A wee while back we had a short discussion about anonymous letters in the Japan Times, and today I saw an inevitable result of their policy, in a missive appearing to have come from an English teacher working at Olympus. First let me say that I agree with the sentiment that the rank and file workers are producing excellent products despite their management’s fiddling of the books.
However, the letter to me does not read like a native English speaker; in particular this paragraph smells rather fishy:
After work, they challenge themselves with English studies, and of course, like other Japanese businessmen, they work overtime to produce the best products possible for their company.
"Challenge themselves with English"? 直訳臭い！ "Businessmen"? An English teacher would surely have chosen a gender neutral form.
The rest of the letter uses "Olympus" too much rather than "they", and the short sentence structure further suggests a learner. What do you lot think?
Well, if you were wondering about the opus David’s building towards here’s the next installment.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20111206ad.html
And he got a tenured university job teaching a language because he won the lucky sperm lottery and was born in an English speaking country. I don’t think he’s got a whole lot of room to be bitching about foreigners not getting a fair shake.
I suppose it is not impossible that an “English teacher” at Canon is an English-speaking Japanese person.
“Challenge themselves with English”? 直訳臭い！
どうでしょうね・・・日本人でも英語に関して、いろいろなレベルがあるでしょうけど、私が想定する平均的日本人からする、この再帰代名詞（themselves)を使った表現はでてこない。
they challenge themselves with English studies,
逆に日本語にすると、
「英語（の勉強)に（果敢に）チャンレンジ（挑戦）している」とでもなるだろう、と思いますけど、辞書を調べれば別でしょうけど、challenge oneself with という表現がスッとはでてこないじゃないか、と思うーーー少なくとも私はでてこない。
全体の文章についていうと、私からすると、なにじんにせよ、かなりの英語の使い手のようには思えます。
Do you mean Olympus? Or are you thinking of something else?
iago, I thought of that too, but it didn’t even seem to be the English of the level of a language teacher.
Ken Y-N, I think you underestimate how much damage a long term stay in Japan can do to one’s native English ability. I often find myself mixing lexicons, and quite often find myself using words that would be considered unnatural or inappropriate for normal English conversation/writing.
It’s certainly possible that the letter is translated, but IMO these kinds of mistakes sound like those you might find from an EFL teacher speaking broken English to EFL students on a daily basis.
It may be that this ‘English teacher’ isn’t really all that proficient at English as he believes. :)
All look alike to me…
I have to agree with George – the (technically) grammatically correct deployment of “challenge”, despite its unnatural appearance, looks like a native speaker having his English influenced by his students.
That doesn’t make the person an idiot, or even a bad teacher for the level he’s probably teaching at. (One of the best low-level English teachers I ever met in Japan was a Frenchman with limited English). You wouldn’t employ him at a university, but that’s another matter.
As for using the word “businessmen” – that’s another debate entirely. Perhaps he’s teaching rooms full of men, which are – sadly – very often the case with company classes dealing with first-year intakes, before internal correction allows the . Of course one should prefer gender-neutral language, but I wouldn’t hang someone for being caught between ideals and reality.
The real problem with the letter is it’s completely fucking anodyne. It tells me nothing about anything at all. “My students tell me they work hard for the company”. Laudable as that is: whoopy-fucking doo. What else are they going to tell the English teacher their company has ordered in for them?
All the letter does is legitimate the Olympus story for the Japan Times by having a foreigner comment. I’d far rather hear from a whistleblower in human resources than an English teacher.
grrr…no edit function…
Unfinished sentence should read: “…before internal correction admits more women into the fast-track”
http://www.debito.org/?p=9745#comment-296939
One has tl wonder how much longer David will let Olaf get away with pointing out the errors in Davids posts and logic…
Amazed Ken you can post something without taking a cheapshot at Debito. Well done. You can do it!
And you’ve finally managed to post a comment that doesn’t refer to the Master Race. Well done!
I usually just wonder how he can let some of the obvious trolls/brown nosers through that are only contributing to his echo chamber rather than contributing anything to the overall discussion. I really don’t see how he can expect to be taken even remotely seriously with some of the stuff he lets through.
MM, I have deleted your reply to Taurus. No more potty mouth, please!
I must say, in keeping with his new tone, he seems to letting an awful lot of Japan Today-grade posts get through.
Oh well, as you say, it’s his own reputation that is going down the toilet.
Apologies Kenneth.
Or should I say Kenneth Cheapbook-Nicholson.
Congratulations – you managed to get all three parts wrong!
Don’t seek information in Debito org.
http://www.debito.org/?p=9731
江戸川区役所
婚姻届
Civil Code
『ビザ衛門』国際行政書士事務所
外国人との婚姻届に必要な書類
婚姻届の書き方と必要書類
Perhaps Debito knows less than other casual foreign residents in Japan.
The story sounds like exaggeration at best, bullshit at worst, to me. Would be more believable if there were some, ANY Japanese terms thrown in, after all, “she” claims her fiance was handling things.
Yes, there IS special paperwork if you’re a foreigner! Deal with it. (That “she” didn’t bother explaining in detail makes the story less believable). Don’t cry to debito. You might as well complain to debito that you were required to show your passport to take a trip abroad!
So that leaves the only actual controversial point, and possible misinterpretation:
Really got told to get parents’ consent? Was that before or after they knew how old you were?
Though, yes, I can believe it happened.
J civil servants (just like in any country, but maybe a bit worse) are legendary for NOT being familiar with the rules as they actually are.
And a few (just like in any country) take pleasure in making up bullshit rules to get you to go away so they can go back to daydreaming and rubber stamping only the easy cases until 4:30PM, when they pretend to do finish up paperwork until the clock strikes 5 and then go home.
Bastards.
Don’t leap to the conclusion that racism is the explanation when plain old stupidity and/or laziness will suffice.
More discussion when if it becomes a new post here. But it looks like debito and most of the commenters aren’t accepting this one at face value either.
hooray
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the poster, I can only guess that rather than an official Certificate of No Impediment from her embassy she instead brought the papers that are required to get the CNI. Perhaps her fiance didn’t understand that they needed to get that beforehand, instead he thought that the 市役所 issued it on the spot?
I’ll do a post on this tonight.
If the story is not bullshit, my guess is that her Japanese partner didn’t tell Edogawa ward that she was a foreigner and he was a minor.Then it all makes sense.
“My fiance tried to convince me it was HIS fault that the office needed more “proof”. I told him to not give me a load of BS, and eventually he admitted that the staff even told him point blank: “Look, it’s different because you are marrying a foreigner. If she were Japanese you wouldn’t have this problem, but she’s a foreigner.””
What I don’t understand is why her embassy didn’t tell required documents despite the fact that she said “We double checked with my embassy,”
For instance,the embassy of United State provides useful information.
Marriage in Japan
日本での結婚
In any case, Mr Arudo, if you don’t have knowledge, and if you don’t have the humbleness and skill to check the facts, stop acting like an adviser.
センセの宣伝が行き届いているとみえて、以前レベル3氏が行って確認した瀬戸物屋の件にせよ、今回の件にしても、もう差別されるのを期待していて、ちょっとでも疑いがあると、「これが噂の外人差別、きたぁあああ」みたいになる方々がおられるようですな。
それにしても、見知らぬ外国にいると藁をもすがりたい気持になることがあるのは、理解できるが、しかし、こともあろうに・・・有道氏の旧いご友人方は有道氏のこんな”活動”が有害ではなく、役に立っているとおもっているのでしょうかね？
I feel like an idiot now for posting a reply on Debito before reading what people at Tepido said. I gotta remember, first T, then D. I would’ve changed a few things in my reply had I read what people (well, Sora mainly) said.
Well, all there is to add is that more info is needed. All we can do is speculate.
She’s mrrying a Japanese citizen. He explained to her that it was his oversight. Yet immediately, the conclusion is racism, and she went trawing the internet to find sites on Japanese racism, landing eventually on debito.org?
Boy is she going to enjoy her new life.
For me, Sora is a dogmatic Master Race shit stirrer, and frankly someone I would like to beat to within an inch of his pathetic life.
That said, I actually agree with Sora/Ho here. There are gaps in this story and I believe that Debs was hasty in publishing it.
“For me, Sora is a dogmatic Master Race shit stirrer, and frankly someone I would like to beat to within an inch of his pathetic life.”
Ken, no need to delete MM’s post.
この手のコメントによって信頼を失うのはMM氏ですから。
Who says things like this? Seriously, get help man.
What the F&#k? what’s up with the violence? I always felt Sora was one of the few moderating influences on this site. A site thats mostly cheap gossip and backstabbing. his arguments are always well thought out, not to mention Bi-lingual, much to my chagrin. But! every now and then he too regresses into gossip and backstabbing which always disappoints me.
These days I only scan the site because of the before mentioned b.s., it’s become so redundant and boring.
I’m an English teacher, and I may or may not have used a “gender-neutral term.”
Oops wrong thread. This site is very hard to follow for occasional readers… who experience occasional senior moments….