I’ve seen the CVs of some Americans that wildly exaggerate their Japanese ability, designating knowledge of a few phrases as “working-level competence”.
I work with English language learners in a high school in Japan. Many will tell you they can't speak English, but when asked to exchange information or converse freely in English, most are capable of expressing themselves adequately.
I accompanied an American coworker on a field trip. She told me she'd studied Japanese in university and passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, and pretty confident in her ability to be my interpreter for the day. She certainly was fluent, but got puzzled looks from Japanese people we encountered. At the time, my listening comprehension was sufficient to notice that she sounded stuffy with overuse of sonkeigo and kenjougo.
It's easy to mistake fluency for high ability in Japanese, I'd say. I'm still working on learning to say the right thing for the situation!
Fascinating research that underscores what we know: British friend moved to the US for graduate school and was asked about his Japanese ability by his American supervisor. To his properly modest “Oh, I can get by,” his supervisor responded “That’s a problem! I expected you to be much better than that!” 😂
Kate- How interesting. I never knew about this exaggeration bias list, let alone the US ranking 24th on this list. This leaves me with a lot of food for thought in the coming weeks. Thank you for sharing this.
Given the sheer number of respondents, the data must be considered statistically relevant, right?
Were you surprised by the results? While I don't know enough about Vietnamese culture to have an opinion, I was a little surprised by Spain's ranking.
Given the diverse populations of some of these countries - especially the US - it may be difficult to read too much into the results for certain rankings.
Also, while the study may not have included India, I would be curious to see the results for that country, which tends to have very strong math skills.
Student culture in Spain, as I experience it from the outside, is very group-oriented. Students as a group are bound to cheat to help others in the group and be helped. They don’t rat on each other. This loyalty to the group is more important than other considerations.
I wonder if being more group-oriented is the key here.
I work with English language learners in a high school in Japan. Many will tell you they can't speak English, but when asked to exchange information or converse freely in English, most are capable of expressing themselves adequately.
I accompanied an American coworker on a field trip. She told me she'd studied Japanese in university and passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, and pretty confident in her ability to be my interpreter for the day. She certainly was fluent, but got puzzled looks from Japanese people we encountered. At the time, my listening comprehension was sufficient to notice that she sounded stuffy with overuse of sonkeigo and kenjougo.
It's easy to mistake fluency for high ability in Japanese, I'd say. I'm still working on learning to say the right thing for the situation!
Fascinating research that underscores what we know: British friend moved to the US for graduate school and was asked about his Japanese ability by his American supervisor. To his properly modest “Oh, I can get by,” his supervisor responded “That’s a problem! I expected you to be much better than that!” 😂
Kate- How interesting. I never knew about this exaggeration bias list, let alone the US ranking 24th on this list. This leaves me with a lot of food for thought in the coming weeks. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you, Thalia! I often find this kind of research provides me with a lot of food for thought.
Given the sheer number of respondents, the data must be considered statistically relevant, right?
Were you surprised by the results? While I don't know enough about Vietnamese culture to have an opinion, I was a little surprised by Spain's ranking.
Given the diverse populations of some of these countries - especially the US - it may be difficult to read too much into the results for certain rankings.
Also, while the study may not have included India, I would be curious to see the results for that country, which tends to have very strong math skills.
Student culture in Spain, as I experience it from the outside, is very group-oriented. Students as a group are bound to cheat to help others in the group and be helped. They don’t rat on each other. This loyalty to the group is more important than other considerations.
I wonder if being more group-oriented is the key here.