Japanese kids' English pronunciation is much better than that of older people. Because they now have a lot of opportunities of listen to English spoken by native speakers through TV programs, English CDs, and Internet. What is more, the Ministry of Education has decided to give an individual listening test in the National Preliminary Test for University, which is like SAT in the US. When it comes to exams, Japanese students are very good. So English listening skills of Japanese will be much better in the near future.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-20 10:10
There are too many materials to study English in Japan. It's difficult to choose the best one.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-20 13:33
>>83
Unfortunately, English study textbooks suck ass, at least for elementary grades.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-20 23:14
I started English study with the famous ridiculous frase "THIS IS A PEN".
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-21 5:37
In Japan those who like English and often post 2-chan are middle-aged, I guess, because young people don't learn "This is a pen" in junior high school. They learn some daily expressions first. But the problem is that Japanese students are now very poor in grammar and English composition.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-21 7:27
>>85 "this is the keyboard" would be more appropriate now.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-23 8:05
In Japan people have year-end parties. In general those who work for a company get together at a Japanese style restaurant middle or late December, and drink sake or some alcoholic drink eating some dishes, recollecting the past evens. Those year-end parties called "bonenkai" are one of the biggest drinking parties in Japan. It is almost compulsory that worker join this party. The bad point is that not a company but each woker has to defray his own costs of attending.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-23 8:45 (sage)
fun
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-24 6:49
>88 wow, you japs turn into jews during the holidays
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-24 9:32
In Japan many people enjoy Christmas. That is not because they cebrate Christ birthday but because they enjoy having Chrismas parties and spending a happy night with his or her lover. Christmas gives business world good commercial opportunities. Japanese are very simple and shallow, and they are quick to be the victims of commercialism.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-25 20:00
>>91
Christmas are a nice _pagan_ holidays to be with your family and your loved ones, and to buy and sell things that make you happier. If it makes you happy, you're not a victim of anything, regardless of what leftists say.
You don't have to be christian to enjoy the summer solstice. It's a much older celebration than christianity; christians just took it and made it theirs. Santa, Santa's clothes, decorating trees and houses, etc. is not christian and it has nothing to do with christianity by the way.
That's exactly the greatness of Christmas: everyone, Westerner or Asian, christian or atheist, white or black, tall or short, enjoys Christmas.
I'm an atheist and Christmas is my favorite day of the year and the one tradition I want to keep forever.
>>90
Japanese are great people, but Chinamen are commmie thieves. Chinks are nothing but slit eyed midgets who look like newborn possums, and are just as ugly. BWAHAHAHAHA. Blow me, 5 dolla sucky sucky.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-26 6:43
On New Year' Day many Japanese go to a shirne. It seems that many go to a shrine not because they pray to God but because they want to enjoy the atmosphere or play with their friends there. Japanese are not religious but they tend to change religious rites into a kind of games.
Japanese girls are great in bed but Chinese chinkchicks are fun because of the crazy gook expression they get just before climax.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-26 21:31
Interestingly, Wapanese are generally though of as “failures” and rejects within their own culture. Social scientists such as myself speculate that it was their failure to gain acceptance within their own culture than has lead many a white geek to seek out Japan’s culture as a surrogate; however, they’d be shattered to know that the insular and somewhat racist Japanese society would be even less accepting of them than the people of their true and native culture.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-27 9:01
In Japan English study is so popular. Many Japanese, maybe No. 1 in the world take TOEIC tests. But the biggest problem is that when it comes to speaking English, Japanese are very poor. A Japanse who has been in the US for more than twenty years said that he can little understand English movies even now. It may be impossible for Japanese to understand English movies almost 100%. But it would be impossible to understand foreign movies 100% in regardless of his or her nationality.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-27 13:58
>>101
That's a problem of English. Languages have their strengths and their weak points. For example:
English has an easy grammar, hard ortography (words not written as they sound), easy alphabet, mostly latin vocabulary (easy for Western Europeans), average pronunciation, and is hard to understand when spoken.
Spanish has a hard grammar, easy ortography, easy alphabet, latin vocabulary, average to hard pronunciation, and is easy to understand when spoken.
And as far as I've seen, Japanese has an easy grammar, easy ortography if you use kana, extremely hard alphabet, own vocabulary, easy pronunciation, and is easy to understand when spoken.
I'm Spanish. Learning English was easy for me, but it's still somewhat hard to understand it when spoken. On the other side, I don't know Japanese, but the few words I know, I immediately recognize them when spoken in anime, something I couldn't do with English when I was learning it.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-28 21:35
To my surprise so many Japanese like reading comics. They read them even in a train or a bus. There are not a few comics coffee shops where there are so many comic books that you can choose and read your favorite comics. To make me more surprised, even adults love reading comics. I found many adults reading comics in coffee shops or in trains.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-28 22:04
>>103
To your SURPRISE!? Manga makes up for 45% of Japan's printed press. And unlike Western cartoons which are always about a fox that falls off a cliff making a hole with its shape in the bottom, manga may be about anything and everything, and different manga is suited for different ages.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-29 8:27
Now not only adults but also almost all high school students have a cell phone. They use their cell phone even in trains or subways. Using cell phone in pulic transportation has caused various problem. It is said that using cell phones has a bad influcence on those who use pace maker for heart disease. But many people never switch off their cell phone. It's becoming one of the social problems.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-29 8:45
>>105
It's the same here in Spain, only it isn't forbidden in public transportation, only hospitals and airplanes, and we haven't registered any problems with using cellulars near pacemakers. In fact, some people with rare diseases carry a special device that will report to their doctors via SMS/Internet/GSM call.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-29 11:30
Yeah, I have a question: How can any American going be considered exotic. I mean constantly they're introducing our culture in with their own. From what I've heard it is sometimes like an American Bizzarro World. Totally Hearsay btw.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-29 22:48
In America negroes love to yell into cell phone so that everyone can hear them. American negroes are like clowns with guns.
In Japan garbage problems are becoming more and more serious. Now when we throw away garbage, we have to divide garbage into three groups, that is, burnable garbage, non-burnable garbage, and recyclable garbage. But since some people don't observe this rule, one or two persons have to stand in the garbage collection site early morning to watch people throw away their garbage. But standing in the garbage collection site early morning makes people so much tired. It's really troublesome for those people who have to go to work early morning. So it has caused another problem. So some people began to ignore watching in the collection site. In my neighborhood, the persons who don't want to stand in the collection site had a big fight with the town leader, who decided to do it.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-30 3:55
Yeah! I live in Yokohama and I also ignore all of such fuckin` rules!
>>110
Import some Mexicans to do it. They
live in garbage.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-30 21:16
>>111
These rules weren't created to make your life harder; they were created to make your life _possible_.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-30 21:29
I'm scared of Japan. I want to work there for a term but I'm not comfortable with their strict formalities in the workplace--rank and status mean everything, and it makes discussing things with the uppers full of anxiety. I would feel pressured to not talk about delays, failures, and other setbacks.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-30 22:44
In Japan the number of "neets" has been sharply increasing. "Neets" means the persons who stays home almost all day long without going to work though he has graduated from high school or college, namely they can't adjust themselves to the society. The reason may be that their parents are so rich and generous that they are too much spoiled and and don't have to go to work. Being rich doesn't always make people really happy.
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-31 20:21 (sage)
>>116
NEET = Not in Empolyment, Education, or Training
Name:
Anonymous2005-12-31 22:49
Many people go to shrines or templs on New Year's Day. More than one million people visit big shrins during New Year's holidays. They pray and throw some coins into a wooden box as a kind of donnation, so that they can have a happy year.
Name:
Anonymous2006-01-01 4:29
Japanese kids can get New Year's pocket money called "otoshidama" in Japanse. Not only their parents but also their relatives give some money to the children. As far as I know kids in other countries don't have this custom.