English in Japan

[Zagato289]

I know that English is really important to some countries, but Japan has been the only country, whos native language is not English, that uses too much English in their media: music, movie and their titiles, tv shows, anime, and especially video games. Maybe im wrong, and theres another country that uses more english, but Japan has been the only one i seen.

I was playing an import Japanese game, and the characters were speaking English all the time with Japanese subtitiles, the menu options were in English with with Japanese subtitles. Even the titile of the game was in English with the small Japanese titile below. It will be obvious, if the game was American in Japan, but no, its a Japanese game. Its not the first time I seen it, theres other games with the same things too.

I seen something similar with anime. I havent watch anime lately, but I remember that most animes had English titiles with the small Japanese titile below.

Last but not least, music. I havent also listen to some Jmusic lately, but it was reallly rarely to dont see atleast one English word in a Japanese song or maybe half the song in English.

I dont know why they are doing this. Are the Japanese been force to learn English then?
By the way, Im not complaining; Im just curious and wondering why they do this.

[masaegu]

I can tell that you clearly don't know much about the Japanese language. We (Japanese) use 8,000 times more words from Chinese than from English. Why not bring that fact to discussion first? Japanese and Chinese aren't even linguistically related languages, mind you.

Besides, your point fails when you actually expect the Japanese people to read your posts, which are in English.

[Shanis]

Well I think they use a lot english titles for their movies, games, etc. because it's modern and "cool" but the news, magazines, most part of games and even anime are basiclly in japanese language as well as manga. And they are forced learning english in school and I think they want to get better in languages, especially in english, because they were pretty bad at pisa test so they change some media to english to give the people more contact to the language.

[Zagato289]

Originally Posted by masaegu

I can tell that you clearly don't know much about the Japanese language. We (Japanese) use 8,000 times more words from Chinese than from English. Why not bring that fact to discussion first? Japanese and Chinese aren't even linguistically related languages, mind you.

Besides, your point fails when you actually expect the Japanese people to read your posts, which are in English.

You didnt understand my post. I didnt say that the Japanese use more english than japanese. And no i dont know alot about japanese language, and thats why im here to learn a few stuff, so you dont have to get all crazy. All I said was that the japanese use more english than any other foreign country. You should learn how to read first, before commenting.

[Zagato289]

Originally Posted by Shanis

Well I think they use a lot english titles for their movies, games, etc. because it's modern and "cool" but the news, magazines, most part of games and even anime are basiclly in japanese language as well as manga. And they are forced learning english in school and I think they want to get better in languages, especially in english, because they were pretty bad at pisa test so they change some media to english to give the people more contact to the language.

thanks for your respond. yes, most of the time they use english for titiles. A few games like: Resident Evil and Silent Hill, the dialogue and menu titiles are in english, and the descriptions and subtitles are in japanese.

[Shanis]

Originally Posted by Zagato289

thanks for your respond. yes, most of the time they use english for titiles. A few games like: Resident Evil and Silent Hill, the dialogue and menu titiles are in english, and the descriptions and subtitles are in japanese.

resident evil and silent hill are based american games I think. At sometime I've heared that the first version of those games were developed in america so it's logical to give the whole series the same english name But I'm not quite sure^^

[RobinMask]

Originally Posted by Zagato289

I know that English is really important to some countries, but Japan has been the only country, whos native language is not English, that uses too much English in their media: music, movie and their titiles, tv shows, anime, and especially video games. Maybe im wrong, and theres another country that uses more english, but Japan has been the only one i seen.

I was playing an import Japanese game, and the characters were speaking English all the time with Japanese subtitiles, the menu options were in English with with Japanese subtitles. Even the titile of the game was in English with the small Japanese titile below. It will be obvious, if the game was American in Japan, but no, its a Japanese game. Its not the first time I seen it, theres other games with the same things too.

I seen something similar with anime. I havent watch anime lately, but I remember that most animes had English titiles with the small Japanese titile below.

Last but not least, music. I havent also listen to some Jmusic lately, but it was reallly rarely to dont see atleast one English word in a Japanese song or maybe half the song in English.

I dont know why they are doing this. Are the Japanese been force to learn English then?
By the way, Im not complaining; Im just curious and wondering why they do this.

Japan's not the only language to have this happen. My friend is Indian and often mixes English with her native Punjab, and Hindi music and shows do the same. I could be wrong but I believe that perhaps the level of English used in these native languages could be to do with the fact both had English-Speakers colonising their countries at some point (I may be using the wrong word here). India for example was run by the Brittish, and Japan after the war had many, many Americans stationed there. I think after so long certain words or phrases become picked up in the native language. For example the Americans brought with them coffee to Japan, so the word for coffee is 'kohi' (sounding the same nearly), as it's the word introduced to them. So a lot of the 'English' words you hear as 'loan words', words for things that before the English introduced to them they had no words for.

[Zagato289]

Originally Posted by Shanis

resident evil and silent hill are based american games I think. At sometime I've heared that the first version of those games were developed in america so it's logical to give the whole series the same english name But I'm not quite sure^^

Maybe that could be the reason. I got to play the Japanese game demo of Bayoneta, and it has English dialogue and menu titles in English, and I doubt that game is based on American games, is it?.

[Zagato289]

Originally Posted by RobinMask

Japan's not the only language to have this happen. My friend is Indian and often mixes English with her native Punjab, and Hindi music and shows do the same. I could be wrong but I believe that perhaps the level of English used in these native languages could be to do with the fact both had English-Speakers colonising their countries at some point (I may be using the wrong word here). India for example was run by the Brittish, and Japan after the war had many, many Americans stationed there. I think after so long certain words or phrases become picked up in the native language. For example the Americans brought with them coffee to Japan, so the word for coffee is 'kohi' (sounding the same nearly), as it's the word introduced to them. So a lot of the 'English' words you hear as 'loan words', words for things that before the English introduced to them they had no words for.

yeah, i notice that when learning a few japanese. theres many loan words.

[Shanis]

Originally Posted by Zagato289

Maybe that could be the reason. I got to play the Japanese game demo of Bayoneta, and it has English dialogue and menu titles in English, and I doubt that game is based on American games, is it?.

I don't know that game but maybe they just want to be "cool" or they are lazy and don't want to programm additional languages so they just do one that can be understood everywhere and just subtitle it xD