This is not the exact situation of the video, but when I hang out with my English-speaking friends in Japan, sometimes Japanese people think that I'm not Japanese and speak English to me. It's a bit awkward because I have to say I'm Japanese or speak Japanese for a while for them to realise that I'm Japanese. But sometimes, since they speak English, my brain immediately respond to that and I reply in English and that's a bit awkward too. Anyway, even though the skit is exaggerated, it does happen. But as far as the Tokyo area is concerned, from my experience, most Japanese people don't have any problem speaking Japanese with my non-Asian friends when I'm with them (hence the situation above). So if you want to learn Japanese, I can assure you that plenty of Japanese people will be happy to speak Japenese with you. If you don't know where to start, I can send you some free Japanese lessons by email so click the link here bit.ly/3q9g8Qo
there's a Japanese RUclipsr (well, actually much more than that, but I digress) living in Italy and speaks very good Italian, with good intonation, with only a bit of accent; sometimes she speaks in fluent Italian to people, and they answer back in English; she replies in Italian, and the following reply is still in English😬; evidently their brain in that moment is not aware of what language information is coming thru
I have lived overseas a few times and I normal pick up of of the local langauge while living there, but I have found that if they find out you are English or speak it they want to swap to English. It's not because they don't understand you or are having problems understanding you, all they really want to to try and use/pratice thier English skills on some one outside of a class room in a real life setting. So I never look at it as an insult, just some one who want to use something they never real get the chance to use in thier own country.
There is nothing exagerated about this skit. As the originator of, and one of the actors in the skit, I proposed the concept to Ken Tanaka because this has happened to me regulary when i lived in Kobe. All the other Western actors in the video, who have lived in Japan, also stated that they've had a similar experience. Thats why we made the video: because it actually happened to all of us. You may enjoy another of Ken Tanaka's videos: 'Is Japan racist?' where I appear, speaking kansai ben after the subscription request.
blackpassenger : Thank you very much for providing the context involved. I haven't watched y'all's video yet, but it's helpful to know that ahead of time. I hope more people see your comment (giving it a "Like" to help push it a little closer to the top).
Yeah, thanks for making the video. I'm American, but my wife is Japanese and people often treat her like she isn't Japanese because she *can* speak English. We went to a kimono shop in Sendai because it is one of her hobbies, but the staff there didn't know what to say when we arrived. I could tell they were thinking, "Oh, I can't speak English. What should I do..." and kept looking at one another. When we finally left I could tell that they were thinking, "that was so awkward!"
@@razi_man thanks Kusogaki (lol). You should check out another of ken tanaka's video titled, 'is japan racist,' where ken tanaka talks with his "twin brother." I appear after the subscription request. pretty funny.
I love how Yuta can always turn the subject of his video into a way to market his japanese courses. BTW, his courses are really good and everyone should check them out, my comment is not endorsed by Yuta.
I lived in Japan, and this happened to me too at a convenient store. The young girl behind the counter behind the counter thought I was speaking to her in English, when I in fact was using Japanese. And I was by this time fluent. I had to repeat myself several time before she registered what I was saying. The incident really stuck with me, and I knew I would never be accepted in Japanese society because people would assume too much about me because of my appearance. Thats just how it is
A lack of Japanese accent might make you sound incoherent to them. That has happened to me but with english. Some British relatives of my family have visited us, and they were struggling to understand me even though i'm fluent with a semi-decent accent.
Oh, it's happened to me as well. In fact, you know that thing where you can walk up to a Japanese person and ask directions to somewhere in flawless Japanese, only to have them reply with, "eeetooo, gooo sutoreito. eeeetooo, taan refuto." I used to think they did it because they wanted to try out their English, but I slowly started to believe it's more because, even though they heard the question in Japanese, it didn't register to then that it was in Japanese, and there they are feeling a sense of real accomplishment that they so clearly and completely understood this long, complex question in English.
The video may look like it's falsely discriminating the Japanese people and those offended like the guy at 2:43 said there's nobody like the waitress and it's all too exaggerated but we managed to witness a few already even from this small group of reactions. For example the person at 3:29 who calls the guy an American when he clearly stated he was born/raised in Japan or for those who remember Yuta's previous video on the subject where he had this conversation with a random girl on the street Yuta: What do you think of the waitress? Random Girl: She could have used gestures to make them understand Yuta: But everyone spoke perfect Japanese Random Girl: Ah, that's right...
I think in America we don't consider race a factor for culture because we have a little bit of everything in our country but for most other countries it's just a given that if you look different you are. I don't blame them and I think it's natural. Still feel bad for those who grow up overseas who never get fully accepted by the culture.
@@Jebact I think people should be accepted but I also think there is a real difference between someone who is a first generation Japanese citizen, compared to someone whose family lived there for hundrets of years. The latter is definitely more Japanese.
MsJavaWolf If the only language someone speaks in Japanese and the only country one had ever been in is Japan and they were entirely educated in Japan and all their friends are Japanese, does it even matter to point to them and say “They’re less Japanese than this other person whose family has lived here for many more generations”? If so, why?
@@littlefishbigmountain Thank you, this is exactly what I was gonna comment as well. Speaking the language of the country you're born & raised in (as well as learning the respective cultural mannerisms) should be enough, really. It should not depend on the colour of your skin or outward appearance. Maybe that's just my European mindset speaking here, because we all aren't really as 'homogenous' as the Japanese people and kind of never really were (at least not in Central Europe, we've had folks from all over living in different parts of different countries/regions for long periods of time, mixing and mingling with each other). It's definitely sad to witness such issues in 2020. If this were the 70s I somehow would be more understanding, but nowadays? Nah :(
Please note that in our culture satire is not a big thing. We absolutely hate offending others because we value harmony and order. That's why some don't seem to get jokes. Not trying to defend. Just explaining. I personally think satire is hilarious and important for democracy.
But it's a big problem especially when it comes to children. I heard there are Japanese children who get bullied and mocked at school because of their race. I think it's a subject worth discussing.
The Onion in Japan could go the way of Medusa Magazine. MM was a satirical feminist site, but serious news outlets didn't realise it was satire and started posting the same things as MM. The Guardian, a pretty popular UK outlet, is one I specifically remember repeating what MM would put out. If satire is lacking prevalence in Japan, that could happen even faster
@@TamagoSenshi That happens with satirical news like the Onion and similar sites surprisingly frequently at the best of times. The line between something being recognised as satire or being taken at face value is surprisingly thin. That's especially tricky when someone is trying to be rude or offensive to make a point, because it may have been intended as satire, but it can very easily start to look like the very thing it was trying to make fun of... I suppose a culture that's less used to dealing with satire and the like would have a harder time than usual recognising it though...
I'm working in convenience store so this happen to me sometimes. Me:Irasshaimase-(welcome! how can I help you?) customer: *speak Spanish on phone* Me:(Spanish! I learned Spanish in highschool so I can say some words) customer:suimasen kore kudasai(excuse me I want to buy this one) Me:（Oh he speaks Japanese）
Not only in Japan. This happens to me in Vietnam. I guess people aren’t expecting me to speak Vietnamese and they’re not confident interacting with foreigners, they seem to get into a bit of a panic. I should say the video is quite exaggerated. It’s also very funny 😁.
I will never understand for what reason people would be willingly learn vietnamese, what's the gain? I am a vietnamese immigrant child and my vietnamese is as good as an 8 years old at best, usually I really enjoy studying languages but improving my vietnamese further just seems so worthless to me.
Neyutt Probably to teach -English- a foreign language in Vietnam or if they're being wed to a Vietnamese person and they'd like to know their family's language.
Yeah my father went to Germany and was surprised to see a chinese guy speak perfect german. It makes you realize the stereotypes you have about other nations and how your country is not the only one with diversity
We do have preconceptions about things. It's how we became the dominant predator on the planet. We make models of things in our mind and we presume its reality. It's confusing when the two clash, we're not accustomed to our models being wrong.
I lived in Japan for 4 years, and while the video is exaggerated for comic effect, it really does happen. Sadly, I think it stems from a false presumption that many Japanese people have, that foreigners can't speak Japanese, so before the conversation even starts, they 'decide' (maybe subconsciously) that they won't hear Japanese. When we were with our American friends (we are white British, our American friends were one white, one black, one Chinese-American, and one Filipino-American), the staff would always look to the Asian-looking people. After a while the assumption that foreigners can't speak Japanese gets rather insulting.
No, it happens everywhere. You come to Bulgaria and people will try to speak French, English, Spanish, or even German to you. These are people who deal with tourists often and they have a pavlovian response to your face. It's natural. And also, most foreigners cannot speak Japanese, but go in expecting everyone to speak English. After all it is taught at school. In other words, get over yourself.
I don't mind if they initially think to use English, when I get annoyed is when you use perfectly good Japanese but they *continue* with this weird mental block that you're not speaking Japanese (as is demonstrated in the video). When I have visited other countries (such as Germany or Spain, and trust me, my Japanese is much better than my German or Spanish) and used the local language, they have then switched and used their language, not English. I lived in Nagoya (and worked a lot in the smaller surrounding cities/towns), where there are very few if any foreign tourists, so while that could be a motivator in places like Tokyo or Kyoto, I doubt it for my personal experiences.
To be fair, though, the number of Japanese speaking white people is fewer than those who don't speak Japanese at all or very little based on my experiences living in Japan. People were often surprised I speak Japanese. And for good reason. In the U.S., color of skin, race, etc. differences have long been a part of our history. In Japan, most people are ethnically Japanese. It is rare to find a white or black person (especially outside of Tokyo), especially ones who are born and in Japan or speak fluent Japanese. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I ended up marrying my Japanese sweetheart in the end, though, so I help her in the U.S. since most assume she can't speak any English. She has on a few accounts had to speak up for herself when people talk about her or take pictures of her thinking she can't speak English at all. We do it and more maliciously despite our history of trying to overcoming negative racial discrimination.
Because its natural to assume a non-asian looking person to not know japanese... the number of western tourist who can speak an asian language is waaay lower than those who cant. But thats normal, because most asian countries are homogenous so naturally they will think like that.
@@Lauren-yn9ze three things. 1. I don't believe you spoke perfect Japanese and they continued speaking English. 2. Brits and Germans look alike. But you are very different from eastern Europeans. There's less disconnect there. 3. I've heard Brits talk Japanese and the accent is the inverse of a Japanese accent in English. And as a bonus, the last thing a believe is that Japanese people were being rude and not accommodating. My company paid for space saver hotel, but because I was too big, the Hotel covered a room in the Dai-Ichi hotel. And for the two week trip, everyone spoke Japanese to me. Little did they know, I understood nothing.
I've met some foreigners, in several occasions and if they ask something of me, the first thing I would confirm is what language they would use Some of them are able speak Malay perfectly, so I use Malay as well Some of them can only speak English, so I use English I don't know if it's rude, but I'd rather confirm it out of the front rather than doing the polite game
@@vidard9863 I agree, it shows consideration if you ask politely. @Ayaan Most people tourists are likely to interact with would know English, Hindi, or both. South Indians (who usually won't be comfortable with Hindi) are very likely to speak English, so unless you're going to Odisha or something, you're bases are covered.
@@achowdhury47 और ऐसे proclaim करना कि हम लोग multilingual है, इसलिए हुम तुमसे बेहतर है, सिर्फ टूरिस्टों की दिमाग मे घबराहट पैदा कर देता है। भाई घमंड को शांत रखो ताकि लोग यहाँ आके भारत की खूबसूरती का आनंद लेने और इतिहास को समझने की रुचि हमारा घमंड देख कर न खो जाए।
To me it always happens the opposite: as soon as I speak some Japanese they go full mode and then I don't understand anything because they speak fast and using keigo :(
Same thing happened to me with this Japanese couple, I barely introduced myself in my broken Japanese when the wife just started talking only Japanese to me. But obviously not everyone is the same.
the part where you said it's possible to not even know what language someone spoke to you in is 100% possible. my friend does the exact same thing. while we're in a call his mum might ask him a question and I hear him reply in english to her over the microphone. I say to him "so, did she ask you that question in english or in your native language?" and he stops and thinks, and he can't even recall. it was only 10 seconds ago but he has no idea. he presumes it was in the native language but he just can't really tell for sure, all that he took in was the meaning and nothing else.
i experienced that myself. i am fluent in both english and japanese but on the internet i mostly go to english pages. so, there's this time where i was browsing a certain meme site everyone knows, and a page from a manga was posted. i went to the comment section and read a comment that say something like "i wish i could read japanese" and i was confused so i checked back to the post and it's really written in japanese. apparently my brain just took the meaning and assumed it was written in english because i found it in english site.
3:29 Japan does have a sordid history of heavy discrimination against non-Japanese too, though. They've progressed a lot since then, but way back in the day non-Japanese were extremely dehumanized and treated cruelly. Not to critique Japan too harshly, it's just wrong to say 'we were the ones discriminated against', as though there was no such discrimination on the Japanese side. No country has a clean history in that area.
Yeah that comment was weird, at best they were talking about Japanese people in internment camps during WW2, but that seems like a reach unless a Japanese person a generation or two ago was in that and then went back to Japan.
Who were the ones discriminating? The government or the population? How many? Was the majority? How many were the majority? Why does a majority justifies the discrimination of unrelated people?
As a foreigner with reasonable Japanese in Japan, I quite often say something in Japanese and get an English reply. I think in general people do it to try to be helpful. It's a good thing to some extent. After going to gigs of my favourite band (Oreskaband) I tend to go and chat with members of the band at the merch table and ultimately it's easiest to communicate in a mix of Japanese and English. Sometimes I don't have enough Japanese, sometimes they don't have enough English. That said, with regard to appearances, I can see what the skit is getting at. I hesitate to point out "flaws" in Japanese society, because it's obviously not my native culture and I don't understand everything, nor do I imagine that my way of doing things is always right, but I certainly don't subscribe to the indignant viewpoint you sometimes see with stuff like this that as a foreigner (especially as an immigrant in a country), another country is above your criticism because it isn't "yours". I think the issue pretty clearly relates to Japanese conceptions of nationality, since Japanese people are most often ethnically Japanese, born and raised in Japan, Japanese-speaking, etc. That idea runs into trouble with people like Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, a naturalised British citizen, or Rei Mastrogiovanni, a Japanese guy raised in the USA with an Italian-American dad, and it runs into trouble very often if people try to apply it to other nationalities where mixing and migration are substantially more common. That said, I'm not dead keen on the skit - I think it's kind of funny, and it's fairly relatable as an immigrant in Japan, but I don't quite like how it positions the characters. It feels too much like, frankly, complaining, and certainly too much like an accusation. Nothing that comes across like an accusation is ever heard by the people who need to hear it.
Nationality is a tricky subject. I can tell you what my passports say, and I can tell you where I was born, and I can even tell you where my ancestors are from going back several generations. and yet, I'm pretty much treated as a foreigner in every country I've ever visited or lived in, including the ones I should be able to claim as my own. There's more to it than what race you are, or what it says on your passport, or where you were born, what language you speak, how you look... I honestly don't know what it is in the end... When you are regarded as an outsider pretty much everywhere, even the places that in theory, you would think you should 'belong', it really makes you question what it really means to have a nationality, or a culture... I know I technically have one, but it certainly doesn't usually feel like I do...
@Ginnungagap I mean, I'm pretty sure the entire reason the skit resonated with so many people's experiences is that it was a pointed exaggeration of an unconscious bias many foreigners have encountered in dealing with Japanese society, but nah - I'm sure you're just smarter than everyone else who watched the skit and the most simplistic possible interpretation has to be correct.
That "no country is safe of my criticism" is a Leftist tactic to endorse cultural colonization. It's bullsh¡t, a very American and european thing to use, it ignores completely the culture, values and desires of the native population to put it in a level *below* your own culture so you can tell them *what's better for them, you, an American democrat telling other countries natives how they must build society and what is morally right and wrong.*
I have definitely had this experience, but I've always chalked it up to my poor Japanese and the expectation that I will speak English. The funniest thing about it is that my father-in-law won't understand the Japanese that I'm speaking and look confused. My wife will then state in Japanese that I'm speaking Japanese to him and when he listens the second time he can usually understand. I don't really understand it myself since it seems clear to me when someone is speaking Japanese versus English. It seems like it would be more annoying to be a non-English speaking westerner in Japan where most people would then assume you knew English.
Do you have an accent? Some people struggle with accents. I had this odd situation once where a Thai and British person were speaking English to each other. At one point they couldn't understand the sentence the other had said and I had to simply repeat the same sentence again for the other person to understand because I have a rather neutral accent. 🤣
Actually happened to some family friends (we're all Italian), they have a very tenuous grasp of English (let alone English with any degree of accent that they're unfamiliar with), and have actually bothered to learn some Japanese before going to a two week trip to Japan. Everyone kept talking to them in English, despite the fact at that point they understood basic Japanese way better than basic English.
I feel that it is Cultural, just think of the Most popular American Cartoons like The Simpsons, Family Guy and even South Park. They are all exaggerated versions of Americans. It's interesting that people even admitted to acting like the waiter, i appreciate their honesty. We can all learn from each others experiences. Peace and love from Los Angeles. CA
It's dumb to not take the word of those it's happening to. I'm white and I speak Japanese and this situation has happened to me several times. Of course the scenario in the video is exaggerated for comedic effect, but it's not unheard of to get an "eigo akan" in response to a perfectly fine Japanese question.
Lol! My family is Lithuanian, but they fled the area during wartimes when my grandma was a young girl to come to America. It was always one of her regrets not speaking Lithuanian around her kids and grandkids, because back then everyone wanted to conform to being American. I'm still salty I didn't get to effortlessly learn another language growing up just because my grandma was scared of being "un-American." Who gives a shit? >:( I want to learn now as an adult, but it almost feels pointless. I'm a half-breed Lithuanian anyway, so I'm not sure how well I'd even fit in if I visited. Are they pretty nice nowadays, or are they still super racist about "interbreeding"? Not trying to offend anybody, but from my understanding from my grandma's family and grandpa's family (two proudly "full blooded" Lithuanian families) they always talked mad shit growing up about people diluting their pure bloodlines LOL! Right in front of grandkids etc! Bunch of ridiculous racist old white people. What are your thoughts, Jig?
Whenever my Chinese gf visits me in Japan this is exactly what happens. I book the hotel, we arrive and I try to check in. They try to ignore me and speak to her but she doesn't speak Japanese so they have to try it in English. Then they ask us for our passports and instead I hand over my Japanese driving license.
Why can't you not be obstinate and hand over your passport like they asked, you aren't japanese, and your passport would prove it, but you want to push this stupid leftist message and so hand over your driving license, how pathetic.
@Ginnungagap Why would you think he isn't japanese? All we know about him is that he doesn't look japanese, which doesn't say anything about his actual nationality (which is literally the point of the video that's being discussed).
I've seen this happen for Chinese too. I worked in a small Chinese restaurant in Canton for a while and was the only one fluent in English. Two caucasians walked in and the owner immediately calls for me. I'm busy helping another table so I tell her I'd be right there. An older waitress tries to seat them but seems to get flustered because she can't understand them. I get over to them after a minute and find that they speak fluent Mandarin and one of them even understands and speaks many words in Cantonese (albeit with a Mandarin accent). Both of them had been in Canton for more than 10 years and in fact didn't even speak English. They used to live in France.
People use a lot of context ques in processing the world around them. If a non-east-asian face is too strongly associated with non Japanese speakers, the waiter might literally just not be processing what they're saying at all. Then they all start stringing long sentences together... panic, embarrassment. If you understand people it's easy to see how it'll happen. What I find helps is short sentences, simple gestures, and point to the menu item. 🙂 Yesterday I was watching a video in French, then immediately after I watched one in Japanese. For a while my head was still expecting to hear French and my perception of the Japanese was totally garbled. Strange feeling, but there wasn't a table of people all talking at me and expecting me to take their order. So it wasn't a problem 😅
I look Asian but when a shop keeper noticed I was struggling with Japanese they spoke in English...although it was in a tourist heavy area (Dotonbori) so might be expected
I'm German but I've lived most of my life in the USA, so not only do I have a German accent when I speak English, but when I speak German I have an American accent. When I go to visit in Germany, people often try to talk to me in English. They think I'm just an American who speaks German, and they want to show off their English to me.
I had the opposite problem. I was a foreigner in Okayama and nobody spoke English. I had a hard time because of a lack of English at first. It depends on where you live in Japan. But yeah, please learn Japanese. I get a similar thing in America because I am Puerto Rican but I barely speak Spanish and people in Miami constantly try to speak to me in Spanish.
Really nice how you Mr. Yuta present all the different points of view during your videos, explain each of them in a way that helps people like myself (who doesn't know much about Japan). Really appreciate it.
I love Yuta's approach because he acknowledges these issues and discrepancies that people find fascinating about Japan WITHOUT feeling the burden that most Japanese would feel that they must have a solution or an answer. He is open to discussion for the sake of it.
A little bit similar thing is too common here in Finland. What I mean is that if a foreigner tries to speak Finnish but struggles more than just a tiny bit, then Finns quite easily switch to speaking English, which makes it a bit too easy for foreigners to not learn Finnish even when they want to.
@@junihase1496 My wife visited Frankfurt some years ago. Her experience was that a lot of people didn't seem to speak English. However, that was quite a few years ago and maybe the customer service people just happened to be older than average or something.
@@seneca983 true. But it's more a thing from the last 10 years. When i started to work in service i was like the only one that could speak english. Well i started i was a lot younger then my co workers, and mostly my beloved polish mid 40s coworker has the attitude " i needed to learn this, so are you". Well now it's like every second Services person speak english. And a lot of them have an attidude like "yeah but why not?"
This definitely happens to me all the time and it is NOT and exaggeration, it doesn’t help that my husband is Japanese either. Whenever we go out and I order my food they’d just completely ignore me like I don’t exist. Even if I pay for dinner they’d give the change back to my husband!
@@roridev I'd argue there is a benefit in aiming to speak the language because understanding it doesn't automatically translate into being able to speak it. It's similar to learning to read a new word in our mother tongue, there may be hiccups in pronunciation, grammar or proper use of new vocabulary. Or similar to a tongue twister, just because a person can hear and understand one doesn't mean they can say it too. So it becomes more likely to retain a language by actively using it rather than only passively listening.
Now that I have been to Japan, I can confirm this happens. I got lost on the way back to my hotel and asked two women if they knew where it was, and they got very flustered and replied with lots of pointing and hesitant English. I ended up getting even more lost. That being said, there were plenty of people who spoke to me in Japanese too and I was really happy! (also that Calvin Rockwell sounds kinda r/iamverysmart to me imho)
Maybe it's hard to believe for some people because it may be a rare circumstance for this to happen. In either case, it's a kind of "current year, don't just assume" joke. I think it's important to think about this possibility even if it never happens, because there is easily a possibility for this to happen anyway. Let's at least take from the video that we should be patient and listen to what other people have to say, I think that's the most important thing.
It happens to me frequently, I’ve lived here about a decade. It depends on how “foreign” you look. I look super foreign, however my other friend is often mistaken for Japanese before he speaks (he has similar language ability and is British- when he speaks Japanese it is clear he is not a native Japanese speaker). I can tell you that it is TOTALLY different the way he is treated. I really don’t like it. In one example, I was with a Japanese friend and I ordered and the waiter could not understand me. My Japanese friend had to repeat word for word what I said for the order to be taken. I asked my Japanese friend what I did wrong, he said absolutely nothing, the waiter is an idiot. It is also annoying that there are so many comments, as detailed in your video above, that seem not to realize that it really really does happen and is an issue especially for super foreign looking people. Sometimes I am told “there is no way you speak Japanese” before I say anything in Japanese. The video is not even that much of an exaggeration. Some times I cannot overcome my physical appearance enough to make it register that I am speaking Japanese. And while my Japanese is not perfect it does work with I would say 75% of Japanese people without issue.
When I was living in Tokyo, it happened to my friends and I several times. Once, I went to a restaurant and order my food in Japanese and the employee started speaking to me in English, even when I replied in Japanese. It was a bit annoying at the time.
The experience is quite different for me. They actually liked it when you try to speak in japanese. The thing is, they’re just very strict in pronunciation and accent, that they won’t understand what you say when you mispronounced the word or if it didn’t sounded like real japanese?(Like Westerners fuses their accent when speaking Japanese or when the word was borrowed from English but you didn’t say it in Japanese accent). For example, Pizza they wouldn’t understand if you didn’t say it as ピザ(PIZA, like tower of Piza)
I've had a similar experience with speaking Spanish to a Hispanic lady. She claimed that I can't speak Spanish for some reason, even though I was speaking fluent Spanish. Very frustrating
Noli me tangere I thought so too until about a few months ago. It was the first time it happened to me. I spoke Spanish(broken but understandable) to a customer and she was telling me in English “no speak English”. So I said it SLOWER and a bit LOUDER and she still didn’t understand. So I called my Chilean manger who said the same thing I did but for some reason NOW she understood. Like, what the heck, I was so ticked off. And when I told her the total in English, she understood and gave me perfect change.
@@MyselfandComics sorry you had that experience, but in your case it was worse. That kind of person are very rare, that person was the kind of latino that denies they are Latinos trying to become usonians as much they can but they aren't either good at English neither at Spanish. Their brains are like that. They are the kind of Latins that when they get the usonian residency they look down to the rest of their people. It's a weird thing but it happens to some, sadly. It's more of a mental thing on them.
6:29 This is interesting to me, because as I'm getting better with my Japanese, I am having full conversations at normal speed with Japanese people and I don't realize it. I ended one such conversation thinking "Wow, his English is great!", but later I realized we spoke entirely in Japanese. A native-English-speaking Spanish teacher told me that she once had a conversation completely in Spanish with a native speaker and after it was over, she asked a friend who was also there what she thought about something funny the Spanish-speaker said. Her friend had to remind the teacher that she doesn't understand Spanish, so had no idea what they were talking about. The teacher completely forgot she was speaking Spanish! It's one of those nice experiences that reinforces that your hard work learning another language is paying off.
Yuta thank you for this Video! I am a Dosanko born in Sapporo and raised in Tokyo. I have had these things happen BUT only in places like Shibuya and Harajuku when I go to GyuMeshi places or Ramen shop that Only see Foreigners All Day. One Waiter told me in broken English where to sit and how to order. I answered in perfect Japanese and his tone changed so fast and he looked a lot more relaxed 😁 My advice to visitors of Japan Please learn enough to make Japanese a little more comfortable 😉
@Karth Williams this is the most reassuring and truly understanding comment that I've seen here. Which actually addresses the possibility of someone not trying to be sinister, but actually trying to accommodate you. Your comment is reassuring, because you actually think about other people's existence. Rather than Forcing someone to take responsibility for something that's not their fault. Other times, Japanese can sense a different air around someone, and this is what we are used to communicating with. Sometimes it's used to find common ground. yet it's second nature to the point that most Japanese don't even notice that they do this.It's very difficult to explain to actual foreigners because most Japanese can't articulate it. But if this is a form of hypersensitivity, which most actual foreigners don't understand, or oftentimes neglect, then the forcing of Japanese to change based on misunderstanding is, really damaging. Because when you were repress something, you often times repress the senses as well which were utilized to sense. We become more open to attack and more vulnerable. Because half our defense mechanisms that are second nature, are gone. Karth, thank you for taking the time and care, ultimately cherishing life by having respect and trying to understand, rather than judge.. it's people like you who actually allow things to truly progress in the world around you.
OMG this made me laugh, we called this the dreaded "Gaijin BLOCK"「外人ブロック」back in the day. On every trip to 日本 since 1978 without a doubt, i've seen this to some degree. The video is the extreme case however, I could never blame the waitress. She's in the middle of doing her job, most likely hated learning English at school (and probably flunked) and then a bunch of big, loud, noisy, and possibly drunk foreigners come into the restaurant and in her head she panics and she's like, "OMFG, I failed English! What do I do?" Queue: Gaijin Block. We are all products of our respective environments so to me it's totally understandable and I never get angry. In fact, I think it's cute. I make it a game to see how fast I can break the barrier. Once in a restaurant I started to cough yelling "mizu!, mizu!" and that broke the block it about 5 secs. Another time I was trying to buy runners in Hiroshima. The lovely lady stuck with serving me just froze like a statue so I sat on the floor, took off my show and put it in her hand and asked her how big my feet were? That was my longest I think, almost 30 secs. My favourite way though is to pretend my Japanese is non-existent except for the necessary words and then I find that my words then match their perception of me. Over the course of our interaction though somehow my Japanese gets slowly better to the point I get my favourite phrase with my change. ええ、日本語お上手ですね！。
HAHAHAH it happened to me and also didn't happen, it really depends on the Japanese person. I didn't speak Japanese well but when I asked directions or ordered food sometimes people would freak out and run away and sometimes they would help me and help me. It really is a mixed bag like in every country. It's easy for people to sometimes dump all Japanese people in one bag because we're used to a single story but obviously living in Japan is completely different. Japan is still the best country I've ever lived in. The generosity, warm welcome and kindness I experienced there is only matched with Portugal (where I now live) I was lucky to have lived there.
This happens to me all the time! But for Spanish. Im of Mexican dissent, but I'm light skinned, so other Mexicans think im white or just dont speak spanish.
i was traveling through japan last month with friends, one of which is an American born Taiwanese guy. i just thought it was funny that a lot of times people looked at our group and started talking japanese to him. it was always funny seeing this big question mark on his face.
Watched the whole video but I admit I'm always looking forward to how Yuta is going to advertise his free lessons at the end :D Thanks for the lessons!
As a Japanese teacher who hasn't any Japanese relatives (I'm Argentinian, my surname is Italian and my family ancestors are Spanish and Italian), I can say that some people judge teachers by their appearance. Like, if you're not Japanese or Nikkei, you can't teach Japanese or you're bad teaching it. Some institutions divide teachers between Nikkei and Hinikkei (not Japanese descendants), although it's changing and they're considering that everyone who has a relation with the Japanese culture is a Nikkei. As for the video, when I was in Japan some years ago I experienced the same situation: a waitress went to talk to a Japanese trip companion although there were people who spoke Japanese fluently in our small travel group. That was because we weren't Japanese in appearance. However, and of course, the video is just a joke, that's why it's exaggerated.
As a foreigner in Taiwan who has had a lot of experiences similar to the one in the video, I just wanna say: I understand and empathize with the Japanese perspective here, and I can see how some Japanese would think that it's an attack on their character, but it's not. It's just an expat joke. You gotta let us have those. We're already marginalized (not discriminated, just marginalized) in the societies we live in, and working really hard to attain some level of cultural fluency but still being considered an outsider can be frustrating, so we joke like this to vent a little bit.
I speak Japanese, once I was walking around Tokyo, so, I asked to a Asian aparience girl すみませんごベルメントブイルヂンどこですか。and she told me: SORRY, I DON'T SPEAK JAPANESE, I'M CHINESE, WHY DID YOU THINK I WAS JAPANESE? (INDIGNANT FACE). I was cold... That happened to me, it's not the same, but you can translate the all situation from another perspective to other.
@@buddhanature3098 he didn't knew that she was chinese cause yeah asian ppl have some physical ressemblance like in every ethenies that's not like he was talking to an asian in occident and so he thought that every asian were talking japanese for exemple
It's funny thinking about accents... Well, also kind of frustrating. See, I've lived in 3 different countries and speak 3 languages, give or take (one of which is not the language of any country I've lived in). On top of this I know fragments of some 3 or 4 other languages, to some extent. But the idea that someone would mistake an accent for a different language strikes me as... Odd, given that of all the languages I've learnt anything about, the moment I can identify what language someone is speaking from what I've learnt comes many many, MANY years before I have any idea what they're saying. Case in point I can identify Japanese, Indonesian, Chinese, Swedish, Danish, Italian, French and spanish from listening to people speak for maybe 20-30 seconds even though I speak NONE of these languages, and japanese aside probably know 20 words or less in any of them, if that. (Japanese being maybe more like 200-300 words on a good day.) The other thing about accents, is how frustrating it can get if people read too much into them. For instance, in the country I was born in, and lived a good 50% or more of my life, I'm perpetually treated as a 'foreigner'. Why? Because I don't sound like a local, and never have. But when people start trying to guess where I might be from based on my accent, it's inevitably completely wrong in every sense. Usually it's not even a country I've visited, much less lived in, but somehow that's what they guess... Except a few years ago I suppose where I had spend 8 years living in England, and that apparently had enough of an effect on the way I speak for people to think I might be English. But, that was a first for me, anyone guessing anything that has even the slightest kernel of truth to it... (since I did live there for 8 years, and have ancestors from there, it's a more accurate statement than most.) When you get to things like people in a place such as japan assuming things about me I sometimes think of the third country I lived in, which is not an english-speaking country (I've technically been bilingual from a young age), and sometimes I wonder... Sure, I speak English, but many people from that country do not, or do so very poorly. If someone in Japan tried to speak English to them they'd be almost as lost as if someone tried to speak Japanese to them, regardless of how well that person spoke English. Which leads to another kind of awkward assumption; The idea that someone that looks 'white'/'European' will understand English... It's not the worst assumption ever, but it's also not exactly as accurate as you might think. Part of the reason I speak 3 languages is precisely BECAUSE when you live in Europe you're quite likely to run into situations where you might run into people that do not speak anything but their own language. Realistically if you're in mainland Europe, and want to be able to interact with a reasonable number of people, you probably need to know at least English, French and German, and possibly Spanish and Italian for good measure... Even then that won't work out everywhere, but that's going to give you moderately decent odds of being able to find a common language for most people... Some countries though, create people that don't seem to ever try to be able to understand or communicate with anyone else. English speaking nations are notorious for behaving as though everyone should just speak English. It's pure luck really that so many people DO speak English when it's not their native language... Oh, and the fun thing about living in England is the sheer number of radically different Accents there are, some of which are borderline incomprehensible. Scottish accents can range from odd, but mostly understandable to 'wait, are you still speaking English?', and that's only one of several dozen pretty diverse accents most of which can make you wonder where the line is between an accent, a language, and a dialect actually is... Speaking of which... Flemish and Dutch... Are considered separate languages, yet you can almost guarantee that anyone who speaks one of those can make sense of what the other is saying, even though it will sound very... Strange to them... Actually going back to weird assumptions though, it struck me a few times online about how awkward some people can be when you use any kind of japanese words or phrases whatsoever. This is especially bizarre to me because: 1. Online anonimity. You don't know who it is you're talking to - for all you know you just tried to insult a Japanese person for speaking Japanese, which... Is strange. 2. What's so special about japanese to prevoke these kinds of reactions anyway? I say something in German, nobody bats an eye and may even assume I AM German (unless they're German themselves, because then they'd notice how horribly broken my words are), but try that with japanese and people freak out. XD - The irony, to me at least, is that doing this is not an attempt to claim I am either of these things, but even if it was, claiming I was German would be as nonsensical as claiming I was japanese, and yet one seems to result in being attacked for even vaguely hinting that I so much as thought about trying to speak the language, where the other people would take for granted that it's probably my native language if I didn't point out otherwise, which is just... Bizarre, and really says something about what people assume about others on the internet... As for identity, I can't particularly claim to have much of one... When you move around as much as I have, the notion of being FROM somewhere starts to seem a bit... Odd and loses a lot of it's meaning. Where I'm 'from' is pretty much wherever I've been living recently. My 'culture' is a haphazard mishmash of every place I've lived, all the media I've been exposed to, and all the various influences of the many countries I've visited, and it shows, because the net result of this is being treated as 'other' or 'foreign' pretty much everywhere, including the countries that I have the strongest claim on being my 'home', (both because of having lived there, and where my ancestors are from.), but no, I am, ultimately, a person from nowhere, with no real country or culture of my own... Or, to turn that around, no culture other than my own, personal mess of things. And that... Can be surprisingly awkward. Wherever I go, it's always the same... So a 'joke' like this doesn't feel like something specific to any given culture... It feels more like... This is my entire life... All the time... No matter where I am. ... Wow that's needlessly depresssing... Well, have fun not reading all of this pointless rambling I guess. XD Anyway, this is getting so random, rambly and confused at this point I think it may be time to stop... XD Don't write youtube comments when you're half asleep... It's not likely to end well...
From my experience it really depends on context. If someone would not expect me to speak japanese it will take a few tries to get my message through but after that everything is fine. But yeah "日本語上手" is also still a thing. All a matter of perception I guess. I have to say comedy like that is important because it is the best medium to transport these things in my opinion. Would love to see more of this. :) Btw. I love dogen's skits for that ruclips.net/video/lIH6vjyHKxM/видео.html
It's all about appearances. If you look a certain way people will treat you a certain way. This is not only true for Japan but a lot of countries. If you are in Paris and look totally like a chinese tourist they probably will try to use english even when in reality you might be french with asian decent. The same thing is true vice versa in China. It's not only race but also overall appearance. If you look rich people will treat you different then if you look poor, sometimes for the better sometimes for the worse. People are biased toward appearance and the only thing that can change that is if you would change human nature itself
This happened to me so many times in Japan. Granted, I'm not exactly fluent in Japanese, but it was still weird to experience it all the time, especially since most of the people I talked to were even less fluent in English. I think many Japanese people would just see my white face coming and prepare themselves for English, and then not be able to adjust when I actually open the conversation in Japanese. My best experience was speaking to this somewhat older lady, she responded in Japanese but seemed to realize that I'm an exchange-student learning the language, so she spoke clearly and used simple vocabulary so the conversation was easy for me to follow. There was also this one time I went to a castle (probably in Okayama... Not sure, I visited so many castles and museums during my stay that they kind of meld together) with a friend and bought the tickets in Japanese. The woman at the ticket stall first tried to speak English but realized that I can handle Japanese, so it went pretty smoothly. Then she asked where we are from, so I said I'm from Finland and my friend is from France, and she responded with something like "so neither of your first language is English either" and seemed surprised.
In a restaurant, I am sure a lot of foreigners are relieved when the waitress greets them in English. Especially if the restaurant serves tourists. So for a waitress, you could argue she is just trying to do her job, making the customers feel welcome. It would be weird for a waitress to persist like that if her customers preferred Japanese, that would be negating the point of speaking English. Maybe some waitresses get nervous and fail to KY (take a hint) I have had many experiences where people refuse to speak Japanese to me. I can remember joining a group ride at a mountain bike club to make new friends. No one would talk to me in Japanese even though my ability was very good at the time (~N2). It was very frustrating. Some people in Japan have a hard time treating foreigners as regular (Japanese) people. This was in the late 90's so maybe things are different now.
Well, that's funny. In my case even though I'm clearly not Japanese nor look asian at all. When I speak in Japanese to anyone they reply to me in Japanese. Some of them even look relief that they don't need speak in English. But that doesn't happen to my Vietnamese friend, people always answer him in English. That actually kinda bad cuz it makes him think that he doesn't speak Japanese well, even though he speaks a better japanese than me.
While this never really happened to me when I lived in Japan, I have been offered an English menu several times in a restaurant I've frequented, and already knew what I wanted. I always ordered in Japanese, and had no issues. Once, when I went to a supermarket that was just below where I worked, one of the cashiers started up a conversation in Japanese with me about what I was eating: sushi. She was impressed that I know how to use chopsticks. I told her I've been using them since I was a kid, so it was quite easy. I haven't had any negative experiences regarding language usage.
@@evgeniyushkov7103 If you mean my mannerisms, maybe. I tend to have that ability to blend in. But my appearance? I stood out and have been a target for some strange people, usually on the train.
I relate in another way. English is my native language, but I also speak some Spanish. I live in Miami, which has a very large Spanish language population. If I initiate a conversation in Spanish, they will respond in English. Even if I keep speaking Spanish, they still use English.
I was lost in Tokyo and I asked for directions (in japanese) at the station from two people at the ticket office. One of them just stared at me blankly, so I repeated myself and he said he didn't understand. The second guy just laughed and told me exactly where I needed to go. I think the expectation that a foreign looking person will not speak Japanese is just so strong, for some, that their brain just switches off and they don't listen. Obviously not for an extended period like in the sketch but that's just exaggeration for the comedy.
I didn't realize how well I understood the Japanese language until I watched this video with Yuta. I understood nearly every word he said! I think it's safe to go to Tokyo now. Who would have thought watching subtitled animes as a kid would pay off with this level of comprehension!
I too find it perplexing why some japanese don't get the point. I am half british japanese raised in oita and it ocassionally happens to me. I like to classify myself as なんちゃって外人
I went Tokyo last year, this was the first time I visit Japan. I found out actually a lot Japanese people can speak english as well as in Malaysia people.
Appearances are everything in Japan - more important than the obvious! One of the first things you realize about Japan. Yuta sanleaves nothing 'under the rug' - ganbatte ne!
I'm not japanese but i can speak Japanese pretty fluently. While it have happened to me before usually with people on the information booth who thought it might be easier for them to explain in English in which case i don't mind, but sometimes it does happened in a few stalls. But for the most part because of Japanese education being really good most people actually just think i'm half or something, though again i visit mostly places that often received foreigners, the stuff i mentioned before only happened in specific places. For people that have visited Japan the cities i went to are Oita(which have many international establishment) and Nagoya.
@@Madhattersinjeans to watch anime without subtitles is and will ever be the true objective of those who study japanese. It doesnt matter that they will never be japanese.
Instead of judging by appearance, I listen for an accent. If I think I'm more fluent in this person's native language than the one they're trying to use with me, I switch over. If they'd like to continue struggling in their non-native language, I don't see any reason to be offended.
"I speak Japanese fluently" I do NOT trust anyone who says this line on the internet. There are so many RUclipsrs saying this confidently, but almost no one is actually fluent.(The only one who is fluent is probably The Anime Man). For most of the others, we have to be aware from the start that it's a foreigner trying to speak Japanese, otherwise our brain won't be able to process it as Japanese in the first place. Well, even then, Japanese people will say ostensibly like WOAHHHH your Japanese is very good!!!! tho...
I’m Canadian and can speak Japanese (not fluently) so my view might be different, I thought it was funny. I like how some people explained their confessions. My mom parents are from Holland and when she was younger, her parents spoke Dutch and she spoke English back to them.
@@fuckmen3734 Eh well it kinda is though, especially of you're a solo male traveler. Yeah sure most people are fine but some have been known to single out and pick on foreigners. Random Japanese bullying is definitely a thing.
As a foreigner, it happened to me a couple of times, but thinking about it, it happened always with young prople, so maybe it was because they were inexperienced at the job. On the flip side, I've had old ladies start a conversation in heavy kansai dialect with me at the bus stop (and I've learnt a lot from them).
Honestly never ran into this when I was living near Osaka a couple years back. Had no problem holding the conversation in Japanese. Honestly the worst I really ever had was people often felt the need to pause the conversation to say something like "oh you speak Japanese?", but that was really to be expected as I am clearly not Japanese.
From my experience, I ALWAYS see this! My friend speaks native Japanese but is American and Japanese people will almost always look at me for a response. I am not Japanese and can only speak basic Japanese but I look very Japanese due to my Asian heritage. That funny video is lived almost everything day for my friend.
Happens everywhere it's an honest mistake most of the time. I was on both sides of it, having pleasant conversations in English with people even though we were both Czech... Also when I was working at a hotel here in CZ I had checked in Japanese guy who spoke perfect English to me when I talked in my ok Japanese and it was visible that he only realised what happened when he was about to enter elevator...
I only had this experience in Asakusa, Tokyo of all places. The waiter at a restaurant understood our order and our “thanks but no thanks” when he gave us an English menu, but he constantly stared, wide-eyed, at us from across the restaurant, and then failed to understand us when he asked where we come from (he asked in English, we responded in Japanese). It was really frustrating but it’s only ever happened that one time to me. Even in the deep inaka where I lived, everyone spoke to me normally when I spoke Japanese.
Something similar happens in Portugal, people even comment that Portugal is the worst country to visit if you want to learn portuguese. But the reason behind this isn't just a question of cultural misinterpretation, it's just that most portuguese people handle english pretty well and we don't want to be unpolite and start speaking portuguese with someone who's still learning haha.
I’m surprised to see how many people said “this wouldn’t happen” when it has happened to me so many times. I think a good idea for reactions is seeing if people here know what language gairaigo words come from. There is an assumption that they are all English but many of them are not.
During my work I use Japanese on a daily basis. My colleagues are used to that they can communicate in Japanese with me. However, outside the company I have bumped into situations similar to the video several times. When I received the answer in English, I asked the person to talk to me in Japanese, then he continued in English, while I tried to continue speaking in Japanese, but he didn't switch to Japanese, and I started to feel awkward... So I switched to English. I have to add that my native language is not English, I'm Hungarian. As a foreign language I use Japanese more often than English, so it would have been easier for both of us to speak Japanese... But the same thing happens in other countries. When I was moving around Austria and Germany a long time ago, I spoke German language at an intermediate level. In Austria I had no problem with communication, I even received feedbacks like "from whih German region are you from?" that made me happy. But in Germany I got responses in English many times which I just didn't understand, and discouraged me.
This happens to me in San Antonio a lot. I am not Mexican but could pass as a mixed person with Mexican heritage because I have First nations blood in me. (Think dark hair and tan skin) I would have spanish speaking people mistaken me for such and walk up to me speaking fluent Spanish. In their defence I think it was often the people who only spoke spanish or spoke very limited english.
I am Mexicano Americano which I have done this myself. I have friends from Argentina, Brazil and Mexico which they are Japanese and speak Spanish. I love my Latino Japanese
During my time in Japan people would often assume I can’t speak Japanese and speak to me in English, but they never avoided interacting with me and most were very happy to learn I understood some Japanese. I still remember one lady giving me a whole spiel about the hostel rules in English and then when I answered her in Japanese she was like 「どうしてもっと早く言わなかったですか？！」(“why didn’t you say so sooner?!” ) I think speaking English stressed her out, she was clearly very relieved 😂
Ha, this is certainly not exclusive to Japan. One time I went to French Switzerland on a business trip, and decided to try speaking French to people. I was by no means native-level, but definitely fluent. When I got to the hotel, I went up to the reception desk and told the man in French that we had reserved two rooms under my name; without even asking, he replied to me in English. The same thing then also happened at the restaurant and at the store. I have since then spoken exclusively in English in any French-speaking country :P
I'm from the U.S. and languages is one of the things I've always liked. I took Spanish enough to conversate. I know lots of Japanese words (but not good at putting together my own sentences 🤣) And some random words from other languages. And even then, when confronted with an opportunity to shine as a Spanish interpreter I do well. But if I don't block out the panic, even my native language will all turn into one big language blob in my brain. 🤣😱 Social anxiety can be to blame sometimes I'm sure, even for those mix ups. They just panic so bad. 😂
This is not the exact situation of the video, but when I hang out with my English-speaking friends in Japan, sometimes Japanese people think that I'm not Japanese and speak English to me. It's a bit awkward because I have to say I'm Japanese or speak Japanese for a while for them to realise that I'm Japanese. But sometimes, since they speak English, my brain immediately respond to that and I reply in English and that's a bit awkward too.
Anyway, even though the skit is exaggerated, it does happen. But as far as the Tokyo area is concerned, from my experience, most Japanese people don't have any problem speaking Japanese with my non-Asian friends when I'm with them (hence the situation above). So if you want to learn Japanese, I can assure you that plenty of Japanese people will be happy to speak Japenese with you. If you don't know where to start, I can send you some free Japanese lessons by email so click the link here bit.ly/3q9g8Qo
Yuta's Bizarre adventure
Yuta knows how to "sell" his classes very well lol
there's a Japanese RUclipsr (well, actually much more than that, but I digress) living in Italy and speaks very good Italian, with good intonation, with only a bit of accent; sometimes she speaks in fluent Italian to people, and they answer back in English; she replies in Italian, and the following reply is still in English😬; evidently their brain in that moment is not aware of what language information is coming thru
I have lived overseas a few times and I normal pick up of of the local langauge while living there, but I have found that if they find out you are English or speak it they want to swap to English. It's not because they don't understand you or are having problems understanding you, all they really want to to try and use/pratice thier English skills on some one outside of a class room in a real life setting. So I never look at it as an insult, just some one who want to use something they never real get the chance to use in thier own country.
@Dog days go back to 4chan
There is nothing exagerated about this skit. As the originator of, and one of the actors in the skit, I proposed the concept to Ken Tanaka because this has happened to me regulary when i lived in Kobe. All the other Western actors in the video, who have lived in Japan, also stated that they've had a similar experience. Thats why we made the video: because it actually happened to all of us. You may enjoy another of Ken Tanaka's videos: 'Is Japan racist?' where I appear, speaking kansai ben after the subscription request.
blackpassenger : Thank you very much for providing the context involved. I haven't watched y'all's video yet, but it's helpful to know that ahead of time. I hope more people see your comment (giving it a "Like" to help push it a little closer to the top).
Yeah, thanks for making the video. I'm American, but my wife is Japanese and people often treat her like she isn't Japanese because she *can* speak English. We went to a kimono shop in Sendai because it is one of her hobbies, but the staff there didn't know what to say when we arrived. I could tell they were thinking, "Oh, I can't speak English. What should I do..." and kept looking at one another. When we finally left I could tell that they were thinking, "that was so awkward!"
Hory shit! Nice acting man!
@@razi_man thanks Kusogaki (lol). You should check out another of ken tanaka's video titled, 'is japan racist,' where ken tanaka talks with his "twin brother." I appear after the subscription request. pretty funny.
Bro!!! You are real!!!
I love how Yuta can always turn the subject of his video into a way to market his japanese courses.
BTW, his courses are really good and everyone should check them out, my comment is not endorsed by Yuta.
I've always wondered what does he gain from those Email lessons, like is there any benefit at all?
Yuta my man don't be shy heart this dude we know you, he is obviously not endorsed by you, you deserve more exposure with your lessons 😎
@@shahmareo Well there's only one way to find out. XD
@@shahmareo people more willing to pay for his actual lessons
@@shahmareo idk from free ones but he got premium ones too
I lived in Japan, and this happened to me too at a convenient store. The young girl behind the counter behind the counter thought I was speaking to her in English, when I in fact was using Japanese. And I was by this time fluent. I had to repeat myself several time before she registered what I was saying. The incident really stuck with me, and I knew I would never be accepted in Japanese society because people would assume too much about me because of my appearance. Thats just how it is
A lack of Japanese accent might make you sound incoherent to them. That has happened to me but with english. Some British relatives of my family have visited us, and they were struggling to understand me even though i'm fluent with a semi-decent accent.
I've read that it helps when you ask them, "Do you understand Japanese?" That seems to break them out of their trance.
Oh, it's happened to me as well. In fact, you know that thing where you can walk up to a Japanese person and ask directions to somewhere in flawless Japanese, only to have them reply with, "eeetooo, gooo sutoreito. eeeetooo, taan refuto." I used to think they did it because they wanted to try out their English, but I slowly started to believe it's more because, even though they heard the question in Japanese, it didn't register to then that it was in Japanese, and there they are feeling a sense of real accomplishment that they so clearly and completely understood this long, complex question in English.
The video may look like it's falsely discriminating the Japanese people and those offended like the guy at 2:43 said there's nobody like the waitress and it's all too exaggerated but we managed to witness a few already even from this small group of reactions. For example the person at 3:29 who calls the guy an American when he clearly stated he was born/raised in Japan or for those who remember Yuta's previous video on the subject where he had this conversation with a random girl on the street
Yuta: What do you think of the waitress?
Random Girl: She could have used gestures to make them understand
Yuta: But everyone spoke perfect Japanese
Random Girl: Ah, that's right...
I think in America we don't consider race a factor for culture because we have a little bit of everything in our country but for most other countries it's just a given that if you look different you are. I don't blame them and I think it's natural. Still feel bad for those who grow up overseas who never get fully accepted by the culture.
@@Jebact I think people should be accepted but I also think there is a real difference between someone who is a first generation Japanese citizen, compared to someone whose family lived there for hundrets of years. The latter is definitely more Japanese.
MsJavaWolf
If the only language someone speaks in Japanese and the only country one had ever been in is Japan and they were entirely educated in Japan and all their friends are Japanese, does it even matter to point to them and say “They’re less Japanese than this other person whose family has lived here for many more generations”? If so, why?
@@littlefishbigmountain Thank you, this is exactly what I was gonna comment as well. Speaking the language of the country you're born & raised in (as well as learning the respective cultural mannerisms) should be enough, really. It should not depend on the colour of your skin or outward appearance. Maybe that's just my European mindset speaking here, because we all aren't really as 'homogenous' as the Japanese people and kind of never really were (at least not in Central Europe, we've had folks from all over living in different parts of different countries/regions for long periods of time, mixing and mingling with each other). It's definitely sad to witness such issues in 2020. If this were the 70s I somehow would be more understanding, but nowadays? Nah :(
Jebact okay... but we’re not talking about culture. We’re talking about language.
When this happens to me I just hit them with the good ol’ 英語わからへん and it usually shocks them out of it.
And what does it mean?
@@venomm4563 In Kansai dialect, "I don't understand English"
@@deleteme924 Oh, okay. I knew it had to do something with English lol.
😂
Especially that わからへん！I alway got people giggling at me whenever I spoke Kansai-ben 🙃
Please note that in our culture satire is not a big thing. We absolutely hate offending others because we value harmony and order. That's why some don't seem to get jokes. Not trying to defend. Just explaining. I personally think satire is hilarious and important for democracy.
But it's a big problem especially when it comes to children. I heard there are Japanese children who get bullied and mocked at school because of their race. I think it's a subject worth discussing.
Now I want the onion to open a branch in Japan.
The Onion in Japan could go the way of Medusa Magazine. MM was a satirical feminist site, but serious news outlets didn't realise it was satire and started posting the same things as MM. The Guardian, a pretty popular UK outlet, is one I specifically remember repeating what MM would put out. If satire is lacking prevalence in Japan, that could happen even faster
@@TamagoSenshi Thats when Satire is at its best. People that remain uninformed look dumb for taking obvious satire seriously.
@@TamagoSenshi That happens with satirical news like the Onion and similar sites surprisingly frequently at the best of times.
The line between something being recognised as satire or being taken at face value is surprisingly thin.
That's especially tricky when someone is trying to be rude or offensive to make a point, because it may have been intended as satire, but it can very easily start to look like the very thing it was trying to make fun of...
I suppose a culture that's less used to dealing with satire and the like would have a harder time than usual recognising it though...
I'm working in convenience store so this happen to me sometimes.
Me:Irasshaimase-(welcome! how can I help you?)
customer: *speak Spanish on phone*
Me:(Spanish! I learned Spanish in highschool so I can say some words)
customer:suimasen kore kudasai(excuse me I want to buy this one)
Me:（Oh he speaks Japanese）
thefrog1192 that has to be the most confusing situation I’ve ever heard
Not only in Japan. This happens to me in Vietnam. I guess people aren’t expecting me to speak Vietnamese and they’re not confident interacting with foreigners, they seem to get into a bit of a panic.
I should say the video is quite exaggerated. It’s also very funny 😁.
I will never understand for what reason people would be willingly learn vietnamese, what's the gain? I am a vietnamese immigrant child and my vietnamese is as good as an 8 years old at best, usually I really enjoy studying languages but improving my vietnamese further just seems so worthless to me.
Neyutt when you say you’re a Vietnamese immigrant child do you mean you live and have grown up outside Vietnam?
Neyutt maybe he (she) is working in Vietnam?
Henry1409 that’s right, I’m living in Vietnam.
Neyutt Probably to teach -English- a foreign language in Vietnam or if they're being wed to a Vietnamese person and they'd like to know their family's language.
consciously or subconsciously we all judge each other based on appearance
Of course but it should not be the only Factor
Yeah my father went to Germany and was surprised to see a chinese guy speak perfect german. It makes you realize the stereotypes you have about other nations and how your country is not the only one with diversity
If course. That's why we usually avoid the man in tattered clothing running at us with a half drunken bottle in one hand, and a knife in the other.
Blind people: 👁👄👁
We do have preconceptions about things. It's how we became the dominant predator on the planet. We make models of things in our mind and we presume its reality. It's confusing when the two clash, we're not accustomed to our models being wrong.
I lived in Japan for 4 years, and while the video is exaggerated for comic effect, it really does happen. Sadly, I think it stems from a false presumption that many Japanese people have, that foreigners can't speak Japanese, so before the conversation even starts, they 'decide' (maybe subconsciously) that they won't hear Japanese. When we were with our American friends (we are white British, our American friends were one white, one black, one Chinese-American, and one Filipino-American), the staff would always look to the Asian-looking people. After a while the assumption that foreigners can't speak Japanese gets rather insulting.
No, it happens everywhere. You come to Bulgaria and people will try to speak French, English, Spanish, or even German to you. These are people who deal with tourists often and they have a pavlovian response to your face. It's natural. And also, most foreigners cannot speak Japanese, but go in expecting everyone to speak English. After all it is taught at school. In other words, get over yourself.
I don't mind if they initially think to use English, when I get annoyed is when you use perfectly good Japanese but they *continue* with this weird mental block that you're not speaking Japanese (as is demonstrated in the video). When I have visited other countries (such as Germany or Spain, and trust me, my Japanese is much better than my German or Spanish) and used the local language, they have then switched and used their language, not English.
I lived in Nagoya (and worked a lot in the smaller surrounding cities/towns), where there are very few if any foreign tourists, so while that could be a motivator in places like Tokyo or Kyoto, I doubt it for my personal experiences.
To be fair, though, the number of Japanese speaking white people is fewer than those who don't speak Japanese at all or very little based on my experiences living in Japan. People were often surprised I speak Japanese. And for good reason. In the U.S., color of skin, race, etc. differences have long been a part of our history. In Japan, most people are ethnically Japanese. It is rare to find a white or black person (especially outside of Tokyo), especially ones who are born and in Japan or speak fluent Japanese. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I ended up marrying my Japanese sweetheart in the end, though, so I help her in the U.S. since most assume she can't speak any English. She has on a few accounts had to speak up for herself when people talk about her or take pictures of her thinking she can't speak English at all. We do it and more maliciously despite our history of trying to overcoming negative racial discrimination.
Because its natural to assume a non-asian looking person to not know japanese... the number of western tourist who can speak an asian language is waaay lower than those who cant. But thats normal, because most asian countries are homogenous so naturally they will think like that.
@@Lauren-yn9ze three things. 1. I don't believe you spoke perfect Japanese and they continued speaking English.
2. Brits and Germans look alike. But you are very different from eastern Europeans. There's less disconnect there.
3. I've heard Brits talk Japanese and the accent is the inverse of a Japanese accent in English.
And as a bonus, the last thing a believe is that Japanese people were being rude and not accommodating. My company paid for space saver hotel, but because I was too big, the Hotel covered a room in the Dai-Ichi hotel. And for the two week trip, everyone spoke Japanese to me. Little did they know, I understood nothing.
I've met some foreigners, in several occasions and if they ask something of me, the first thing I would confirm is what language they would use
Some of them are able speak Malay perfectly, so I use Malay as well
Some of them can only speak English, so I use English
I don't know if it's rude, but I'd rather confirm it out of the front rather than doing the polite game
Very good idea if you are in India. Since there are 12 major languages and many more in between.
Definitely not rude.
@@vidard9863 I agree, it shows consideration if you ask politely.
@Ayaan Most people tourists are likely to interact with would know English, Hindi, or both.
South Indians (who usually won't be comfortable with Hindi) are very likely to speak English, so unless you're going to Odisha or something, you're bases are covered.
@@achowdhury47 और ऐसे proclaim करना कि हम लोग multilingual है, इसलिए हुम तुमसे बेहतर है, सिर्फ टूरिस्टों की दिमाग मे घबराहट पैदा कर देता है। भाई घमंड को शांत रखो ताकि लोग यहाँ आके भारत की खूबसूरती का आनंद लेने और इतिहास को समझने की रुचि हमारा घमंड देख कर न खो जाए।
To me it always happens the opposite: as soon as I speak some Japanese they go full mode and then I don't understand anything because they speak fast and using keigo :(
Same thing happened to me with this Japanese couple, I barely introduced myself in my broken Japanese when the wife just started talking only Japanese to me. But obviously not everyone is the same.
Genos too bad, you might have turned down her offer of a three way lol
@@gaijinhakase1575 they were an elderly couple, omfg. get your mind out of the gutter please.
Well, that escaleted quickly.
Genos it’s a joke, calm the fuck down you dunce
the part where you said it's possible to not even know what language someone spoke to you in is 100% possible. my friend does the exact same thing. while we're in a call his mum might ask him a question and I hear him reply in english to her over the microphone. I say to him "so, did she ask you that question in english or in your native language?" and he stops and thinks, and he can't even recall. it was only 10 seconds ago but he has no idea. he presumes it was in the native language but he just can't really tell for sure, all that he took in was the meaning and nothing else.
i experienced that myself. i am fluent in both english and japanese but on the internet i mostly go to english pages. so, there's this time where i was browsing a certain meme site everyone knows, and a page from a manga was posted. i went to the comment section and read a comment that say something like "i wish i could read japanese" and i was confused so i checked back to the post and it's really written in japanese. apparently my brain just took the meaning and assumed it was written in english because i found it in english site.
More half life son
Accelerated bhopped so hard he landed in a japanese content
Didn't expect you to be here
Hello gordon
3:29 Japan does have a sordid history of heavy discrimination against non-Japanese too, though. They've progressed a lot since then, but way back in the day non-Japanese were extremely dehumanized and treated cruelly. Not to critique Japan too harshly, it's just wrong to say 'we were the ones discriminated against', as though there was no such discrimination on the Japanese side.
No country has a clean history in that area.
Yeah that comment was weird, at best they were talking about Japanese people in internment camps during WW2, but that seems like a reach unless a Japanese person a generation or two ago was in that and then went back to Japan.
Who were the ones discriminating? The government or the population? How many? Was the majority? How many were the majority? Why does a majority justifies the discrimination of unrelated people?
@@HyperLuigi37I agree wholeheartedly.
As a foreigner with reasonable Japanese in Japan, I quite often say something in Japanese and get an English reply. I think in general people do it to try to be helpful. It's a good thing to some extent. After going to gigs of my favourite band (Oreskaband) I tend to go and chat with members of the band at the merch table and ultimately it's easiest to communicate in a mix of Japanese and English. Sometimes I don't have enough Japanese, sometimes they don't have enough English.
That said, with regard to appearances, I can see what the skit is getting at. I hesitate to point out "flaws" in Japanese society, because it's obviously not my native culture and I don't understand everything, nor do I imagine that my way of doing things is always right, but I certainly don't subscribe to the indignant viewpoint you sometimes see with stuff like this that as a foreigner (especially as an immigrant in a country), another country is above your criticism because it isn't "yours".
I think the issue pretty clearly relates to Japanese conceptions of nationality, since Japanese people are most often ethnically Japanese, born and raised in Japan, Japanese-speaking, etc. That idea runs into trouble with people like Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, a naturalised British citizen, or Rei Mastrogiovanni, a Japanese guy raised in the USA with an Italian-American dad, and it runs into trouble very often if people try to apply it to other nationalities where mixing and migration are substantially more common.
That said, I'm not dead keen on the skit - I think it's kind of funny, and it's fairly relatable as an immigrant in Japan, but I don't quite like how it positions the characters. It feels too much like, frankly, complaining, and certainly too much like an accusation. Nothing that comes across like an accusation is ever heard by the people who need to hear it.
Nationality is a tricky subject.
I can tell you what my passports say, and I can tell you where I was born, and I can even tell you where my ancestors are from going back several generations.
and yet, I'm pretty much treated as a foreigner in every country I've ever visited or lived in, including the ones I should be able to claim as my own.
There's more to it than what race you are, or what it says on your passport, or where you were born, what language you speak, how you look...
I honestly don't know what it is in the end...
When you are regarded as an outsider pretty much everywhere, even the places that in theory, you would think you should 'belong', it really makes you question what it really means to have a nationality, or a culture...
I know I technically have one, but it certainly doesn't usually feel like I do...
@Ginnungagap I mean, I'm pretty sure the entire reason the skit resonated with so many people's experiences is that it was a pointed exaggeration of an unconscious bias many foreigners have encountered in dealing with Japanese society, but nah - I'm sure you're just smarter than everyone else who watched the skit and the most simplistic possible interpretation has to be correct.
That "no country is safe of my criticism" is a Leftist tactic to endorse cultural colonization. It's bullsh¡t, a very American and european thing to use, it ignores completely the culture, values and desires of the native population to put it in a level *below* your own culture so you can tell them *what's better for them, you, an American democrat telling other countries natives how they must build society and what is morally right and wrong.*
I have definitely had this experience, but I've always chalked it up to my poor Japanese and the expectation that I will speak English. The funniest thing about it is that my father-in-law won't understand the Japanese that I'm speaking and look confused. My wife will then state in Japanese that I'm speaking Japanese to him and when he listens the second time he can usually understand. I don't really understand it myself since it seems clear to me when someone is speaking Japanese versus English.
It seems like it would be more annoying to be a non-English speaking westerner in Japan where most people would then assume you knew English.
Do you have an accent? Some people struggle with accents. I had this odd situation once where a Thai and British person were speaking English to each other. At one point they couldn't understand the sentence the other had said and I had to simply repeat the same sentence again for the other person to understand because I have a rather neutral accent. 🤣
Actually happened to some family friends (we're all Italian), they have a very tenuous grasp of English (let alone English with any degree of accent that they're unfamiliar with), and have actually bothered to learn some Japanese before going to a two week trip to Japan. Everyone kept talking to them in English, despite the fact at that point they understood basic Japanese way better than basic English.
I feel that it is Cultural, just think of the Most popular American Cartoons like The Simpsons, Family Guy and even South Park.
They are all exaggerated versions of Americans. It's interesting that people even admitted to acting like the waiter, i appreciate their honesty. We can all learn from each others experiences. Peace and love from Los Angeles. CA
@ I wanted to argue with you, because I'm none of those things, but as a whole, you're right. It's sad, especially the lack of values.
It's dumb to not take the word of those it's happening to. I'm white and I speak Japanese and this situation has happened to me several times. Of course the scenario in the video is exaggerated for comedic effect, but it's not unheard of to get an "eigo akan" in response to a perfectly fine Japanese question.
@ hit them with that nihongo jozu
I hope I'll meet an asian speaking fluent Lithuanian, hell any foreigner :D
I'm from Africa and in my home country we have asian people fluent in our dialect, when you live in a place you eventually learn the language.
Did ya say Lithuanian?!
@@TamagoSenshi that's what she said, ba dum tss
Netiku kad kas noretu ismokti lietuviskai kalbet.
Lol! My family is Lithuanian, but they fled the area during wartimes when my grandma was a young girl to come to America. It was always one of her regrets not speaking Lithuanian around her kids and grandkids, because back then everyone wanted to conform to being American. I'm still salty I didn't get to effortlessly learn another language growing up just because my grandma was scared of being "un-American." Who gives a shit? >:( I want to learn now as an adult, but it almost feels pointless. I'm a half-breed Lithuanian anyway, so I'm not sure how well I'd even fit in if I visited. Are they pretty nice nowadays, or are they still super racist about "interbreeding"? Not trying to offend anybody, but from my understanding from my grandma's family and grandpa's family (two proudly "full blooded" Lithuanian families) they always talked mad shit growing up about people diluting their pure bloodlines LOL! Right in front of grandkids etc! Bunch of ridiculous racist old white people. What are your thoughts, Jig?
Whenever my Chinese gf visits me in Japan this is exactly what happens. I book the hotel, we arrive and I try to check in. They try to ignore me and speak to her but she doesn't speak Japanese so they have to try it in English. Then they ask us for our passports and instead I hand over my Japanese driving license.
Why can't you not be obstinate and hand over your passport like they asked, you aren't japanese, and your passport would prove it, but you want to push this stupid leftist message and so hand over your driving license, how pathetic.
@@pola5392 What the hell are you talking about? They obviously are Japanese, hence the Japanese license.
@@SupermewX300 All the BPS freaks like to spill over to Japan themed channels to spew bullshit
@@pola5392 Do you have dementia?
@Ginnungagap Why would you think he isn't japanese? All we know about him is that he doesn't look japanese, which doesn't say anything about his actual nationality (which is literally the point of the video that's being discussed).
I've seen this happen for Chinese too. I worked in a small Chinese restaurant in Canton for a while and was the only one fluent in English. Two caucasians walked in and the owner immediately calls for me. I'm busy helping another table so I tell her I'd be right there. An older waitress tries to seat them but seems to get flustered because she can't understand them.
I get over to them after a minute and find that they speak fluent Mandarin and one of them even understands and speaks many words in Cantonese (albeit with a Mandarin accent). Both of them had been in Canton for more than 10 years and in fact didn't even speak English. They used to live in France.
People use a lot of context ques in processing the world around them. If a non-east-asian face is too strongly associated with non Japanese speakers, the waiter might literally just not be processing what they're saying at all. Then they all start stringing long sentences together... panic, embarrassment. If you understand people it's easy to see how it'll happen.
What I find helps is short sentences, simple gestures, and point to the menu item. 🙂
Yesterday I was watching a video in French, then immediately after I watched one in Japanese. For a while my head was still expecting to hear French and my perception of the Japanese was totally garbled. Strange feeling, but there wasn't a table of people all talking at me and expecting me to take their order. So it wasn't a problem 😅
I look Asian but when a shop keeper noticed I was struggling with Japanese they spoke in English...although it was in a tourist heavy area (Dotonbori) so might be expected
I'm German but I've lived most of my life in the USA, so not only do I have a German accent when I speak English, but when I speak German I have an American accent. When I go to visit in Germany, people often try to talk to me in English. They think I'm just an American who speaks German, and they want to show off their English to me.
I had the opposite problem. I was a foreigner in Okayama and nobody spoke English. I had a hard time because of a lack of English at first. It depends on where you live in Japan. But yeah, please learn Japanese. I get a similar thing in America because I am Puerto Rican but I barely speak Spanish and people in Miami constantly try to speak to me in Spanish.
Really nice how you Mr. Yuta present all the different points of view during your videos, explain each of them in a way that helps people like myself (who doesn't know much about Japan). Really appreciate it.
I love Yuta's approach because he acknowledges these issues and discrepancies that people find fascinating about Japan WITHOUT feeling the burden that most Japanese would feel that they must have a solution or an answer. He is open to discussion for the sake of it.
A little bit similar thing is too common here in Finland. What I mean is that if a foreigner tries to speak Finnish but struggles more than just a tiny bit, then Finns quite easily switch to speaking English, which makes it a bit too easy for foreigners to not learn Finnish even when they want to.
Yeah it's in germany too.
@@junihase1496 My wife visited Frankfurt some years ago. Her experience was that a lot of people didn't seem to speak English. However, that was quite a few years ago and maybe the customer service people just happened to be older than average or something.
@@seneca983 true. But it's more a thing from the last 10 years. When i started to work in service i was like the only one that could speak english. Well i started i was a lot younger then my co workers, and mostly my beloved polish mid 40s coworker has the attitude " i needed to learn this, so are you".
Well now it's like every second Services person speak english.
And a lot of them have an attidude like "yeah but why not?"
@@junihase1496 Good to hear.
I'm Brazilian and I wanted to learn Finnish, Swedish, German and other languages but I always hear that people are using English more and more.
Some real excellent comments by "Those Who Get It." Thanks for that!
"Different people have different experiences".
What a shocker!
But yeah, it's always funny to hear the side that's being mocked in a joke like that.
Is it weird or counter-offensive that the almost all of the "offended" posts had their names in English. ;-)
well to be fair it’s quite normal in Japan to use english characters for many things. It’s not the same as an American using Japanese characters.
This definitely happens to me all the time and it is NOT and exaggeration, it doesn’t help that my husband is Japanese either. Whenever we go out and I order my food they’d just completely ignore me like I don’t exist. Even if I pay for dinner they’d give the change back to my husband!
Well as a service worker i have to say this is rude. You always give the change back to the person that paid.
I feel like that's a level of disrespect you can report
6:40 me and my mom are like that, she talks to me in German and I reply in English
Chris You’ll lose your ability to speak German if u keep doing that. Embrace your bilingual possibilities. What a privilege you could have!
i do the same in Russian. It would be better for me if I spoke Russian back, I just forget...
@@chiaraippoliti Not actually, in that case both languages are being worked on simultaneously.
@@roridev I'd argue there is a benefit in aiming to speak the language because understanding it doesn't automatically translate into being able to speak it. It's similar to learning to read a new word in our mother tongue, there may be hiccups in pronunciation, grammar or proper use of new vocabulary. Or similar to a tongue twister, just because a person can hear and understand one doesn't mean they can say it too. So it becomes more likely to retain a language by actively using it rather than only passively listening.
@@mica4977 I'm not denying that.
Now that I have been to Japan, I can confirm this happens. I got lost on the way back to my hotel and asked two women if they knew where it was, and they got very flustered and replied with lots of pointing and hesitant English. I ended up getting even more lost.
That being said, there were plenty of people who spoke to me in Japanese too and I was really happy!
(also that Calvin Rockwell sounds kinda r/iamverysmart to me imho)
Maybe it's hard to believe for some people because it may be a rare circumstance for this to happen. In either case, it's a kind of "current year, don't just assume" joke. I think it's important to think about this possibility even if it never happens, because there is easily a possibility for this to happen anyway. Let's at least take from the video that we should be patient and listen to what other people have to say, I think that's the most important thing.
It happens to me frequently, I’ve lived here about a decade. It depends on how “foreign” you look. I look super foreign, however my other friend is often mistaken for Japanese before he speaks (he has similar language ability and is British- when he speaks Japanese it is clear he is not a native Japanese speaker). I can tell you that it is TOTALLY different the way he is treated. I really don’t like it. In one example, I was with a Japanese friend and I ordered and the waiter could not understand me. My Japanese friend had to repeat word for word what I said for the order to be taken. I asked my Japanese friend what I did wrong, he said absolutely nothing, the waiter is an idiot. It is also annoying that there are so many comments, as detailed in your video above, that seem not to realize that it really really does happen and is an issue especially for super foreign looking people. Sometimes I am told “there is no way you speak Japanese” before I say anything in Japanese. The video is not even that much of an exaggeration. Some times I cannot overcome my physical appearance enough to make it register that I am speaking Japanese. And while my Japanese is not perfect it does work with I would say 75% of Japanese people without issue.
When I was living in Tokyo, it happened to my friends and I several times.
Once, I went to a restaurant and order my food in Japanese and the employee started speaking to me in English, even when I replied in Japanese. It was a bit annoying at the time.
The experience is quite different for me. They actually liked it when you try to speak in japanese. The thing is, they’re just very strict in pronunciation and accent, that they won’t understand what you say when you mispronounced the word or if it didn’t sounded like real japanese?(Like Westerners fuses their accent when speaking Japanese or when the word was borrowed from English but you didn’t say it in Japanese accent). For example, Pizza they wouldn’t understand if you didn’t say it as ピザ(PIZA, like tower of Piza)
Lmfao. I found that video both hilarious and also relatable. This scenario happens across many cultures and languages.
I've had a similar experience with speaking Spanish to a Hispanic lady. She claimed that I can't speak Spanish for some reason, even though I was speaking fluent Spanish. Very frustrating
Thats weird. Usually, Hispanic or at least latinamericans will tell you you are good enough to be understood even with basic Spanish.
Noli me tangere
I thought so too until about a few months ago. It was the first time it happened to me. I spoke Spanish(broken but understandable) to a customer and she was telling me in English “no speak English”. So I said it SLOWER and a bit LOUDER and she still didn’t understand. So I called my Chilean manger who said the same thing I did but for some reason NOW she understood. Like, what the heck, I was so ticked off. And when I told her the total in English, she understood and gave me perfect change.
@@MyselfandComics sorry you had that experience, but in your case it was worse. That kind of person are very rare, that person was the kind of latino that denies they are Latinos trying to become usonians as much they can but they aren't either good at English neither at Spanish. Their brains are like that. They are the kind of Latins that when they get the usonian residency they look down to the rest of their people. It's a weird thing but it happens to some, sadly. It's more of a mental thing on them.
Noli me tangere
Yes I agree. I’m glad that only happened to me twice.
It's da japanese boy Yuta, spitting the truth again! Props man! You are great guy, keep it up!
6:29 This is interesting to me, because as I'm getting better with my Japanese, I am having full conversations at normal speed with Japanese people and I don't realize it. I ended one such conversation thinking "Wow, his English is great!", but later I realized we spoke entirely in Japanese. A native-English-speaking Spanish teacher told me that she once had a conversation completely in Spanish with a native speaker and after it was over, she asked a friend who was also there what she thought about something funny the Spanish-speaker said. Her friend had to remind the teacher that she doesn't understand Spanish, so had no idea what they were talking about. The teacher completely forgot she was speaking Spanish!
It's one of those nice experiences that reinforces that your hard work learning another language is paying off.
Yuta thank you for this Video! I am a Dosanko born in Sapporo and raised in Tokyo. I have had these things happen BUT only in places like Shibuya and Harajuku when I go to GyuMeshi places or Ramen shop that Only see Foreigners All Day. One Waiter told me in broken English where to sit and how to order. I answered in perfect Japanese and his tone changed so fast and he looked a lot more relaxed 😁 My advice to visitors of Japan Please learn enough to make Japanese a little more comfortable 😉
@Karth Williams
this is the most reassuring and truly understanding comment that I've seen here. Which actually addresses the possibility of someone not trying to be sinister, but actually trying to accommodate you.
Your comment is reassuring, because you actually think about other people's existence.
Rather than Forcing someone to take responsibility for something that's not their fault.
Other times, Japanese can sense a different air around someone, and this is what we are used to communicating with. Sometimes it's used to find common ground. yet it's second nature to the point that most Japanese don't even notice that they do this.It's very difficult to explain to actual foreigners because most Japanese can't articulate it.
But if this is a form of hypersensitivity, which most actual foreigners don't understand, or oftentimes neglect, then the forcing of Japanese to change based on misunderstanding is, really damaging. Because when you were repress something, you often times repress the senses as well which were utilized to sense. We become more open to attack and more vulnerable. Because half our defense mechanisms that are second nature, are gone.
Karth, thank you for taking the time and care, ultimately cherishing life by having respect and trying to understand, rather than judge..
it's people like you who actually allow things to truly progress in the world around you.
OMG this made me laugh, we called this the dreaded "Gaijin BLOCK"「外人ブロック」back in the day. On every trip to 日本 since 1978 without a doubt, i've seen this to some degree. The video is the extreme case however, I could never blame the waitress. She's in the middle of doing her job, most likely hated learning English at school (and probably flunked) and then a bunch of big, loud, noisy, and possibly drunk foreigners come into the restaurant and in her head she panics and she's like, "OMFG, I failed English! What do I do?" Queue: Gaijin Block.
We are all products of our respective environments so to me it's totally understandable and I never get angry. In fact, I think it's cute. I make it a game to see how fast I can break the barrier. Once in a restaurant I started to cough yelling "mizu!, mizu!" and that broke the block it about 5 secs. Another time I was trying to buy runners in Hiroshima. The lovely lady stuck with serving me just froze like a statue so I sat on the floor, took off my show and put it in her hand and asked her how big my feet were? That was my longest I think, almost 30 secs.
My favourite way though is to pretend my Japanese is non-existent except for the necessary words and then I find that my words then match their perception of me. Over the course of our interaction though somehow my Japanese gets slowly better to the point I get my favourite phrase with my change. ええ、日本語お上手ですね！。
Yuta you are so good at presenting different perspectives.
HAHAHAH it happened to me and also didn't happen, it really depends on the Japanese person. I didn't speak Japanese well but when I asked directions or ordered food sometimes people would freak out and run away and sometimes they would help me and help me. It really is a mixed bag like in every country. It's easy for people to sometimes dump all Japanese people in one bag because we're used to a single story but obviously living in Japan is completely different. Japan is still the best country I've ever lived in. The generosity, warm welcome and kindness I experienced there is only matched with Portugal (where I now live) I was lucky to have lived there.
This happens to me all the time! But for Spanish. Im of Mexican dissent, but I'm light skinned, so other Mexicans think im white or just dont speak spanish.
Great video and analysis of the reaction! The transition to your program was smooth as hell ;p Love your chanel, it helps a lot! 皆さん、頑張ってください！
I remember Malaysian girl experienced it too in your interview
Which video?
@@julia7810 Being Female Asian Foreigners in Japan
ruclips.net/video/qy6zQEENLW8/видео.html
On minute 4:00
i was traveling through japan last month with friends, one of which is an American born Taiwanese guy. i just thought it was funny that a lot of times people looked at our group and started talking japanese to him. it was always funny seeing this big question mark on his face.
Watched the whole video but I admit I'm always looking forward to how Yuta is going to advertise his free lessons at the end :D Thanks for the lessons!
As a Japanese teacher who hasn't any Japanese relatives (I'm Argentinian, my surname is Italian and my family ancestors are Spanish and Italian), I can say that some people judge teachers by their appearance. Like, if you're not Japanese or Nikkei, you can't teach Japanese or you're bad teaching it. Some institutions divide teachers between Nikkei and Hinikkei (not Japanese descendants), although it's changing and they're considering that everyone who has a relation with the Japanese culture is a Nikkei.
As for the video, when I was in Japan some years ago I experienced the same situation: a waitress went to talk to a Japanese trip companion although there were people who spoke Japanese fluently in our small travel group. That was because we weren't Japanese in appearance. However, and of course, the video is just a joke, that's why it's exaggerated.
As a foreigner in Taiwan who has had a lot of experiences similar to the one in the video, I just wanna say: I understand and empathize with the Japanese perspective here, and I can see how some Japanese would think that it's an attack on their character, but it's not. It's just an expat joke. You gotta let us have those. We're already marginalized (not discriminated, just marginalized) in the societies we live in, and working really hard to attain some level of cultural fluency but still being considered an outsider can be frustrating, so we joke like this to vent a little bit.
I wish I can speak Japanese like those people. :-)
I speak Japanese, once I was walking around Tokyo, so, I asked to a Asian aparience girl すみませんごベルメントブイルヂンどこですか。and she told me: SORRY, I DON'T SPEAK JAPANESE, I'M CHINESE, WHY DID YOU THINK I WAS JAPANESE? (INDIGNANT FACE). I was cold... That happened to me, it's not the same, but you can translate the all situation from another perspective to other.
Sounds more like typical Chinese racism but yeah
@@buddhanature3098 he didn't knew that she was chinese cause yeah asian ppl have some physical ressemblance like in every ethenies that's not like he was talking to an asian in occident and so he thought that every asian were talking japanese for exemple
@Ginnungagap You might want to look again. There's several layers of ethnocentricism and racial context there.
That Japanese sentence was kinda clunky tho ngl... if that's exactly how you said it
It's funny thinking about accents...
Well, also kind of frustrating.
See, I've lived in 3 different countries and speak 3 languages, give or take (one of which is not the language of any country I've lived in). On top of this I know fragments of some 3 or 4 other languages, to some extent.
But the idea that someone would mistake an accent for a different language strikes me as... Odd, given that of all the languages I've learnt anything about, the moment I can identify what language someone is speaking from what I've learnt comes many many, MANY years before I have any idea what they're saying.
Case in point I can identify Japanese, Indonesian, Chinese, Swedish, Danish, Italian, French and spanish from listening to people speak for maybe 20-30 seconds even though I speak NONE of these languages, and japanese aside probably know 20 words or less in any of them, if that. (Japanese being maybe more like 200-300 words on a good day.)
The other thing about accents, is how frustrating it can get if people read too much into them.
For instance, in the country I was born in, and lived a good 50% or more of my life, I'm perpetually treated as a 'foreigner'.
Why? Because I don't sound like a local, and never have. But when people start trying to guess where I might be from based on my accent, it's inevitably completely wrong in every sense. Usually it's not even a country I've visited, much less lived in, but somehow that's what they guess...
Except a few years ago I suppose where I had spend 8 years living in England, and that apparently had enough of an effect on the way I speak for people to think I might be English.
But, that was a first for me, anyone guessing anything that has even the slightest kernel of truth to it... (since I did live there for 8 years, and have ancestors from there, it's a more accurate statement than most.)
When you get to things like people in a place such as japan assuming things about me I sometimes think of the third country I lived in, which is not an english-speaking country (I've technically been bilingual from a young age), and sometimes I wonder...
Sure, I speak English, but many people from that country do not, or do so very poorly.
If someone in Japan tried to speak English to them they'd be almost as lost as if someone tried to speak Japanese to them, regardless of how well that person spoke English.
Which leads to another kind of awkward assumption;
The idea that someone that looks 'white'/'European' will understand English...
It's not the worst assumption ever, but it's also not exactly as accurate as you might think.
Part of the reason I speak 3 languages is precisely BECAUSE when you live in Europe you're quite likely to run into situations where you might run into people that do not speak anything but their own language.
Realistically if you're in mainland Europe, and want to be able to interact with a reasonable number of people, you probably need to know at least English, French and German, and possibly Spanish and Italian for good measure...
Even then that won't work out everywhere, but that's going to give you moderately decent odds of being able to find a common language for most people...
Some countries though, create people that don't seem to ever try to be able to understand or communicate with anyone else.
English speaking nations are notorious for behaving as though everyone should just speak English.
It's pure luck really that so many people DO speak English when it's not their native language...
Oh, and the fun thing about living in England is the sheer number of radically different Accents there are, some of which are borderline incomprehensible.
Scottish accents can range from odd, but mostly understandable to 'wait, are you still speaking English?', and that's only one of several dozen pretty diverse accents most of which can make you wonder where the line is between an accent, a language, and a dialect actually is...
Speaking of which... Flemish and Dutch... Are considered separate languages, yet you can almost guarantee that anyone who speaks one of those can make sense of what the other is saying, even though it will sound very... Strange to them...
Actually going back to weird assumptions though, it struck me a few times online about how awkward some people can be when you use any kind of japanese words or phrases whatsoever.
This is especially bizarre to me because:
1. Online anonimity. You don't know who it is you're talking to - for all you know you just tried to insult a Japanese person for speaking Japanese, which... Is strange.
2. What's so special about japanese to prevoke these kinds of reactions anyway? I say something in German, nobody bats an eye and may even assume I AM German (unless they're German themselves, because then they'd notice how horribly broken my words are), but try that with japanese and people freak out. XD - The irony, to me at least, is that doing this is not an attempt to claim I am either of these things, but even if it was, claiming I was German would be as nonsensical as claiming I was japanese, and yet one seems to result in being attacked for even vaguely hinting that I so much as thought about trying to speak the language, where the other people would take for granted that it's probably my native language if I didn't point out otherwise, which is just... Bizarre, and really says something about what people assume about others on the internet...
As for identity, I can't particularly claim to have much of one... When you move around as much as I have, the notion of being FROM somewhere starts to seem a bit... Odd and loses a lot of it's meaning.
Where I'm 'from' is pretty much wherever I've been living recently. My 'culture' is a haphazard mishmash of every place I've lived, all the media I've been exposed to, and all the various influences of the many countries I've visited, and it shows, because the net result of this is being treated as 'other' or 'foreign' pretty much everywhere, including the countries that I have the strongest claim on being my 'home', (both because of having lived there, and where my ancestors are from.), but no, I am, ultimately, a person from nowhere, with no real country or culture of my own... Or, to turn that around, no culture other than my own, personal mess of things.
And that... Can be surprisingly awkward. Wherever I go, it's always the same...
So a 'joke' like this doesn't feel like something specific to any given culture...
It feels more like... This is my entire life... All the time... No matter where I am.
... Wow that's needlessly depresssing...
Well, have fun not reading all of this pointless rambling I guess. XD
Anyway, this is getting so random, rambly and confused at this point I think it may be time to stop... XD
Don't write youtube comments when you're half asleep...
It's not likely to end well...
Monster reply, read all of it 👍
From my experience it really depends on context. If someone would not expect me to speak japanese it will take a few tries to get my message through but after that everything is fine.
But yeah "日本語上手" is also still a thing. All a matter of perception I guess.
I have to say comedy like that is important because it is the best medium to transport these things in my opinion.
Would love to see more of this. :)
Btw. I love dogen's skits for that ruclips.net/video/lIH6vjyHKxM/видео.html
Barry Krein 日本語上手…お箸上手… The list of jyouzu goes on and on hahaha
i ve heard that selective language deafness is a thing. that actually happens.
It's all about appearances. If you look a certain way people will treat you a certain way. This is not only true for Japan but a lot of countries. If you are in Paris and look totally like a chinese tourist they probably will try to use english even when in reality you might be french with asian decent. The same thing is true vice versa in China. It's not only race but also overall appearance. If you look rich people will treat you different then if you look poor, sometimes for the better sometimes for the worse. People are biased toward appearance and the only thing that can change that is if you would change human nature itself
This happened to me so many times in Japan. Granted, I'm not exactly fluent in Japanese, but it was still weird to experience it all the time, especially since most of the people I talked to were even less fluent in English. I think many Japanese people would just see my white face coming and prepare themselves for English, and then not be able to adjust when I actually open the conversation in Japanese. My best experience was speaking to this somewhat older lady, she responded in Japanese but seemed to realize that I'm an exchange-student learning the language, so she spoke clearly and used simple vocabulary so the conversation was easy for me to follow. There was also this one time I went to a castle (probably in Okayama... Not sure, I visited so many castles and museums during my stay that they kind of meld together) with a friend and bought the tickets in Japanese. The woman at the ticket stall first tried to speak English but realized that I can handle Japanese, so it went pretty smoothly. Then she asked where we are from, so I said I'm from Finland and my friend is from France, and she responded with something like "so neither of your first language is English either" and seemed surprised.
In a restaurant, I am sure a lot of foreigners are relieved when the waitress greets them in English. Especially if the restaurant serves tourists. So for a waitress, you could argue she is just trying to do her job, making the customers feel welcome. It would be weird for a waitress to persist like that if her customers preferred Japanese, that would be negating the point of speaking English. Maybe some waitresses get nervous and fail to KY (take a hint)
I have had many experiences where people refuse to speak Japanese to me. I can remember joining a group ride at a mountain bike club to make new friends. No one would talk to me in Japanese even though my ability was very good at the time (~N2). It was very frustrating. Some people in Japan have a hard time treating foreigners as regular (Japanese) people. This was in the late 90's so maybe things are different now.
This happens in China as well. People often use English even if I try to speak in mandarin
Well, that's funny. In my case even though I'm clearly not Japanese nor look asian at all. When I speak in Japanese to anyone they reply to me in Japanese. Some of them even look relief that they don't need speak in English. But that doesn't happen to my Vietnamese friend, people always answer him in English. That actually kinda bad cuz it makes him think that he doesn't speak Japanese well, even though he speaks a better japanese than me.
While this never really happened to me when I lived in Japan, I have been offered an English menu several times in a restaurant I've frequented, and already knew what I wanted. I always ordered in Japanese, and had no issues. Once, when I went to a supermarket that was just below where I worked, one of the cashiers started up a conversation in Japanese with me about what I was eating: sushi. She was impressed that I know how to use chopsticks. I told her I've been using them since I was a kid, so it was quite easy. I haven't had any negative experiences regarding language usage.
that is just because you look like Japanese.Appearance conquers mindset of Japanese people.
@@evgeniyushkov7103 If you mean my mannerisms, maybe. I tend to have that ability to blend in. But my appearance? I stood out and have been a target for some strange people, usually on the train.
Thanks for making this follow up video!
I relate in another way. English is my native language, but I also speak some Spanish. I live in Miami, which has a very large Spanish language population. If I initiate a conversation in Spanish, they will respond in English. Even if I keep speaking Spanish, they still use English.
This video has been between your finest, Yuta! Thank you very much!!
This happened to me in Indonesia ! I could not Get a pot of tea at a cafe 😃
I was lost in Tokyo and I asked for directions (in japanese) at the station from two people at the ticket office. One of them just stared at me blankly, so I repeated myself and he said he didn't understand. The second guy just laughed and told me exactly where I needed to go. I think the expectation that a foreign looking person will not speak Japanese is just so strong, for some, that their brain just switches off and they don't listen. Obviously not for an extended period like in the sketch but that's just exaggeration for the comedy.
I didn't realize how well I understood the Japanese language until I watched this video with Yuta. I understood nearly every word he said! I think it's safe to go to Tokyo now. Who would have thought watching subtitled animes as a kid would pay off with this level of comprehension!
最高コメントｗ
You better learn hiragana and katakana and some basic kanji before you go.
I too find it perplexing why some japanese don't get the point. I am half british japanese raised in oita and it ocassionally happens to me. I like to classify myself as なんちゃって外人
I went Tokyo last year, this was the first time I visit Japan.
I found out actually a lot Japanese people can speak english as well as in Malaysia people.
Appearances are everything in Japan - more important than the obvious! One of the first things you realize about Japan. Yuta sanleaves nothing 'under the rug' - ganbatte ne!
I'm not japanese but i can speak Japanese pretty fluently. While it have happened to me before usually with people on the information booth who thought it might be easier for them to explain in English in which case i don't mind, but sometimes it does happened in a few stalls. But for the most part because of Japanese education being really good most people actually just think i'm half or something, though again i visit mostly places that often received foreigners, the stuff i mentioned before only happened in specific places. For people that have visited Japan the cities i went to are Oita(which have many international establishment) and Nagoya.
Thank you for the video.
It was very informative 😀
Yuta, you are awesome, I love all your work. Thank you
I always love how the lessons ad come naturally at the end
@@Madhattersinjeans to watch anime without subtitles is and will ever be the true objective of those who study japanese. It doesnt matter that they will never be japanese.
Instead of judging by appearance, I listen for an accent. If I think I'm more fluent in this person's native language than the one they're trying to use with me, I switch over.
If they'd like to continue struggling in their non-native language, I don't see any reason to be offended.
"I speak Japanese fluently"
I do NOT trust anyone who says this line on the internet. There are so many RUclipsrs saying this confidently, but almost no one is actually fluent.(The only one who is fluent is probably The Anime Man). For most of the others, we have to be aware from the start that it's a foreigner trying to speak Japanese, otherwise our brain won't be able to process it as Japanese in the first place. Well, even then, Japanese people will say ostensibly like WOAHHHH your Japanese is very good!!!! tho...
I’m Canadian and can speak Japanese (not fluently) so my view might be different, I thought it was funny. I like how some people explained their confessions.
My mom parents are from Holland and when she was younger, her parents spoke Dutch and she spoke English back to them.
People like that do exist in Japan from my experience living there, but really a small minority like 1/100 or less.
yeah. that video was definitely exaggerated. cements the "japan is xenophobic" stereotype when in reality it's not true
@@fuckmen3734 Eh well it kinda is though, especially of you're a solo male traveler. Yeah sure most people are fine but some have been known to single out and pick on foreigners. Random Japanese bullying is definitely a thing.
@@fuckmen3734 They can be xenophobic and racist, yes
As a foreigner, it happened to me a couple of times, but thinking about it, it happened always with young prople, so maybe it was because they were inexperienced at the job.
On the flip side, I've had old ladies start a conversation in heavy kansai dialect with me at the bus stop (and I've learnt a lot from them).
Honestly never ran into this when I was living near Osaka a couple years back. Had no problem holding the conversation in Japanese. Honestly the worst I really ever had was people often felt the need to pause the conversation to say something like "oh you speak Japanese?", but that was really to be expected as I am clearly not Japanese.
From my experience, I ALWAYS see this! My friend speaks native Japanese but is American and Japanese people will almost always look at me for a response. I am not Japanese and can only speak basic Japanese but I look very Japanese due to my Asian heritage. That funny video is lived almost everything day for my friend.
Happens everywhere it's an honest mistake most of the time. I was on both sides of it, having pleasant conversations in English with people even though we were both Czech...
Also when I was working at a hotel here in CZ I had checked in Japanese guy who spoke perfect English to me when I talked in my ok Japanese and it was visible that he only realised what happened when he was about to enter elevator...
I only had this experience in Asakusa, Tokyo of all places. The waiter at a restaurant understood our order and our “thanks but no thanks” when he gave us an English menu, but he constantly stared, wide-eyed, at us from across the restaurant, and then failed to understand us when he asked where we come from (he asked in English, we responded in Japanese). It was really frustrating but it’s only ever happened that one time to me. Even in the deep inaka where I lived, everyone spoke to me normally when I spoke Japanese.
He sounds like a strange cat. lol
I love how Yuta always tries so hard to offend nobody in his videos.
He's a nice Nihonjin boy
Something similar happens in Portugal, people even comment that Portugal is the worst country to visit if you want to learn portuguese. But the reason behind this isn't just a question of cultural misinterpretation, it's just that most portuguese people handle english pretty well and we don't want to be unpolite and start speaking portuguese with someone who's still learning haha.
I’m surprised to see how many people said “this wouldn’t happen” when it has happened to me so many times.
I think a good idea for reactions is seeing if people here know what language gairaigo words come from. There is an assumption that they are all English but many of them are not.
During my work I use Japanese on a daily basis. My colleagues are used to that they can communicate in Japanese with me. However, outside the company I have bumped into situations similar to the video several times. When I received the answer in English, I asked the person to talk to me in Japanese, then he continued in English, while I tried to continue speaking in Japanese, but he didn't switch to Japanese, and I started to feel awkward... So I switched to English. I have to add that my native language is not English, I'm Hungarian. As a foreign language I use Japanese more often than English, so it would have been easier for both of us to speak Japanese...
But the same thing happens in other countries. When I was moving around Austria and Germany a long time ago, I spoke German language at an intermediate level. In Austria I had no problem with communication, I even received feedbacks like "from whih German region are you from?" that made me happy. But in Germany I got responses in English many times which I just didn't understand, and discouraged me.
Szabi?
@@buddhanature3098 nem vagyok Szabi, se szabin. :D
@@japannaplo2281 I knew a Hungarian guy in Japan named Szebolch, he went by Sabi for short. I thought you might be him.
@@buddhanature3098 ohh, I see. ☺️ Nope, I'm Viki by the way. よろしくね
@@japannaplo2281 Yoroshiku onegaishimasu
This happens to me in San Antonio a lot. I am not Mexican but could pass as a mixed person with Mexican heritage because I have First nations blood in me. (Think dark hair and tan skin) I would have spanish speaking people mistaken me for such and walk up to me speaking fluent Spanish. In their defence I think it was often the people who only spoke spanish or spoke very limited english.
I am Mexicano Americano which I have done this myself. I have friends from Argentina, Brazil and Mexico which they are Japanese and speak Spanish. I love my Latino Japanese
Very balanced wonderful reaction video.
Great job.
If someone came to India and started speaking in Hindi, I would be surprised too, but I'd be really happy cuz that's awesome!
I'd love to learn Hindi
Hello from Brazil :)
@@hexyko4850 Awesome! Just go for it! All the best!
During my time in Japan people would often assume I can’t speak Japanese and speak to me in English, but they never avoided interacting with me and most were very happy to learn I understood some Japanese. I still remember one lady giving me a whole spiel about the hostel rules in English and then when I answered her in Japanese she was like 「どうしてもっと早く言わなかったですか？！」(“why didn’t you say so sooner?!” ) I think speaking English stressed her out, she was clearly very relieved 😂
I like that she suggests bringing them Hamburg steak, as if that would be familiar to them, when that's really only a thing in Japan.
Really interesting video (again!). Thanks, Yuta.
Ha, this is certainly not exclusive to Japan. One time I went to French Switzerland on a business trip, and decided to try speaking French to people. I was by no means native-level, but definitely fluent. When I got to the hotel, I went up to the reception desk and told the man in French that we had reserved two rooms under my name; without even asking, he replied to me in English. The same thing then also happened at the restaurant and at the store. I have since then spoken exclusively in English in any French-speaking country :P
It happens in the states as well, I remember hating going to restaurants when I was a kid because my family’s English sucks lol.
I'm from the U.S. and languages is one of the things I've always liked. I took Spanish enough to conversate. I know lots of Japanese words (but not good at putting together my own sentences 🤣) And some random words from other languages.
And even then, when confronted with an opportunity to shine as a Spanish interpreter I do well. But if I don't block out the panic, even my native language will all turn into one big language blob in my brain. 🤣😱 Social anxiety can be to blame sometimes I'm sure, even for those mix ups. They just panic so bad. 😂