Quote:
Originally Posted by sherrymp3
... yes... you are a critic
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The most critical person on these forums, no doubt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MMM
1) There is no academic value in learning a "Japanese accent"
2) In the US speaking in a "Japanese accent" is a little like putting on black face and speaking in ebonics. It is offensive.
3) You see British actors learning American accents and American actors learning European accents, but in this day and age you do not see American or European actors speaking in Japanese or Chinese accents. Why? Because it would be offensive.
Whether or not accents should only indicate place or origin, when you are talking about an essentially homogeneous society from an island country like Japan it is different and you are getting into racial issues.
2) 3) There is no right way or good way for a non-Japanese to imitate a "Japanese accent". There is no pride in Japan for a "Japanese accent" in English like there is in England for an "English accent". Japanese who try to learn English well try to speak without an Japanese accent, so by using one it is demeaning.
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It's hard to begin with how wrong this sounded. What I pretty much heard was, "All you white people can mimic each other and your different accents, but don't mimic another races'." Because there are no other races in those countries with those accents... yeah.
You consistently say that these things are offensive, but you never say why. Also, why would mimicking a western accent
not be offensive? This is clearly a double standard with a strong bias. Do you believe that no other language is held with pride by other people besides the Japanese? Why would they not be offended in the same situation? Why would anyone be offended at all? This is not some bad comedy skit mocking a race, it's the recognition of the blending of sounds of separate languages.
To the TC, you can easily find some native Japanese speaker speaking English on youtube or something. The accent is quite often very thick and hard to understand. Also, because they are "essentially homogeneous society from an island country", their accent is not very recognizable. Also, it sounds bad (stuffy, blended, completely missing some sounds) to the western ear due to the limited sounds from Japanese as well as the lack of exposure to westerners. For this reason, I'd go for a more accepted accent like German, Spanish, ect. which are far more recognizable and still have the diverse sounds of English.