Textbook Japanese or Everyday Japanese?

I had a great time with all the foreign students in our program (and some Japanese students also) in Nagano over the past two days. Details of the trip itself will be published hopefully over the coming weekend, but for the moment, I had the impulsive desire to share some reflections as a foreign learner of Japanese. I've been more scientific than artsy for most of my life, and I have never blogged let alone have impulsive urges to write a literary piece before coming to Japan, but I guess people change.

The following musings and their applications should have relevance to the learning of other foreign languages too, but they are particularly significant for the Japanese language. This is because Japanese is commonly known as a "high context language" where what you say takes equal precedence - and sometimes is even less important than - what you don't say, and also additional factors such as the age of the other person, how close you are with them, etc. This means that the difference between the language form taught by textbooks and the language seen in everyday situations markedly differs. For example, there is no English language equivalent of honorific language (敬語 keigo) which is characteristic of the Japanese language.

To correct the first common misconception, textbook Japanese does not teach you everyday Japanese. Chances are, you've heard this more than once, just as I have. But I for one didn't grasp to what extent this applied. While eating out with both Japanese and overseas students today, it dawned on my conscious self for the first time how little overlap there was between written and spoken Japanese in terms of both vocabulary as well as grammar (and use of particles, unique to Japan).

For example, when you write an article, you have to use full sentences, but in conversation, finishing mid-sentence is often the accepted norm. The listener infers the rest of what you're trying to say. An example of a natural spoken phrase would be 「お大事に」, which directly translated would mean "preciously". Its meaning is closer to "Hope you get well soon" (when someone is sick). Most of the sentence is left out because both parties understand through context. They also know what the full sentence is supposed to be, so there's no need to say it all. Obviously, this instinctive ability to piece together the pieces of unspoken linguistic information is negligible in the student of Japanese accustomed to forming perfect grammatical sentences. On the contrary, speaking in full sentences all the time would bore your native Japanese listener, who understood what you wanted to say by the second word of the sentence but has to wait for you to finish out of politeness. It wouldn't do favours for the natural flow that conversations are fuelled by.

A second example is the difference in the formality level of the vocabulary and grammatical structures between written and spoken Japanese. From our conversation tonight, is responding to some event or occurrence mentioned by saying it's not uncommon. In written form, saying 「少なくない」 (sukunakunai) is acceptable, but in conversation, using 「マジだよ」 (maji da yo) is more natural. The former is too formal, and vice versa. The same goes for grammatical structures, right down to the order of words in the sentence. This occurrence exists in the English language too, but not to the same extent.

Learning from a textbook teaches you how to communicate a given idea from your native language to a Japanese person in a way they understand. Simply by progressing far enough with a textbook-based approach, you can reach the point where you can articulate the same idea in Japanese as your native language. However, don't think that that means Japanese people would approve of your choice of linguistic expression in a conversational setting, if you use only academic style Japanese. In fact, you can easily offend people by caring only about the accuracy of your vocabulary and grammar structure, while failing to read the context in which a conversation is taking place, such as speaking to your boss or an important country representative in the default I-met-a-new-person level politeness of Japanese that is always taught first for supposed linguistic safety.

To address the opposing common misconception, everyday Japanese does not equip you for academic Japanese. The same problem occurs in the reverse, namely that the unique elements of high-context conversational Japanese are missing in written form.

One example of a crucial missing element is body language and the dynamic nature of conversation that is absent in a written piece of work. Because of that, you need to rely entirely on choice of words to convey your meaning fully to your audience. That means a lot of abbreviations acceptable - sometimes preferred - in conversation need to be written out in full, e.g. (なくちゃ＝なくてはいけない), (きれいじゃん＝きれいではなかろう), (なきゃ＝なければならない). Also, a lot of sentence-opening leading terms in Japanese serve no greater purpose than to add emphasis to the verb that comes at the end of the sentence, like 「なぜなら」 to indicate a reason will follow, 「もし」 to indicate a hypothetical will follow, and 「たぶん」 to express a degree of uncertainty in the remark that follows. Not to mention that different sentence-opening leading terms will be used in written pieces to replace these terms that have a conversational buzz to them, when using these terms in a written piece, the appropriate sentence ending must follow the respective sentence opener, despite the fact that the listener already knows how the sentence is supposed to end from the opener.

Another crucial contextual difference is the level of intelligence conveyed through choice of words. A lot of adverbs that have a small 「っ」 in them sound a bit more childish, and therefore are used conversationally, with a more formal sounding equivalent reserved for written Japanese. Examples include 「やっぱり→やはり」, 「やっと→つねに」, 「いっぱい→多い」 etc. There are also numerous ways to express the English conjunction"therefore", interjection "but" and even the question marker "?" in Japanese, and which one you choose depends upon context and fomality.

One aspect I find particularly interesting is the replacement of Japanese sounding words for Chinese-sounding words in academic texts. What I mean is this. The Japanese "imported" the kanji alphabetic script from China, and with it, the respective characters' readings. In Chinese, any given character has only one reading, but Japan decided to also ascribe to each Chinese character the Japanese pronounications (i.e. the Japanese spoken language which up to that point lacked a written accompaniment), and this resulted in any given kanji character commonly having four or five different readings which all were related but had a slight nuance in some form. For reasons beyond my current ability to explain, Japanese people regard the Chinese readings to be more "intellectual" than the Japanese readings. Which is significant, because when these kanji characters are conjugated in Japanese, the Chinese readings are almost always used to read the resulting word. This word has the compounded and narrowed meaning that results from its constituent individual characters. Even if you know how to speak conversational Japanese, if that is all then you are at a disadvantage when it comes to distinguishing which word is of Japanese origin and which is of Chinese origin, thus affecting the overall academic aura of your written piece.

Never engaging in academic study of Japanese will, in the instance you are required to write a piece in Japanese, result in your work being evaluated less highly than it ought to simply because it either possesses a childish or a conversational style of expression that a supposedly academic piece should not have. According to our Japanese teachers, native Japanese university students today still get penalised for using an inappropriate formality of linguistic expression in their written pieces.

In light of this discussion, I would slightly disagree with the all too cliched conclusion of "both are equally important for different reasons". I don't think it does justice to the glazed over nuanced differences. At the end of the day, humans are systematic learners confined to space and time so everyone will need to choose which to master first, and which to leaver for later. The answer to that dilemma will be found by asking yourself why you are learning Japanese. If it's because you want to work, study or come to Japan under related official pretences, learning Japanese by the book is the way to go. After you've passed the test that gets you to where you want to be at, you can enjoy slowly learning the language of the local people. I would also argue that tourists should learn by the book too, but obviously they only need to learn the basics so that they can be understood when it really matters.

On the other hand, for those who want to truly understand Japan, its culture and its people, there is no substitute for mixing with the locals, making Japanese friends, and learning on the go, on the field. No textbook will do justice to the many and varied nuances that are intertwined within the fabric of the culture that birthed it, and there is no better way to pick up how a Japanese person would express the same thing you want to say.

The application I gained for myself at the end of this reflection piece is that I should seek to spend time with Japanese people more. Over the course of this year, the language center will meet our academic language requirements in abundance. My grades in each assessment will be a good indicator of how well that is going. But what is less clear-cut is true language proficiency, namely the ability to connect with a people not just by words alone, but through your choice of words, to connect with a different culture and ultimately within that culture, another individual.

I exceeded my own expectations by writing something like this off the top of my head. People are constantly changing and adapting, but change needs time so this fresh new artsy thought process of mine is still in development. I still hope that I gave others who may be reading this insight into the art of learning a second language for themselves. Special mention goes to the Japanese and foreign students alike who made me think not only about the contents of our conversation, but also the way I (and others) conversed.