Rukia Kuchiki I'm the only good English speaking in my school but I tried not to get called by teachers because I don't want to show off and I'm shy asfuck when I got attention.
It's not the progressive tense in this case. It's the gerund (i.e. noun form of the verb), which happens to be conjugated in the same way as the progressive. In Japanese, you can get the same with the の particle, and I think it's pretty easy to understand for a Japanese person if they can understand this, because it's basically the same in Japanese (e.g. 隣の家の庭に猫が忍び込む「の」を見た)
@@scoreunder yeah, he just didn't know the contextual distinction between the gerund and the progressive (which in Japanese is straightforward). but more importantly, it's surprising that any speakers of English would apologize for this construction as though it were some nonsense construction. the ignorance of English speakers to their own language is surprising.
@@Zerbey To be fair, he spent just 6 years there from 3-9. That's a pretty limited time according to me. I'm sure he kept learning over time but I don't see how his aforementioned history factors in as significantly as you'd think..
He was like that probably because of the Dunning-Kruger effect. As you get better at or learn more about something, you tend to lose your confidence on that stuff instead of gaining more confidence.
+Indonesia Yeah, great quote. I've tried and failed to learn Japanese, I have so much respect for anyone who can speak another language even to a tiny extent.
+That Japanese Man Yuta My guess is also being modest since he lived in the US for 6 years. On another note of what I found interesting was the cat question. It was interesting why that was question was kind of difficult. I don't even know if I could explain exactly why sneaking is the right answer. I just know that's the only word that makes sense. I kind of feel like it's the same for me learning Japanese though, particles are something I still have a hard time with.
I've heard from a few friends that it's quite embarrassing to be good at English in school, etc. because it comes across as showy and conceited. One of my friends said people used to make fun of her in school because she always tried to read with an American accent (ex. say teacheR instead of teacha--) but she was just trying to improve her pronunciation.
+Dark Moses WHEN I looked out... It's because there is a specific time noted in the sentence. That's why you have to use the past contious. I never think about it myself though, it just feels natural.
I am a native English speaker and I knew easily it was "sneaking," but I couldn't explain why, other than 'it sounds right.' Because all the other verbs in the sentence are in past tense, it seems like the answer would be sneaked (snuck). But I'm sure there's some grammatical reason it calls for a participle.
I'm not a native English speaker. I learn grammar in school. In that sentence, ''sneak'' isn't predicate verb, so its -ing or -ed don't indicate tense, but ''active or passive''.
I'm not good at english but I thought of it that he, the speaker himself is referring to himself today that yesterday presently speaking that he saw a cat sneaking Ps: I'll assume that the speaker's gender is male so it'll be easier. Also, I don't know how to explain this very well since I have a low vocabulary
+Mike Huge It's probably pretty easy for them to learn to write western alphabets, considering their symbols are generally more complicated, plus romanji is probably taught in schools anyway.
Yea i guess you're right. My girlfriend is japanese and her handwriting is just normal. You wouldnt realize that shes not western just based on her handwriting. And well, its not quite impressive to have a better handwriting than me. Iam terrible. ;) Going to ask her when exactly japanese learn romaji. Iam guessing that they learn it in middle school.
I would guess that it's because they have to be more conscious about how they write it to make sure they're writing it right. For native speakers, it just comes.
Tonald Drump You can fix that any time! The thing is, after modren technology and social media, no one ever writes with their hands anymore, which is a problem.
It's actually because he lived in America at such a young age that he speaks it so well, he learned proper English pronunciation instead of phonetic katakana pronunciation.
All languages have slang and all slang ignores proper grammar rules. Saying that something you like is "cool" (and that has nothing to do with it's physical temperature) is disregarding proper grammar. Slang is nothing more than a form of short-hand. Your comment and slang example seem to imply that it is _taught_ to schoolchildren, not absorbed through culture. May I caution you to not do that in the future. It makes you come across as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You should have at least given them a prize for their excellent acting. lol ”to sneak" would be appropriate if you applied an action and tense; like "trying to sneak" or "attempting to sneak" etc... I believe some of them thought "to sneak" had an implied action and tense, because they thought the tense carried on from the first sentence.
I don't envy anyone trying to learn English as a second language. It was only after I learned to speak Spanish that I realized how arbitrary the rules of English are.
laserwolf65 as a German I found English easy to learn, it just has a pretty poor orthography. But we all read a lot of English one way or another, so it is easy to get a lot of practice.
i learned english at a quite young age and never had problems in school. i didn't even need to study. but spanish on the other hand was super hard for me. i don't know if it was because i started learning it at the age of 14 or because my first teacher was so bad that we basically had to catch up next year and it was just too much.
@allison muszynski honestly, if you already know french, you will find japanese easy to handle to a point, phonemes wise especially, its really just AEIOU, no diphthongs, thus similar to french. there's no gender rules/words and there's no pluralisation. But in place of gender rules, you get batshit loads of intransitive/transitive verbs, shit tons of particles stacking and those bazillion word endings that they looooooove so much... but once you get used to them, they are alright. I think the harder jump for you is actually the writing system, because English and french uses the same, while to learn japanese, you have to start with the hiragana and katakana then the kanji. I was bilingual, half irish half chinese, i picked up indonesian and french in secondary school, i have been learning japanese for 7 years and i currently live in japan. the daunting part for me is honestly, besides wrapping my head around all the grammar, are the nuances and implications of the japanese language... japanese likes to not "finish" what they say.... so understanding context and nuance is a huge part, especially when you come from another culture/way of speaking that are more "direct" But languages are always fun, don't ever think of it as daunting. the good news here is, once you mastered japanese, you are good to go with korean as your next step cause the grammar rules are like same as japanese. all you will need is to learn the very easy alphabet system and vocab. you can even pick up chinese! (chinese grammar is very similar to english, actually way simpler than english, it has so little rules to it, you'll laugh) GL on your journey!
It's good. If he probably spent a year in an English speaking country, and constantly conversing with natives, I truly believe he could easily sound like a native too.
OkamI Well my native language isn't english and those tests would be freaking easy, even for those in my class who are shitty at english. (I'm 14 year old from Finland and I've had always 10 from english, because internet, games, anime, manga and shit)
@@juhaniurtti6174 you're from finland? Is there education really that good like what it rumoured? Yeah i know the statistic is a result of proper research but still,
@@milkeyway7105 I'm now 16, and in upper secondary education, completely forgot about this comment, I was a cringy 14-year-old back then. Liking it now a lot more, as in uppersec our grades don't really matter anymore, they are just there to indicate how we are learning, but don't affect our lives. But to answer your question, yes, I do think it's good, but there's nothing magical about it
Being a native English speaker, this was fun to watch! lol It made me happy when they would get an answer correct! Also wow, these sentences are really complicated compared to the type of stuff I learned in my school when taking a foreign language (French, in my case). The standards for learning a foreign language in Japan must be much higher than where I live...
I'm far from being fluent in english but this text was very easy, in my country (italy) an average middle school student can do it without having any problem.
diana tralli Yep, Chopper! English is a very weird and hard language....even native speakers don't completely understand some of its rules and such! lol
Yeah, I'm spanish, and those questions were really easy. Reading the comments, I can see all Europe seems to have a tendency to raise the dificulty bar for English test, which is both good and bad, as I've had many friends just give up entirely just because after a few basic mistakes they just couldn't catch up with the rest of the class. I'm quite proud about my English, but I still have many problems. Like "in/on". We use the same word for both, so we have some serious problems trying to distinguish when to use which one. The worst part is, it doesn't matter who I ask, they usually just go "Well... there's no rule for that, it's just that way." Huh... English sure is a weird language sometimes.
I thought everybody knew Japan is made up of over 3,000 islands. One of which they're at war with Russia over.. Not that anyone is actually doing anything but still technically at war.
+Genevieve Vavance Yuta replied in another comment: OK, here's my answer. First, some background information: - In Japanese school, being 'different' and standing out isn't always a good thing. Having an American accent makes you stand out immediately. - A lot of Japanese people feel quite insecure when they compare themselves to Western people, especially Americans. Some people hate it when a Japanese person 'acts American'. - There's generally a strong pressure to conform to Japanese society's norm. Having an American accent isn't certainly the norm. The guy was reluctant to speak English because he grew up in Japan (at least since he was 10) and had strong Japanese mentality. He was very self-conscious about his American accent because he internalised society's norm. His friend was actually totally cool with his American accent, but he simply didn't want to be 'different' and attract attention. He probably hates it when someone says, 'Oh, your English is so good.'
Another interesting video. I really appreciate that despite getting some of the questions wrong, they still wanted to prove themselves. That's the best attitude for learning a second language.
Hakuraita there is a possibility because japanese invaded philippines in ww2. It would be very rare for any families who doesn't have either a japanese, spanish and american ancestral line
their English was so good! I was really impressed with their pronunciation. English can have very confusing grammatical structures so it is understandable that they had difficulty there.
Maddisen-Alice-Rose Cottell no, where i live, thats pretty much the english knowledge of an average 13 year old, and english is not even the 2nd language in most schools(including my school)
well that's wonderful for all of you ☻ I personally don't speak a second language at all..so seeing that these random people on the streets of Japan can bust out English (a language very different to their own) impresses me.
Loved the video and I got really happy each time they got it right. Also, not directly related to the video, but I can't help but commenting on how much I loved the way you translated 懐かしい in the video, it's an amazing example of how highly contextual Japanese is, and the leap of faith you have to take sometimes when translating.
Overall I was very impressed. They could all read and understand pretty well. Some just couldn't identify how an English speaker would respond. Good job everyone :)
It's sad how people are pressured to conform to society. I think being able to speak a foreign language is pretty amazing from a perspective as an American.
+子強 I'm a Filipino and I agree, although would like to take an alternative route and share this theory about how my people, especially Visayans, are born multilinguists. Raw Concept of the Theory: The normal Visayan student learns three languages, both through home teaching, and basic education, in their young age. Home teaching indicates Bisaya and Tagalog (our national language) and English through Basic Education. Although normally English goes over the normal student, it's three languages at Tier 1. Practice and proper use of the three languages can help one proceed to Tier 2, which is the beginning of the "Beginner's Expansion Phase. Now, given both given native languages' influences from Spanish, since we were under Spanish rule for 333 years starting from 1526 (I could be wrong), the normal Filipino student, when giving the standard amount of effort required to learn another language, can easily learn and understand Spanish, since, again, a lot of Spanish words got mixed into native Bisaya and Tagalog slang. On the other hand, I would like to repeat English goes over a normal student's head at Basics level for some unknown reason, but if said student actually does learn the language as a basic, he can move onto other Germanic languages, the easiest to comprehend being German. It just goes on and on, growing and expanding like the roots of an old tree. So what do you think? Wait, that came out of nowhere
I agree! Since English was my first language, I find it boring and I like to hear foreign people speak. I speak Spanish as well, but Spanish is somewhat similar to English and I hear it everywhere, so I want to hear something else. I'm currently learning Japanese and I prefer it over my native languages. The fact that Japanese is difficult for me makes me love it even more because it creates a challenge. The writing looks beautiful, too.
+StarReel Well, Japanese start studying English in middle school through college. Whereas in most English speaking countries they don't study Japanese at all. So yes, you're correct.
+StarReel Actually, alot of people around the world are starting to learn more languages. It isn't too common yet but I'm sure it will in the future. I already know 7 languages my self
+Nikotiini +StarReel there isn't enough demand to make it necessary to learn Japanese is western counties. The only country that has Japanese as the first language is Japan. It's too specific. Mandarin and Spanish are more common for English speaking countries to learn. But I agree that English speaking countries should improve their language skills and encourage learning a second language more.
+Arkantos Its really cool actually, In English often times writing letters in a weird way, such as in reverse, is often seen as a funny character quirk. Whereas in Japanese, incorrect stroke order can be seen as laziness for lack of a better word. I believe the cultures of both Japan and the U.S.A are incredibly unique and really fun to compare.
It seems a lot of western countries don't really enforce learning another language. I live close to Toronto and we only had to take French until Grade 9. Quebecers learn English throughout the entire tenure in school I believe. I regret not taking it after Grade 9. I was really good. I have a hard time remembering a lot of it now.
you just need to be completely exposed to them and not shy away. since high school I have continuously reading hiragana and katakana so I can read them easily but I'm just now starting to learn kanji
***** Okay I got your idea. Leave the answer alone without desu or da is okay, but no need to be too surprise to hear him using desu or da ^^ But we are saying the same idea so no need to argue. Chill ^^
It would help immensely if they stopped dubbing everything on tv. I think I've learnt more English from tv and youtube than in school. Here in Finland everything but kids' shows are subbed instead of dubbed.
I just had an idea, not sure how it would work, but it's an idea. What if you were to find pairs of people, one Japanese and the other is a foreigner, and have them test the other's language? For example, the foreigner gets tested in Japanese, and the Japanese person gets tested in English. I think it would be great to see the two sides together. Just an idea. Loved this video! :D
3:48 No ways! You guys read that whole thing by yourself's and these questions, I feel like, are kinda hard. If j had to do a Japanese test like that, I'd fail for sure lol.
6:13 When the left guy started talking I was really surprised at his accent and then he said he lived in the States LOL that was why, anyway so cute hahaha.
Very interesting. In Latin, there is no "present imperfect/continuous" (sneaking), but instead of using the third-person active present (sneaks) you actually would use the present infinitive (to sneak).
+Psychic Mew Because it is a legitimate American accent. At the end he says he lived in America until he was nine, which means he had plenty of time to learn the language naturally.
This is awesome! I understand completely since I'm learning Japanese. I'm also visiting Japan at the end of the month for the first time! Very excited!
3:40 Answer number 1 isn't entirely incorrect either. It implies that the girl talked so much that you "could not have listened/heard" all of it. So in my head I read it as "You could not have possibly heard all that". These questions in testing tend to make me upset, because the answers are very subjective and need context in many cases.
Especially the one about the phone getting broken. The mother should have checked, she was irresponsible, so I didn't know what context was happening there.
It seems like the English level of these people weren't that bad (but maybe they chose to participate because they were already kind of confident in their abilities).
+RecordToDeath well we r taught English as second language but to be honest, it basically feels like that English is our primary language.. lol we do have our language Hindi as a subject but we have all the other sub in English so... I feel that both English and Hindi is my primary language.
+RecordToDeath That's because (I'm assuming) English is your first language, so you don't really need another. If it's some small language like mine you have to at some point. F. ex. I al=ost never learn anything new in English class, since I already learned it naturally by watching movies and stuff like that. Not saying you should stop learning French or anything, parce que, aprés tout, le français, c'est la langue de l'amour. ^^
araya kashyap While for me, there's no French people at all in the GTA of Ontario. If there are, they wouldn't talk to English people anyway. I'd have to move to Quebec to make use of the French, and there's no reason at all for someone living in/around Toronto to go to Quebec. So basically every French class was a waste of my time. In Japan though, they're just plain entertained by English and are therefore interested in it. Though it doesn't change the fact that English is one of the hardest languages to learn so it's no wonder they're not that good at grammar.
I'm from Chile and, honestly, this reminded me of my english classes back in primary school. Just a couple few of my classmates were good at english, the rest were... well, like most people in this video, they kinda handled it, but they weren't good (except for the awesome guy at 6:06) Spanish is very phonetic, so it took me back hearing foreign people mispronounce english like this, lol. Disclaimer: I still suck at english and I sometimes fuck up when pronunciating words, but I'm mindful of it.
Over-analyzing the grammar, that will screw you up in English.Honestly, in the US we say things the way we like, even making up words on the spot, and just assume the other people understand us unless they tell us they don't. The grammar takes a far less priority to what your actual message is, so unless we are trying to act professional we sort of destroy it on a whim. Why, because we have too many rules to keep straight to make all of them fit into informal communication, so we use the more important ones and don't look back. It is something that memorization may be more useful than understanding why, just accept it is because it is and do what your teachers taught you to do in that situation.
@ that's not true, a lot of my friends who came from Asia and have graduated from there still make grammar mistakes. I've seen a programming book author who lived in USA and came from East Europe made a lot of grammar mistakes on his book although the content and teaching are actually good.
0:50 As an American, I feel your confusion. :-) Though you got the answer incorrect, your reasoning was solid. It's just the way English is. Lots of exceptions to the rules unfortunately.
Yeah sorry guys, French accents are really harsh :D But, you know what's funny too? Seeing Japanese people try French. Reading French with Katakana is just terrible :D
They did really well. English is a fucked up language with so many irregular verbs and stuff, I wish I was this good with any foreign language I was trying to learn
True, English letters change in pronunciation depending on the word. Sometimes the a sounds like "ah" and sometimes it sounds like "ay." It's all over the place...
I notice a lot of languages have SPECIFIC pronunciations for CERTAIN words or characters or combinations of characters. Not like English, the letter "a" sounds different in different words... I struggle with my pronunciation because of this and sometimes I just want to give up
I love how his friend said "just use your American accent" like it's some kind of hidden superpower he only uses in dire situations.
omfg 😂😂😂 that made me lol
MURICA
because it was XD he wanted to give his friend a chance before he destroyed the answer XD
You're right!
+Benjie may-ag best analogy ever
THAT GUYS AMERICAN ACCENT WAS ON POINT XD
right?!? on point
Yeah I was really impressed until he said that.
+Dmorden10 Gotta love Jaehyun Man 😍
+Dmorden10 same with you
RiTE
at 6:00 that guy with the scarf , i thought that his english is so bad bc he was so shy about it but then BAM i'm actually a boss at it XDD
my mouth hung open when i heard that near-perfect midwestern accent coming from purple-coat
wise elizabeth ikr , idk why he was shy about it
Rukia Kuchiki i think he didn't want to "show off"?
momojackandluke yeah maybe
Rukia Kuchiki I'm the only good English speaking in my school but I tried not to get called by teachers because I don't want to show off and I'm shy asfuck when I got attention.
"do we get a prize?" *cuts off video*
I was not expecting the American accent from the Japanese guy! Awesome.
That guy didn't RACK DICIPRINE... when learning English!
+TheNecrocoil I believe he said he grew up in the States in early childhood.
T. B.
I believe there is a still a spark of humour left in the world, I tried to ignite said spark.
TheNecrocoil sometimes things don't always translate through technology.
British pronunciation is a lot better than American imo.
Guy: "It's past tense, but also progressive?"
English: "Yeah... sorry about that"
It's not the progressive tense in this case. It's the gerund (i.e. noun form of the verb), which happens to be conjugated in the same way as the progressive.
In Japanese, you can get the same with the の particle, and I think it's pretty easy to understand for a Japanese person if they can understand this, because it's basically the same in Japanese (e.g. 隣の家の庭に猫が忍び込む「の」を見た)
@@scoreunder *flashbacks* to 8th grade and learning about the gerund. Who knew parts of speech could be so complicated.
@@scoreunder ohh ty very much! I was wondering the usage of "no" in Japanese, I started to learn it 5 days ago by myself.
@@scoreunder in Portuguese we also have gerund, but we use ndo instead of ing, so it's easy to get that in English.
@@scoreunder yeah, he just didn't know the contextual distinction between the gerund and the progressive (which in Japanese is straightforward). but more importantly, it's surprising that any speakers of English would apologize for this construction as though it were some nonsense construction. the ignorance of English speakers to their own language is surprising.
Whoa, that guy at 6:05 was perfect.
Hi lord, you are among my top programmer idols on youTube!
He used to live in the US so I'm sure his English is excellent!
He was so good he sounded like a perfect English robot
@@Zerbey To be fair, he spent just 6 years there from 3-9. That's a pretty limited time according to me. I'm sure he kept learning over time but I don't see how his aforementioned history factors in as significantly as you'd think..
@@Isaac.D.grizzly It is significant.
6:07 What the?...that guy has a solid american accent. xD
ikr, pretty impressive XD
@fleetlordavtar theres no 16:16 you minority
As a Scottish woman the extend of my American accent would be eh.. Texas. 🤣
The guy who did his American accent should be more confident in his speaking skills!
He was like that probably because of the Dunning-Kruger effect. As you get better at or learn more about something, you tend to lose your confidence on that stuff instead of gaining more confidence.
@Lambda Two sides of the same coin, pretty much. The more you know, the more you realize you don't know.
he can speak in japanese accent and american thats so cool
Due to culture im sure his confidence is fine, he probably just didn't want to show off. Nobody shows off or likes to stand out in Japan.
*"Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language." H. Jackson Brown, Jr.*
Well of course they know more languages if their English is off
+Indonesia Yeah, great quote. I've tried and failed to learn Japanese, I have so much respect for anyone who can speak another language even to a tiny extent.
Buffoon1980 You should try again I'm learning japanese and it's kinda hard to start you can do it :D がんばってください！
So, I can't make fun of murricans? What other language do they speak besides their broken English?
Buuurn
Do you know why the guy at 6:05 was so reluctant to speak English? Take a guess!
Is it because you are not meant to show off? He wanted to be modest perhaps since he knew he would say it right.
+That Japanese Man Yuta Is it because of the accent? Maybe he was embarrassed to use his American accent because it was so good!
+That Japanese Man Yuta My guess is also being modest since he lived in the US for 6 years.
On another note of what I found interesting was the cat question. It was interesting why that was question was kind of difficult. I don't even know if I could explain exactly why sneaking is the right answer. I just know that's the only word that makes sense. I kind of feel like it's the same for me learning Japanese though, particles are something I still have a hard time with.
I've heard from a few friends that it's quite embarrassing to be good at English in school, etc. because it comes across as showy and conceited. One of my friends said people used to make fun of her in school because she always tried to read with an American accent (ex. say teacheR instead of teacha--) but she was just trying to improve her pronunciation.
+Dark Moses WHEN I looked out... It's because there is a specific time noted in the sentence. That's why you have to use the past contious. I never think about it myself though, it just feels natural.
I am a native English speaker and I knew easily it was "sneaking," but I couldn't explain why, other than 'it sounds right.' Because all the other verbs in the sentence are in past tense, it seems like the answer would be sneaked (snuck). But I'm sure there's some grammatical reason it calls for a participle.
I'm not a native English speaker. I learn grammar in school. In that sentence, ''sneak'' isn't predicate verb, so its -ing or -ed don't indicate tense, but ''active or passive''.
That's gerund, verb word as a noun
@@siskanovita5924 in that cat sentence, "sneaking" clearly isn't used as a noun
And i thought it was "sneaks" tho
I'm not good at english but I thought of it that he, the speaker himself is referring to himself today that yesterday presently speaking that he saw a cat sneaking
Ps: I'll assume that the speaker's gender is male so it'll be easier. Also, I don't know how to explain this very well since I have a low vocabulary
It's sad that most Japanese people have better English handwriting than me.
I know right, my handwriting sucks as well ;)
+Mike Huge It's probably pretty easy for them to learn to write western alphabets, considering their symbols are generally more complicated, plus romanji is probably taught in schools anyway.
Yea i guess you're right. My girlfriend is japanese and her handwriting is just normal. You wouldnt realize that shes not western just based on her handwriting. And well, its not quite impressive to have a better handwriting than me. Iam terrible. ;)
Going to ask her when exactly japanese learn romaji. Iam guessing that they learn it in middle school.
I would guess that it's because they have to be more conscious about how they write it to make sure they're writing it right. For native speakers, it just comes.
Tonald Drump
You can fix that any time!
The thing is, after modren technology and social media, no one ever writes with their hands anymore, which is a problem.
6:02 those guys were actually pretty good at speaking
Agreed!
Indeed! Then the guy said he lived in America for six years. So no wonder lol. I was like. Wow, what a perfect American accent he has.
It's actually because he lived in America at such a young age that he speaks it so well, he learned proper English pronunciation instead of phonetic katakana pronunciation.
Red Sparrow Wait, _that's_ why some Japanese have trouble?
How do you know he's Korean?
Japanese kids are learning proper grammar and stuff and we're over here like "boii it's lit"
All languages have slang and all slang ignores proper grammar rules. Saying that something you like is "cool" (and that has nothing to do with it's physical temperature) is disregarding proper grammar. Slang is nothing more than a form of short-hand.
Your comment and slang example seem to imply that it is _taught_ to schoolchildren, not absorbed through culture. May I caution you to not do that in the future. It makes you come across as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
+Matthew VandenBerg - wise response except
*its
Peyton Sharp The simplest of errors = God's way of keeping me humble.
Peyton Sharp there is always that one guy that has to correct everyone haha
RandomVideos *girl
That one guy's "American accent" made me smile.
You should have at least given them a prize for their excellent acting. lol ”to sneak" would be appropriate if you applied an action and tense; like "trying to sneak" or "attempting to sneak" etc... I believe some of them thought "to sneak" had an implied action and tense, because they thought the tense carried on from the first sentence.
+Taun-Chi Gaming Their acting is my favourite part!
yeah, and their accents and speech impediments were cute and funny. and I'm not trying to be cruel, I meant that in an endearing way.
+dan dee They don't have a speech impediment, it's their Japanese accent. :)
Melody Lao a little column A, a little column B.
Well, in a sense. Don't you think their "Japanese accent" is a speech impediment?
I don't envy anyone trying to learn English as a second language. It was only after I learned to speak Spanish that I realized how arbitrary the rules of English are.
laserwolf65 as a German I found English easy to learn, it just has a pretty poor orthography. But we all read a lot of English one way or another, so it is easy to get a lot of practice.
OH MAN you should do Japanese next. You thought English has a lot of rules? 154 verb conjugation, buddy. You also conjugate adjectives too.
i learned english at a quite young age and never had problems in school. i didn't even need to study. but spanish on the other hand was super hard for me. i don't know if it was because i started learning it at the age of 14 or because my first teacher was so bad that we basically had to catch up next year and it was just too much.
@allison muszynski honestly, if you already know french, you will find japanese easy to handle to a point, phonemes wise especially, its really just AEIOU, no diphthongs, thus similar to french. there's no gender rules/words and there's no pluralisation. But in place of gender rules, you get batshit loads of intransitive/transitive verbs, shit tons of particles stacking and those bazillion word endings that they looooooove so much... but once you get used to them, they are alright. I think the harder jump for you is actually the writing system, because English and french uses the same, while to learn japanese, you have to start with the hiragana and katakana then the kanji.
I was bilingual, half irish half chinese, i picked up indonesian and french in secondary school, i have been learning japanese for 7 years and i currently live in japan. the daunting part for me is honestly, besides wrapping my head around all the grammar, are the nuances and implications of the japanese language... japanese likes to not "finish" what they say.... so understanding context and nuance is a huge part, especially when you come from another culture/way of speaking that are more "direct"
But languages are always fun, don't ever think of it as daunting. the good news here is, once you mastered japanese, you are good to go with korean as your next step cause the grammar rules are like same as japanese. all you will need is to learn the very easy alphabet system and vocab. you can even pick up chinese! (chinese grammar is very similar to english, actually way simpler than english, it has so little rules to it, you'll laugh)
GL on your journey!
English has very loose rules but is very easy
As the video finally comes to an end, and as the screen slowly blacks out...
7:36 Do we get a prize? XD
Lol
@the existingmonad where is your picture from pls
Oh!! LoL
Shadow Reaper Puella Magi Madoka Magica
smh at least give him something like a pen
Here I am, an American, trying to perfect a Japanese accent, and I am shocked to see a Japanese guy with a perfect American accent. Fuck the what!
Hahah I feel you, but they said he have lived in the states :)
he grew up at the states for 6 years
he grew up in the US so he was really 'american' first, then 'japanese' later.
He came to the US when he was 3 so no he wasn't American first.
lol rekt bro
When a Japanese person has neater hand writing than you-_-
Japanese characters especially kanji requires skill to write, so, romaji is nothing.
Its bc in Japan handwriting is treated very importantly. Thats why there are steps on how to write kanji properl;y
Loved the guy at the end. "Do we get a prize?"
bengalifob2 tissues ?
The guy at 6:05's American accent is PERFECT!!!!
+Heather Kalman I somewhat agree with you, but the way his sentences ran on while he was talking made it sound very...off...if you know what I mean.
It's good. If he probably spent a year in an English speaking country, and constantly conversing with natives, I truly believe he could easily sound like a native too.
So many comments about him :/
I wish my English exam was this easy..
Zukiryo samee
OkamI Well my native language isn't english and those tests would be freaking easy, even for those in my class who are shitty at english. (I'm 14 year old from Finland and I've had always 10 from english, because internet, games, anime, manga and shit)
Same:)
@@juhaniurtti6174 you're from finland? Is there education really that good like what it rumoured? Yeah i know the statistic is a result of proper research but still,
@@milkeyway7105 I'm now 16, and in upper secondary education, completely forgot about this comment, I was a cringy 14-year-old back then. Liking it now a lot more, as in uppersec our grades don't really matter anymore, they are just there to indicate how we are learning, but don't affect our lives. But to answer your question, yes, I do think it's good, but there's nothing magical about it
Being a native English speaker, this was fun to watch! lol It made me happy when they would get an answer correct!
Also wow, these sentences are really complicated compared to the type of stuff I learned in my school when taking a foreign language (French, in my case). The standards for learning a foreign language in Japan must be much higher than where I live...
I'm far from being fluent in english but this text was very easy, in my country (italy) an average middle school student can do it without having any problem.
diana tralli Wow, that's really interesting! I wish our standards for foreign languages were as high!
omegasage And i wish i could speak english as you do :) ps Your profile's picture is chopper right?
diana tralli Yep, Chopper! English is a very weird and hard language....even native speakers don't completely understand some of its rules and such! lol
Yeah, I'm spanish, and those questions were really easy. Reading the comments, I can see all Europe seems to have a tendency to raise the dificulty bar for English test, which is both good and bad, as I've had many friends just give up entirely just because after a few basic mistakes they just couldn't catch up with the rest of the class.
I'm quite proud about my English, but I still have many problems. Like "in/on". We use the same word for both, so we have some serious problems trying to distinguish when to use which one. The worst part is, it doesn't matter who I ask, they usually just go "Well... there's no rule for that, it's just that way."
Huh... English sure is a weird language sometimes.
That guy has a pretty good American accent.
2:20 "Japan consists of 4 large islands and many small islands です" :,D when 'weeaboos' actually get it right.
That's basically him saying "That's it."
I thought everybody knew Japan is made up of over 3,000 islands. One of which they're at war with Russia over.. Not that anyone is actually doing anything but still technically at war.
Oh, no. I have to call Bob now.
That's not the point!
Right. I know that now.
That one guy had a PERFECT American Accent Bravo!!!!!
right? that dude had it down
+Genevieve Vavance That's cause he said he lived in the US for years.
***** I think he was just trying to be humble and not show off his AMAZING accent, but I don't know
+Genevieve Vavance Yuta replied in another comment: OK, here's my answer.
First, some background information:
- In Japanese school, being 'different' and standing out isn't always a good thing. Having an American accent makes you stand out immediately.
- A lot of Japanese people feel quite insecure when they compare themselves to Western people, especially Americans. Some people hate it when a Japanese person 'acts American'.
- There's generally a strong pressure to conform to Japanese society's norm. Having an American accent isn't certainly the norm.
The guy was reluctant to speak English because he grew up in Japan (at least since he was 10) and had strong Japanese mentality. He was very self-conscious about his American accent because he internalised society's norm. His friend was actually totally cool with his American accent, but he simply didn't want to be 'different' and attract attention.
He probably hates it when someone says, 'Oh, your English is so good.'
+Wicked Mouse ....you just copy and pasted from That Japanese Man Yuta's comment..............
the guy on the left at 6:37 has a really good accent but he isnt very sure about the answer like WTF
He was just embarrassed and didnt want to bother hahaha
Another interesting video. I really appreciate that despite getting some of the questions wrong, they still wanted to prove themselves. That's the best attitude for learning a second language.
Wow that guy's American accent was great!
+Kendra Carlson No kidding, both of them were seriously good.
+Kaname Yuuki They seriously were either too modest or too shy.
All of their handwriting is better than me. D:
SuperGlued Crown I feel ya buddy mines is gibberish
In japan we don’t really use computers in elementary till high school
ninjabieber we don’t have electronics at all in Iraqi schools, yet my handwriting in English and Arabic sucks
@@mr.rocket5835 lol i can relate 😅
I wish english tests was like this OMG my life would be so easy
Well, start with "were" instead of was^^
MrThangHam lol ok
+Dragon20C rekt
frankoosjei i dont type correct on keyboards as its not important
+Dragon20C it's*
'Do we get a prize.' 😄
That made me laugh
Idk why but I think it's so cute they all write the "h" as a ん
Trueee🤣🤣
it’s confusing cuz that latter letter actually means n in japanese. 😂
I am a Japanese.
You are right.👍
They write "h" as a ん.😀
I write it like that, too.✒️📃
oん
I write my ん as an h so... ^^'
The guy who lived in the States, "Do we get a prize?" lol
2:20 Guy on the right, Japanese Manny Pacquiao?
+Damarus Yeah, I know. He looks just like him. Maybe Manny's got some Japanese blood somewhere down his ancestral line.
+Damarus That's the first thing that came to my mind , haha .
Hakuraita not rare for Filipinos to have Japanese blood
OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU I WAS TRYIN NOT TO THINK ABOUT HOW HE RESEMBLES MANNY PACQUIAO HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH
Hakuraita there is a possibility because japanese invaded philippines in ww2. It would be very rare for any families who doesn't have either a japanese, spanish and american ancestral line
"do we get a prize?"
Aawwwee
that guy at 6:15 is FLAWLESS. he should get a prize actually lol.
their English was so good! I was really impressed with their pronunciation. English can have very confusing grammatical structures so it is understandable that they had difficulty there.
+Maddisen-Alice-Rose Cottell im not sure if you are serious or not
+sam dang do you not agree?
Maddisen-Alice-Rose Cottell no, where i live, thats pretty much the english knowledge of an average 13 year old, and english is not even the 2nd language in most schools(including my school)
well that's wonderful for all of you ☻ I personally don't speak a second language at all..so seeing that these random people on the streets of Japan can bust out English (a language very different to their own) impresses me.
That guy with the blue coat and scarf's english was amazing!! Sugee!
Yuta, I really love these videos! You use such a unique style in your videos and interviews, no one else does the same as you!
Great video!
Haha! 0:10 you said ''english test'' and then you made a dramatic pause. I briefly remembered the feeling i used to have before a surprise test.
+Frederico Lima haha pop quiz time!
Loved the video and I got really happy each time they got it right.
Also, not directly related to the video, but I can't help but commenting on how much I loved the way you translated 懐かしい in the video, it's an amazing example of how highly contextual Japanese is, and the leap of faith you have to take sometimes when translating.
Wow, that guy at 6:05 was really good!! His accent was pretty spot on
He lived in America when he was 3 to 9 years old
+rainbowniji25 I'm still impressed. I mean, he's still a native Japanese speaker
+Anthony Villalobos i think he sounded extremely robotic. still, not bad.
harryginnyalways yeah, but a lot of my fellow American friends and even myself sometime sound like that IN OUR OWN 1ST LANGUAGE. Lol 😂
4:19 better hand writing than 80% of native English speakers.
"just use your american accent" like it's some hidden power lol
I'm kinda disappointed that no one tried to pronounce "Jack" as "Jerk"
lol
+spectreid They'd say "Jacku" or "jaku" before Jerk... if you use the common sense, but yeah, that'd be really funny.
+MarcPaquete It's a reference to another video lol
butterstix24 I see... which one btw?
+spectreid All Jacks are Jerks!!!
What I learned. When in doubt pick c
+WaitingForYukiOnna You will get the right answer 25% of the time :D
+That Japanese Man Yuta unless there are 5 choices, that would be 20% :)
+WaitingForYukiOnna Also, when you found out the correct answer and you answered c, you can change it to a, b,or d without erasing. :D
+WaitingForYukiOnna Standardized tests have a tendency to lean more towards the answer C. This was true for some SATs and Taks test.
Most japanese peoples worst nightmare: A surprise engish exam
I like how the guy at 2:30 adds "desu" to the end of the English sentence 😊
That woman has better handwriting than me. wtf...
Overall I was very impressed. They could all read and understand pretty well. Some just couldn't identify how an English speaker would respond. Good job everyone :)
It's sad how people are pressured to conform to society. I think being able to speak a foreign language is pretty amazing from a perspective as an American.
+子強 I'm a Filipino and I agree, although would like to take an alternative route and share this theory about how my people, especially Visayans, are born multilinguists.
Raw Concept of the Theory:
The normal Visayan student learns three languages, both through home teaching, and basic education, in their young age. Home teaching indicates Bisaya and Tagalog (our national language) and English through Basic Education. Although normally English goes over the normal student, it's three languages at Tier 1. Practice and proper use of the three languages can help one proceed to Tier 2, which is the beginning of the "Beginner's Expansion Phase.
Now, given both given native languages' influences from Spanish, since we were under Spanish rule for 333 years starting from 1526 (I could be wrong), the normal Filipino student, when giving the standard amount of effort required to learn another language, can easily learn and understand Spanish, since, again, a lot of Spanish words got mixed into native Bisaya and Tagalog slang. On the other hand, I would like to repeat English goes over a normal student's head at Basics level for some unknown reason, but if said student actually does learn the language as a basic, he can move onto other Germanic languages, the easiest to comprehend being German.
It just goes on and on, growing and expanding like the roots of an old tree. So what do you think?
Wait, that came out of nowhere
I agree! Since English was my first language, I find it boring and I like to hear foreign people speak. I speak Spanish as well, but Spanish is somewhat similar to English and I hear it everywhere, so I want to hear something else. I'm currently learning Japanese and I prefer it over my native languages. The fact that Japanese is difficult for me makes me love it even more because it creates a challenge. The writing looks beautiful, too.
If you did a japanese test in an english speaking country none would get it right.
hahahahah totally true!
+StarReel Well, Japanese start studying English in middle school through college. Whereas in most English speaking countries they don't study Japanese at all. So yes, you're correct.
+StarReel Actually, alot of people around the world are starting to learn more languages. It isn't too common yet but I'm sure it will in the future. I already know 7 languages my self
+StarReel I think it would be more accurate to say "America" rather than *any* english speaking country. ;)
+Nikotiini +StarReel there isn't enough demand to make it necessary to learn Japanese is western counties. The only country that has Japanese as the first language is Japan. It's too specific. Mandarin and Spanish are more common for English speaking countries to learn. But I agree that English speaking countries should improve their language skills and encourage learning a second language more.
6:50 The boy on the left is very cute! Glasses are amazing and spots are so cute! :3
YES
wait your name is the watamote long title isnt it?
AsCii it's an adaptation
Dang, they have better handwriting than me -.-
+Arkantos Its really cool actually, In English often times writing letters in a weird way, such as in reverse, is often seen as a funny character quirk. Whereas in Japanese, incorrect stroke order can be seen as laziness for lack of a better word. I believe the cultures of both Japan and the U.S.A are incredibly unique and really fun to compare.
+Arkantos when writing with roman letter for a long time, it becomes pure muscle memory, which will make you write faster, but worse looking
2:48
...
You shouldn't have done that-
+lgslli Finally! I was waiting for this comment.
Ben drowned?
+lgslli First thing I thought of too xD
We think alike
i had that one correct too
lgslli You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you
6:08 Oh Jesus. This guy has a better accent than Yuta.
They can read and write in English whereas me, I can't read or write in Japanese 😭😭😭😭
English is also a lingua franca for business and economic activities.
It seems a lot of western countries don't really enforce learning another language. I live close to Toronto and we only had to take French until Grade 9. Quebecers learn English throughout the entire tenure in school I believe. I regret not taking it after Grade 9. I was really good. I have a hard time remembering a lot of it now.
you just need to be completely exposed to them and not shy away. since high school I have continuously reading hiragana and katakana so I can read them easily but I'm just now starting to learn kanji
Sirjana Ale Take classes or study it in university.
ﾖｼﾖｼ(。・ω・)ノ(´-ω-)
The guy at 2:34 adding desu at the end of an English sentence 😂 Anyways, great video once again! Very insightful indeed
Because it means "is". For example, 僕の答えは Would you like a cup of teaです。
+TheBadamdam Not really. Its hard to define, but in this specific context, he's saying "(the answer) is [...]" or "it's [...]"
+Maxflay3r です is like: as for...it's. .
Like:
これは紅茶です。
This is black tea.
As for this, it is black tea.
***** It do means "is". OMG you dont even know this. If not, use "da" instead of "desu". Same meaning.
***** Okay I got your idea. Leave the answer alone without desu or da is okay, but no need to be too surprise to hear him using desu or da ^^ But we are saying the same idea so no need to argue. Chill ^^
"You shouldn't have done that." lol
*Song of Healing plays*
It would help immensely if they stopped dubbing everything on tv. I think I've learnt more English from tv and youtube than in school. Here in Finland everything but kids' shows are subbed instead of dubbed.
+JuSaKuO Either way, you guys up north are usually fantastic at English. :)
I just had an idea, not sure how it would work, but it's an idea. What if you were to find pairs of people, one Japanese and the other is a foreigner, and have them test the other's language? For example, the foreigner gets tested in Japanese, and the Japanese person gets tested in English. I think it would be great to see the two sides together. Just an idea.
Loved this video! :D
3:48 No ways! You guys read that whole thing by yourself's and these questions, I feel like, are kinda hard. If j had to do a Japanese test like that, I'd fail for sure lol.
6:13 When the left guy started talking I was really surprised at his accent and then he said he lived in the States LOL that was why, anyway so cute hahaha.
lol same here
we were tricked before he tell the truth 😅😅
LittleHampie89 thx for correcting me
+HiroOntokki Lol same...I was like...wait, what?! He read it perfectly!
I loved the accent of that girl at 1:16 :D
It sounds like a European accent more than Japanese.
+Marcelo Alves Yakuindomo....
she's gorgeous *-*
Ramiro Ramirez That's a pretty agreeable statement.
Indeed!
Very interesting. In Latin, there is no "present imperfect/continuous" (sneaking), but instead of using the third-person active present (sneaks) you actually would use the present infinitive (to sneak).
That American accent was pretty on point!
+Psychic Mew Because it is a legitimate American accent. At the end he says he lived in America until he was nine, which means he had plenty of time to learn the language naturally.
american is not a language
+Neko He's referring to the dialect.
no he's not
Neko Yeah I think it is.
This is awesome! I understand completely since I'm learning Japanese. I'm also visiting Japan at the end of the month for the first time! Very excited!
For Sakura season? If so, I'll be in Japan then too. :p though it's not my first time. But definitely the first time I'll be going in spring.
I love your translations on なつかしい here Yuta, good stuff.
"Just tell him to wait for me." That cracked me up a little.
3:15 IM DYING! LOVING HIS ACCENT.
3:40 Answer number 1 isn't entirely incorrect either.
It implies that the girl talked so much that you "could not have listened/heard" all of it. So in my head I read it as "You could not have possibly heard all that".
These questions in testing tend to make me upset, because the answers are very subjective and need context in many cases.
Especially the one about the phone getting broken. The mother should have checked, she was irresponsible, so I didn't know what context was happening there.
Cool love these kinds of slice of life vids
It seems like the English level of these people weren't that bad (but maybe they chose to participate because they were already kind of confident in their abilities).
+Aaron Simmons as with anybody else learning a second language... Like I'd ever use French
+RecordToDeath well we r taught English as second language but to be honest, it basically feels like that English is our primary language.. lol we do have our language Hindi as a subject but we have all the other sub in English so... I feel that both English and Hindi is my primary language.
+RecordToDeath That's because (I'm assuming) English is your first language, so you don't really need another. If it's some small language like mine you have to at some point. F. ex. I al=ost never learn anything new in English class, since I already learned it naturally by watching movies and stuff like that. Not saying you should stop learning French or anything, parce que, aprés tout, le français, c'est la langue de l'amour. ^^
araya kashyap While for me, there's no French people at all in the GTA of Ontario. If there are, they wouldn't talk to English people anyway. I'd have to move to Quebec to make use of the French, and there's no reason at all for someone living in/around Toronto to go to Quebec. So basically every French class was a waste of my time. In Japan though, they're just plain entertained by English and are therefore interested in it. Though it doesn't change the fact that English is one of the hardest languages to learn so it's no wonder they're not that good at grammar.
RecordToDeath English grammar is not a sinecure, but learning to speak English is honestly easy...
I'm from Chile and, honestly, this reminded me of my english classes back in primary school. Just a couple few of my classmates were good at english, the rest were... well, like most people in this video, they kinda handled it, but they weren't good (except for the awesome guy at 6:06)
Spanish is very phonetic, so it took me back hearing foreign people mispronounce english like this, lol.
Disclaimer: I still suck at english and I sometimes fuck up when pronunciating words, but I'm mindful of it.
Over-analyzing the grammar, that will screw you up in English.Honestly, in the US we say things the way we like, even making up words on the spot, and just assume the other people understand us unless they tell us they don't. The grammar takes a far less priority to what your actual message is, so unless we are trying to act professional we sort of destroy it on a whim. Why, because we have too many rules to keep straight to make all of them fit into informal communication, so we use the more important ones and don't look back. It is something that memorization may be more useful than understanding why, just accept it is because it is and do what your teachers taught you to do in that situation.
Really ? I'm learning English and yes, its really difficult with ton of rules that U have to remember in English.
People who have been to college don't make mistakes in grammar in the US.
@ that's not true, a lot of my friends who came from Asia and have graduated from there still make grammar mistakes. I've seen a programming book author who lived in USA and came from East Europe made a lot of grammar mistakes on his book although the content and teaching are actually good.
1:23 My cat snakes around as well
+PrimaPunchy I don't get it... What do you mean?
+lmclrain The girl on the right side pronounced it as 'snakes' instead of 'sneaks' when she was reading the sentence
Oh... I see. Thanks.
Serra Lala Oh... I see, thanks.
that girl with the white sweater is so pretty😍
6:13 That guy was really good!
4:43 girl is so pretty IMO... she's simple and pretty.. overall, she's perfect ^^
the girl at the right side
the girl at the right side
+Callum Miller yeah :)
She is pretty adorable.
Yeah. And her accent reminds me of Gumi's (vocaloid) english songs.
The two pulling off accents are amazing, they're hilarious 🤣🤣
Now I'm curious, do you give them prizes for participating? xD
hahaha "Do we get a prize" xDD Best man :D
ikr lmao i wouldve done that too lel
0:50 As an American, I feel your confusion. :-) Though you got the answer incorrect, your reasoning was solid. It's just the way English is. Lots of exceptions to the rules unfortunately.
...sooo did they get a prize or not, what's up?
I'm surprised their English accent is pretty good. To me, a French guy, at least.
Yeah sorry guys, French accents are really harsh :D But, you know what's funny too? Seeing Japanese people try French. Reading French with Katakana is just terrible :D
Good thing I'm learning Japanese. これはすごいです！！！
I'm practicing reading hiragana. That says "kore wa sugoi desu" right?
Amethyst Wormdoodle Yep
Kaleb Provost weeb
Some Edgy Account doesn't seem like you know the definition of a, "weeb", more like you just love to label people
(You look like an idiot)
これは Pen です!
me when i see japanese: wtf!
japanese when they see english: Nani!
Their english ability is the same with my japanese ability xD except with these 2 guys
lol
lol!
lol
+Chiel Mae ditto! ^_^
dota
That guy with the English accent ruled.
They did really well. English is a fucked up language with so many irregular verbs and stuff, I wish I was this good with any foreign language I was trying to learn
True, English letters change in pronunciation depending on the word. Sometimes the a sounds like "ah" and sometimes it sounds like "ay." It's all over the place...
For this is a good language. More challenging, so more satisfing.
I notice a lot of languages have SPECIFIC pronunciations for CERTAIN words or characters or combinations of characters. Not like English, the letter "a" sounds different in different words... I struggle with my pronunciation because of this and sometimes I just want to give up
As a speaker of 3 languages, I'd say English is one the easiest to learn.
English is easier than france and russian
7:36 *_Do we get a prize?_*
OMG this guy gave me another five years of life 😂😂😂
"Center"
"Neighbor"
"Favorite"
... it makes me sad that only the American version of English is taught in Japan, not ACTUAL English.
4:07 IM EXPOSED THAT GIRL HAS NEATER HANDWRITING THAN ME
Now I don't feel bad making stupid mistakes when using particles in Japanese
these videos are so much fun to watch. thank you
Would be nice if I could just turn on my Japanese accent on the spot like that guy. Almost like he’s been practicing for this test