	If it had been French Army that occupied Japan after the
>Second World War, young people today might be hanging in a road-side
>cafe instead of at MacDonald. Just kidding.

Sure. And if Japan had one the war, young people in L.A. would be
sitting around drinking Kirin and saying "unbili!" (which I just
learned yesterday is slang for "unbelievable!" :-)

Dave

--
Dave McLane                                       davidg@aegis.or.jp
You're free to copy/quote/translate this as long as credit is given. 
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087