You shouldn't be discouraged based on solely this. When learning a new language there's usually gonna be rude/ignorant people, so you just have to push through that and keep going. I mean it's not like those people are gonna do anything about it anyways 🤷♀️
It may happen, there is a higher chance if you’re with a native, they’ll just look for them to speak even if you speak perfectly They don’t mean to be rude (I think) They just don’t wanna mess something up or serve you something wrong (although that wouldn’t happen in a situation like the vid)
@@SkyeAten rlly never ? happened to me 24/7 in japan. still happens to me regularly at work xD like the amount of times i ordered food and they brought the english menu to me to then still repeat the order in japanese and suddenly they got it ....
15 yrs in Japan. It's not usually being rude. They see the foreigner, their brain desperately starts digging up half-remembered highschool English lessons but nothing you say sounds like the English they know. By the time they realize you're _not_ speaking English the situation has already escalated.
In my country the Netherlands we have a similair "problem" alot of people who try to learn the language ( Dutch ) and they stumble alot of Dutch people will automatically switch to English, completely defeating the purpose of the person trying to learn. It is not done intentional but I have noticed this happen every time again over the years
@@Prince.M00NBEAM I do the same. Switch to French or German or English or Sranang or Papiamentu or Crioulo and not really notice the other side prefers not to.
Imagine if you are not speaking English yourself. It would be funny because u are only fluent in ur native language and has Japanese communicational skills. They will be ao confused when you say "I don't speak English"
Start by saying the magic intro word. "Hai eeetto/はいええっと" then say the name of the product. Always works like magic. I do it all the time. So in this case. Hai, eeetto, chiizu keiki onegai shimasu, would work perfectly. Eeetto is the word to switch Japanese people from English to a Japanese mode. You are welcome.
Went to Japan for the first time last month, can confirm this is true. Aa/Eto/Ano are like dog whistles to get the attention of native Japanese speakers. I don't mean that in any kind of rude way, I just mean when you say those words you get their attention automatically, like a reflex.
@Irsyad Amir actually I think one part of it is that foreigners may "lack" certain non verbal communication cues they expect in certain situations which makes them have to think about what they just heard you say even if its clear, that's giving them the benefit of the doubt that they aren't just scared out of their wits having to talk to a foreigner
I'm Japanese but I could understand his Japanese very well. I honestly can't tell much difference between two people😅 So don't worry! Japanese people, at least those around me, are happy when they see people from other countries studying Japanese! Sorry if this is not the main point of this video. I'm still learning English, so I hope you can understand a little bit.
Yes, I live in Japan and this has never happened to me. Everyone is always helpful and kind when I speak Japanese here. The Japanese staff always understand what I am saying. This video is a bad example, it's really exaggerated. I think it's offensive to Japanese people because it doesn't actually happen like in this video.
This is encouraging to those that are learning the language 😊 Your English is great as well, perfectly put I would say. Keep it up! The encouragement and the great speaking skills!
The video discouraged me a bit to continue with learning japanese (already have a hard time to stay focused on it). Your comment made me want to study it more. I hope I can learn it so people can understand me when I travel to Japan in the future! Your written english is very good!
Generally they are processing your accent. I thought people in China were being rude af to me because no one understood my Chinese. Turns out my Chinese was just reallllllly bad. I'm much better now and don't have any problems. I assume Japanese is similar.
@@bartsimpson1161 it’s pretty well known that Japanese people can be extremely xenophobic and rude to foreigners. I think it could go either way, but in this case the speakers accent is nearly identical to the native speaker so 🤷🏻♀️ Also Chinese has tones or whatever they’re called, making it verrrryyyy hard to speak it with a proper accent. Japanese doesn’t have that
Yeah, as a foreigner in Japan, my experience has been that some Japanese people might be nervous about speaking to a foreigner, but once you start speaking OK Japanese, 99% of people will talk to you normally. There's just this 1% who see a foreign face and can't understand. I have spoken to people like this with no problem while they couldn't see my face, then when they saw I am a foreigner, suddenly they couldn't understand anything I said.
@@Nezuji I would think it would be just surprise because I would bet that not many foreigners actually take the time to even learn the basics when they travel lol
In my experience, they try to do this, but I immediately tell them I know what they're doing and that it's embarrassing for them, and they suddenly understand me perfectly
May I ask a situation in which you respond? I'm going to Japan for Christmas and speak it conversationally. I have a friend as a local guide, but I'm trying my best to speak it fluently.
Not quite. The mindset is more negative in this case. "Your English is so good" isn't the same as "I refuse to let you believe I understand you because in reality, I don't want foreigners learning Japanese". I had an old woman say "いってらしゃい!" as I biked past her on the street nowhere near houses and she didn't even know me. She told me she wished me safe travels.... but implied *out of her country*
For some natives, it’s probably more of an intonation thing. But y’all can’t deny some natives def are racist as heck for like no reason. I wish we could all just vibe together.
True, but it's very rare. But this video is making it seem like it's extremely common, and that isn't right. More often than not foreigners simply have a worse accent than they'd like to admit... (As a side note the guy in this video has a very good accent... But he's obviously just demonstrating exaggerating the situation. It's not necessarily him that's having this problem.)
>all just vibe together Eh sure, but I would rather countries and cultures preserve their tradition and identity. I really hope Japan doesn’t make the same mistake as the West and become a melting pot of different cultures and ethnicities.
@@SkyeAten thats just it with accent, im 99% sure if a southern or a british born went to a place like Germany or Italy it would be hard for them to understand as certin accents speek much differently even tho its the same language
This is common in Japan. The locals do not expect you to be speaking their language. So they are trying to process what you are saying as English. Japanese is full of English loan words, so it's an easy mistake. On a side note, this can also happen in reverse. There may be the rare Japanese person who is confident enough to try to speak to you in their heavily accented Japanglish, and you might not immediately recognize that they are speaking in English.
It happened to me the other day, I was trying to understand something in english, and didn't understand anything, turns out it was spanish with accent, then I could understand everything.
Whyy... that's horrible. I live in a section of the United States where we see LOTS of Spanish speaking customers. It would be disgusting if we pretended not to hear them based on their accent even though they're speaking English 😐🤨
There could be many reasons she didn’t respond it could’ve been she straight couldn’t understand as he had a very heavy English accent. Which by the way can be practiced. A lot of people that learn Japanese think oh I know the words, I know the grammar and can make sentences perfectly so I’m fluent, they will be able to understand right? but just like any language perfecting your accent takes time. Also if something like this discourages you think about why you wanted to learn is one mishap gonna change why your interested.
THE Japanese seem picky about pronunciation. I said “anime” like an American and my Japanese friend didn’t understand. I then said “ahhh-neee-may” and she finally understood. Told me she loves it. When I hear a foreigner speaking incorrectly-accented english, I can still hear what they’re saying. It isn’t difficult, but Japanese seem unwilling to try, even if pronunciation is slightly off .
@@electrictroy2010 To be fair that's not typically Japanese. I speak English as a second language with close to no accent and yet if I slightly mispronounce a word, suddenly many people seem unable to understand me. At first I thought it was my fault but then eventually I realized it wasn't. Many people seem unable to guess what you're trying to say from context alone.
Living in Korea and get this all the time. I realized my Korean isn’t actually that bad when I noticed I had no trouble being understood on the phone 🙃
Korea and china are a bit morr nationalistic in those areas, but in my experience they stand by it and wont beat around the bush about it and just annoy you. Like you'll know why a korean or chinese is being a douche, but the japanese will sternly deny it to the end
@@Lemontarts01 I'd just switch to English and say "Sorry I thought you could speak Japanese/Korean (Depending on where I was)" and make a snide comment on how they are Japanese/Korean but can't speak their own language suddenly I imagine that they'll understand what I'm saying after
Bonus round: when someone is Western and speaks fluent Japanese, is with someone that is Asian that only speaks English. Their heads explode and they don't know what to do. It's pretty funny to watch until you remember how blatantly racist this is. In most other cultures, they will default to whoever they can communicate best with. But in Japan they default to those that look like them the most. Especially outside of Tokyo and Okinawa.
@@pauloazuela8488 Racism: the irrational fear/hatred of those that don't look like you Xenophobia: the irrational fear/hatred of persons and/or cultures unfamiliar to you.
@@Duskraven67 You gave the definition enough to be known there's a difference. Just believe what you believe but the majority and even in literature looks at them as different terms
How do you know it's because you weren't Asian? Did they actually say that? This is never ever happened to me or any of my foreigner friends living in Japan. However I have heard of foreigners being kicked out of bars for starting fights or using rude language... So....... (also, if the restaurant even has English menu's you know being a foreigner is not the problem... they usually serve foreigners then. I know it's easier to accuse people of racism.... but you need to check yourself too. Were you and your friends smashed? Or being very loud? Was someone rude to a waiter? Being a foreigner is not the common denominator , it's not the problem, or this would have happened to me by now and I've been here nearly 4 years. Hasn't happened to any of my foreign friends either. What kind of crowd you hanging out with that gets kicked out a restaurant? lmao
@@SkyeAten nah they had a full english menu there, ignored us and then proceeded to serve everyone who came in after us i love japan and i’ve been learning japanese for at least 8 years
@@m1lksoda i’m sorry to hear that. as a japanese person, i think they ignored you because they assumed you couldn’t speak japanese and got scared (you might be surprised as to how scared people in japan are when they meet a foreigner because they want to be polite but don’t want to mess up).
If the listener isn't expecting to understand you, doesn't matter how fluently you speak. The phenomenon this video depicts is universal. It's not just a problem for folks trying to speak Japanese.
THE Japanese seem picky about pronunciation. I said “anime” like an American and my Japanese friend didn’t understand. I then said “ahhh-neee-may” and she finally understood. Told me she loves it. When I hear a foreigner speaking incorrectly-accented english, I can still hear what they’re saying. It isn’t difficult, but Japanese seem unwilling to try, even if pronunciation is slightly off .
@@electrictroy2010 It's not an unwillingness to understand. It's inexperience hearing the language being spoken by foreigners. We are used to sifting through alternate pronunciations. If they haven't had to communicate with a lot of different accents they just have not learned how to shift mental gears and bring the words into focus.
Americans generally don’t have this universal problem; we have _so many_ people from all different countries, speaking English, which is also a challenging language, that we _have to_ learn to understand anyone. 😊 My favorite time was when I got to “translate” the English of two Different foreign people for each other!
@@electrictroy2010 You ever seen the Key and Peele Roll Call video? Maybe same concept. Your mispronunciation is so far off. Like calling a torch (flashlight) a touch.
@@rhythmneko I don’t think you know this but Asian countries are extremely racist towards non Asians and especially black people but nobody really talks about it
@@SkyeAten "the only way this could ever happen even though hundreds talk about this is if they're ALL worse than me!" Why are you deepthroating so hard? Have you ever thought (unlike the Japanese) that different sections of people are different? Someone in aomori may be less willing to try understanding foreigners than someone in Tokyo (random example) Chances are, with the # saying "x" happens, you are not better than all of them, just have different experiences
I’m half Chinese and when I go to China sometimes people do this to me too 😭 It’s like they choose to not understand but its just because of the culture there, and for the most part people aren’t like this. But it can be infuriating especially because I have always maintained good pronunciation and have grown up with Chinese culture but people just assume I don’t know anything…would be nice to not cause a scene what feels like everytime I just want to practice my Chinese and speak my moms mother tongue. Edit: I’m a little sad that people are assuming I have an accent or something and that I’m not as educated on Mandarin Chinese as I claimed. I assure you I don’t have an accent, I have been deeply self conscious of my Chinese my whole life and have worked really hard to maintain it to “prove” myself because I have felt excluded in the past because of my appearance. When I ask every relative or friend, they tell me I sound almost if not just like a Mainland Mandarin speaker. Chinese pronunciation has always been super easy to me, which is why as I said originally, for the most part when I go to China everyone understands me perfectly. Just sometimes, it happens that the odd person assumes I don’t speak Chinese and so they listen for English and then get confused. And even when I’m understood, sometimes it’s like “shocking” or whatever because I don’t look Asian enough I guess. I really don’t mean any disrespect to any Chinese mainlanders or other language communities where this happens, it’s not a constant issue, but it does happen more than it should, and pointing that out is in no way trying to generalize each and every speaker, it’s a cultural issue, there is no one individual or group of individuals to blame. Just wanted to share my experience. Those experiences have definitely made me feel bad and still have some effect on me, but they don’t control me and they aren’t representative of China as a whole. Man I miss China, haven’t been there in forever because of travel restrictions.
Maybe but it could also be that they are not used to hearing accents so they don't understand. The first time I hurd british english I was very confused. I am also a francophone and some part of my country the accent is so thick that I can understand their french.
The opposite problem also exists... that if you're a non-Chinese Asian person who goes to China and everyone around you insists on speaking to you in Mandarin and carries on forever even though you don't speak or understand a word of it.
When I lived there sometimes it would help me you ask kindly: “do you understand what I’m saying?” And that seemed to help shake whatever off and pay closer attention to you. :)
Happens to me in Ethiopia too as an Ethiopian-American. I’ve got good pronunciation but most 2nd gens don’t know Amharic so it surprises them when I do.
I have a theory. I like learning languages and practicing with native speakers. When you mess up or you use a wrong word that sounds like the word you meant to say sometimes people can figure out what you meant to say. The only language where that has never happened for me is Mandarin. I feel like when you make a mistake in Mandarin they have no idea what you're trying to say lol. To be fair my Mandarin is terrible, but i think it's also something about how their brains are wired. They can't hear you say x and figure out that you meant y.
South African here. I agree with you completely. I can speak English and Afrikaans, currently studying Japanese and would like to learn Xhosa. For us it's usually easy to understand pretty much anyone who speaks English with a foreign accent
I’m Japanese but I can understand and he speaks Japanese naturally. She means Japanese have a stereotype about foreigners’ language, maybe.Actually,however, his Japanese is so good, so most Japanese would understood the phrase. Please don’t be disappointed😔
This isn’t to be rude, but I would like someone to point it out to me. My punctuation as an American isn’t the best either so don’t take this to harshly. Your punctuation and grammar could use some work. A quick example: “foreigners’ “ should just be “foreigners” with no apostrophe, super minor, but changes a lot about the sentence. Another example: “foreigners language, maybe.Actually,however,” should be “foreigners language? Actually,” “actually,however” is redundant, either can be used, but both is unnecessary, “maybe” should either be removed or at the start of the sentence with a “?” Instead of “.” At the end. Also add a space after punctuation to keep your sentence from being cluttered looking. You did great by the way, any native English speaker should easily be able to understand that, I just thought I should add some input to help you get even better❤
@@gaming4K im helping them get better at english? whats wrong with you? i said multiple times that they did great and were understandable, but not perfect. Stop overreacting because i tried to help someone clearly trying to learn the language.
It's ok. I'm Asian from America. People here always try to make Asian people worse than them but they do it too and are very violent. They do worse than the video. They will cut in line in front of Asians, spit and punch them, but also say we are the bad ones. Don't let these foreigners lie to u and try to make it sound like they are so loving to us. Asians experience worse racism than they do.
I feel as if it's not an active choice, I mean sometimes you cant understand people because they have a strong accent or speak really fast so I wouldn't call it "racist"
@@peachrose744 exactly, the thing is foreigners often pronounce anglicisms in Japanese same as they would in English, for Japanese it is hard to comprehend because they adapt everything so it would sound Japanese and easier for them to pronounce
i feel like i should say this. i’m black. when i went to japan in 2023, i had been learning japanese for maybe a year through duolingo, a little anime, and some curious google searching. stayed in various cities including tokyo, osaka, and nagoya for about a week and a half and everyone i spoke to understood the little japanese i knew and some even said i sounded like a native with my pronunciation. everyone was very polite and extremely helpful. being intentional and focusing on politeness when learning the right things to say and the ways to say them in a foreign land makes it easier for natives to be comfortable speaking be confident in yourself and your ability. 🙂 speaking it aloud is very important.
It doesn't work. Maybe if you watch anime all day, you believe this. But I live in Japan and you're better off starting your order by clearly stating what you want rather than mumbling through some filler words. あの does not make you sound fluent 😂
I'm a foreigner who lives in Japan, and speaks Japanese, this sometimes happens. But, DON'T BE DISCOURAGED OR TAKE IT PERSONALLY. Sometimes it's because they get a bit shocked or nervous, sometimes it's because you have a thick accent, and sometimes it's because the person just sucks. Unfortunately, this situation exists anywhere when using your non-native language. PLEASE CONTINUE TO WORK HARD!!!
Meanwhile, someone attempts speaking French to me and I'm over the moon. No matter if they have an accent or are learning, it's very touching being addressed by a stranger using your mother tongue, especially if you live overseas
I can't tell you how helpful this video is. I already suffer from crippling social anxiety and I have a tremendous fear of being misunderstood. Now I know that I will certainly experience panic attacks in Japan. Thanks!
I too have a lot of social anxiety, but honestly poointing at the menu or just whipping out google trsnslate (SMALL WORDS AND PHRASES ONLY. I cannot explain enough to you how WRONG google translate will get long sentences. It lacks context, proper formality vs. Informality, and the order of sentences. And just words in general. But short things like "where to buy hat?" And "one cheesecake please" will help a lot. I got around perfectly fine with my limited Japanese and barely speaking much of it both times I went. They are generally very helpful too, and not too judging, so I never felt much anxiety there as opposed to America. Only once, and that was because of my own malfunction. I felt embarrassed because I didn't know if a shop was open or not and walked in, and they were like "CLOSED!" So I rushed out and... opened the door too hard. It hit the wall and I wanted to cry.
Yo, some people really do have strong foreign accent, All I do to solve the issue, is setting a type of stereotypical chinese tone + acting using an Anime Character type of voice, When you do this it tricks some people to believe that you are very good at it! Unless you can't help but say : Whyta-ishey Waw Pollll Desuuuuu. In that case someone needs to train a lot!
@Shoka Lgbt nah I don’t think it’s racism, I’ve spoken Japanese at restaurants before and after repeating myself a few times at first they told me that it just threw them for a loop. It’s like when I worked at a factory and if you started to speak Korean to the Koreans they’d freeze for a sec or you’d have to repeat yourself a few times at first. My buddy khadar is Somalian and has a very strong accent, when I first met him it took me a few tries to understand his accent so I think it’s along those lines.
CHEESECAKEを頂けますか？ How can you claim to be fluent in your language and not understand what he's trying to tell you? He's saying "cheesecake" for crying out loud. Just being casually xenophobic.
@@celestialorb1680 It doesn't matter. I talked to people with way stronger accents all the time and it's no issue. She's just being ignorant. Cheesecake isn't even a Japanese word, it's a loan word for Christ's sake.
@@celestialorb1680 if I can understand an Indian guy talking twice as fast as normal and only pronouncing half a word. Then a Japanese person can understand a small mispronunciation
This is the most counterproductive bull. “Oh you want to learn my language in an attempt to make communication easier for the both of us? Great, don’t YOU speaking MY language is too confusing.”
She can't understand because the Japanese pronunciation of foreign words is subtly different to what you'd expect so that Japanese can't understand when foreigners say them. It's doubly difficult as a foreigner because you "think" you know how the word is pronounced because you recognise the same word in English. I can confirm this is highly accurate.
@@meihatsume1165 so basically from what I heard from some of the comments were that “maybe the accent is off” or bc “they are being blatantly rude bc it’s a foreigner” or they “don’t look Asian” but don’t really take my word for it that’s just what I heard from the comments
This happened to me probably twice while I lived in Japan for three whole years. It’s not like an everyday occurrence don’t worry. I think it would happen more if you were with a Japanese person because the person may assume that Japanese person is there to translate for you so they probably don’t even pay attention to what you sai the first time. That happened to me when I was out with my husband. But they don’t just stare and silently beg for help from him they do honestly try to listen to me the second time.
Many people in the comments are saying that they have similar experiences living in Japan, Korea or China. They speak the language fluently but still get ignored or just stared at without an acknowledgement. If it wasn't a thing that happens, there wouldn't be multiple videos making fun of the phenomenon as well as something that people mention about their experiences in Japan as foreigners.
I live in Osaka after graduating from high school in 2010. Originally from California, started learning Japanese as my choice of Language (already knew Italian from growing up in Rome till 12yo) so I didn’t want to take Spanish. I instantly fell in love with the Asian culture. My Japanese isn’t the best but I can hold a conversation and read. Still practicing everyday. 🇯🇵
Sarcasm is not common in Japan as a form of humour... you'd just come across as being a jerk. British people often are overly sarcastic in the US and it's often received as being mean. Japan's far less sarcastic than UK/US/Canada/Australia/NZ
@@Birdcell-i4z you’re lying to make this sound better, everywhere I go there’s always someone who doesn’t have, in your words, “perfect English” even I don’t speak “perfect English” because I have a speech disability which hinders me from pronouncing certain words correctly, yet I was raised here my whole life, white, blonde hair, blue eyes the whole cabash. You can go pretty much anywhere and be served if you have the money and are able to show some kind of knowledge of what you want. America is the lease racist country compared to foreign third world countries, clown😂🤡
@@ludwigwittgenstein1280 regardless of whether they deserve it or not, if they don't understand the intended meaning, your petty offense will just go over their heads.
Exactly. This just doesn't happen in Japan. Maybe the very very minority. I've never had a problem. Every Japanese person I've encountered has been so patient and kind.
"They won't understand you" That's a weird way to say "they're being racist" Edit: these guys arguing the difference between xenophobia and racism is funny. They both mean being prejudice towards other people, it doesn't matter the race or country, if you're acting like this, it isn't okay. As a Mexican, I can assure you, I understand, but you gotta understand that this video, albeit staged shows that you can annunciate and sound out something completely correct, yet the native will only look toward the other Japanese person for the answer. There shouldn't be no context, no other meaning to what he said, it's plain wrong to ignore and disprove someone solely because they come from another country. As for people telling me "oh you're wrong, this is xenophobia, it's different." I just gotta say, naw,, it isn't. Whether it be race or country, you're still showing prejudices against other people. There's no justification for that, go ahead and argue some more, my opinion stands.
First wtf second: just think about it like this. as a natural english speaker you are not used to speaking to people you can barely understand and if someone is standing next to say a chinese woman who looks american you naturally turn to that person immediately. Personally, I'm German and I have no problem understanding why they do it...if you're not a native speaker, it's 80% sure that even if that person thinks they're good at German, you absolutely do can not understand XD
@@starrs802 I can easily understand someone speaking english with a strong accent. I don't know what you're on about. Japanese people definitely pretend they don't understand what foreigners are saying on purpose to be xenophobic
Access to Japanese people is not a human right. Their body, their choice. Stop harassing Japanese people to be in your life. Anti-Asians do not belong. Asians will not erase ourselves to please hostiles for their benefit. Get out colonist.
Watch a lot of the big name Japan youtubers, like The Anime Man, Chris Broad, and Connor of CDawgVa, as well as AkiDearest, Sharla in Japan, amd Tokyo Lens, and Gigguk. They all have mentioned this a few times, especially Joey (The Anime Man) how you will speak perfect Japanese to them and they start answering in English everytime you say another thing in Japanese. They either just act like you aren't speaking Japanese and insist they can't understand, or answer you in English despite how many times you answer in Japanese.
Why is this such a common trope/meme? Western foreigner here. Traveled through Japan for three weeks in 2018, speaking Japanese only - in hotels, conbinis, trains stations, stores, ramen restaurants, clubs, you name it. This didn't happen to me even once.
Been here five years. Same, it hasn't happened. Or when it has, it's because I'm lazy and told my Japanese girlfriend to do the talking for me, or she just automatically speaks for me anyways.
Dude. This always happened to me when I lived in Korea. It also happens to my friends when they go with me to Mexico and they speak Spanish. Maybe I’m biased since I was an ESL teacher for years, but you can talk to me in the most broken version of a language I know, and I have no difficulties.
I’m Japanese. This skit doesn’t make sense at all… Is the waitress a racist? edit: As other Japanese comments here say, his pronunciation is really good and there’s no chance that the waitress couldn’t understand it. That’s why I was confused. (But I'm sorry “is she a racist” was too much)
Eh, as someone with a good grasp on Japanese but white (with an Australian accent) a lot of people are confused when I speak Japanese. Most of the time they apologized and said they weren't expecting it.
@@raidenkonkon I’m sorry that happens… I thought that won’t happen because I live in Osaka where many foreigners speak Japanese and it’s not that surprising to most people.
Do u live in japan or did u grow up abroad? Because if you've had experiences with foreign customers, u can get why some store clerks do this and it's not racist, they just wanna get their job done. Maybe don't jump to harsh words so quickly?
@@dystopia4755 I grow up in Japan but yes I’ve had some experiences with foreign customers because I work as a cashier in Osaka. I just didn’t know why the waitress pretended like she didn’t understood it when the pronunciation is fine and clearly understandable.
@Frosty Toasty Thank you for explaining it, now it makes sense! Yeah this could happen if the man’s pronunciation is bad. It was confusing because his pronunciation is too good haha
I'm half Japanese but look fully Filipino and I've never experienced this. 違う動画でも同じような内容を投稿していたハーフの方がいたんですけど、投稿者の見た目は日本人にもいそうな外見なのにそういう経験をしたって言ってました。 しかも東京で。
30+ years living in Tokyo. I do not find this to be a big issue at all, and it is not my impression that there are a lot of Japanese who are deliberately pretending not to understand foreign pronunciation of the language. Conversely, it is my experience that some foreigners can underestimate how small differences in their intonation can impact the comprehensibility Of their speech to some Japanese listeners. I also find that some foreigners seem to carry a base level of frustration around with them, a kind of resentment if you will, regarding their language skills. The emotion makes solving any communication problem which may arise more difficult.
@@scottprina1207 Totally agree. I've lived in Japan 22 years and never had such a problem except during my early years when I overestimated my Japanese ability.
@@schizofren_ia Because my dude, the video is an exaggeration. They wouldn't get tripped up over "cheesecake." This is more likely to happen at a post office or government city hall, which is much more understandable. Japanese people can get nervous when talking to foreigners, and these things happen.
I had no issue. Everyone i met was kind and respectful. Even the taxi drivers were shocked to have a conversation and also appreciative. Don't be worried!♡
...has never happened to me in the almost 4 years I've been here. Not to me, not to my other foreign friends... Not when I'm alone and not when I'm with my Japanese friends. Please... please don't let the foreigners who show up here with a victim mentality make you worried about coming here. They get here, experience a miscommunication (bound to happen), or just some rude person.. and scream racism. It's ridiculous. It's not like that and it's NOT common. When I first arrived, I hardly spoke any Japanese and there were so few "bad" interactions (aka, I didn't know how to say it in Japanese, took out my phone and used google translate while they patiently waited to try and understand what I wanted). But everyone did their best to understand me. I lived in Europe before and even with people speaking English, and being the same race, I met so many rude people.. so rude doesn't equal racist. lol. And I met at almost one rude person per day in Europe... whereas in Japan, gosh, I met one "rude" lady once, in my time here, at a phone store that said "please bring your Japanese friend and come back next next time"...because I couldn't possibly read the Japanese contract myself... I felt hurt when she said that, but then I realized, it's not because she was even actually being rude... it's because I felt incompetent. But most people experience that, them make tik toks of how racist people are.. lmao.
Take what you see with a grain of salt. I think it's as unrealistic to think "this isn't true! no japanese act like this! it's a gaijin victim complex!" as it is to think "all japanese are xenophobic". People are very diverse and unique, so anything can happen, and as long as you are prepared to accept the possibilities, you will be fine.
@@PIVfirestarkproducon Yeah but this video is absolutely screaming "all Japanese are xenophobic", which you can see in the thousands of people saying how discouraged and angry they are about this. In truth, it's a very rare occurrence but I do think people with victim complex will be more likely to interpret any sort of communication problem as xenophobia. It's what they're expecting, hence their experience that "it happens 24/7 " (as one woman once told me here when I said it hasn't happened to me yet). Whereas in truth, there will always be communications problems between non-native speakers, as well as big cultural differences. Those don't automatically imply xenophobia but some people interpret it as such and make things worse by approaching staff as if they are already expecting them to be rude... they give off a bad vibe, and actually just end up attracting it themselves. *psychologyyyyy~
happens in the USA when your Japanese spouse speaks perfect English at Walmart and you become the English to English translator because the US cashier only hears the accent and not the English.
Same experience when i was at Australia and asked the shop assistant where i can return the clothes i tried. I repeated twice and she still couldn't understand me. I'm Asian but we speak English as our first language in our country so I couldn't process her reaction in my brain. I looked around wondering if I'm on Earth, realised that I'm definitely on Earth and cursed at her. And suddenly she understood me.
@@LuminescentQuarter Sometimes it's speed of conversation. Some people are patient and good listeners while some are brash and hurried listeners only hearing what they want instead of what is said. Case in point there is this mayor liberal who is rash and unfair in thought and opinion. I speak clear and slow with words that are sometimes uncommon. On City Council meetings she often claims not to understand me and she is rushing. A principal of an elementary school of those with speech impediments and she claims she can't understand me. If she can't understand me then she is cruel and abusive at her elementary school. Because she can't understand the children at her school either. She can't understand because she is listening to her self only. Often I get questions and my answers are complex. Because the hurried and rushed English speaker doesn't understand the question has a complex answer that can not be answered in under 5 minutes. They often want a Yes or No answer but either way would invalidate the answer to a question. This is where you find those of low English ability in the USA who only know English. When they complain they can't understand someone who speaks perfect English well these persons have enormous difficulty in solving even foreign language let alone accents.
I think in the US we have the benefit of hearing lots of accents. Going to college I was taught by people with strong Russian, Chinese, Indian accents and by the end of the year I was able to understand them perfectly.
My mom had a hard time being raised with English as her second language, so she made sure English was my first. I didn't start learning Spanish until I was already ~6 and till day I'll get "Why do you sound like a white boy?" It's cool. I just speak English instead.
HAHHA im weak. I remember i was on a bus with my japanese friend. The elderly japanese lady thought i was japanese, and my japanese friend was a forigner🤣 so she spoke to me the whole time while i looked at my japanese friend for translation🤣🤣 poor guy.
It's supposed to mean that some Japanese people will ignore foreigners at any chance they get, especially if there's a Japanese person as an alternative to speak to. (That's what I get from it)
@@watchmesquatch In the first place, if the seller ignores the customer's order, there is no way to do business. It is impossible for a Japanese person to ignore a foreigner. Even if they don't understand the Japanese, they will listen to it again. The only thing that is clear is that the creator of this video is not Japanese.
@@nyarry27 idk man, Japan can be pretty xenophobic. I've heard stories of people literally being denied shelter in bad weather cause they aren't Japanese
When I speak Chinese, they also give same reaction because they don't expect you to speak their language. that's why he thinks he speaks English, so he can't fully perceive it. When they continue to talk, they are very surprised after a while because they cannot believe that you can speak that language.
As an American this is so funny because a *some* of us expect everyone to speak English Even in other countries And a lot of the time they do It’s weird
@@shadowfaxdog9733 a lot of my fellow gaijin coworkers didn't bother to learn Japanese, but we were working there at least a year and longer. Because I learned and tried speaking, I got invited to events, people's homes, and places that gaijin typically didn't go as often because there were fewer Bilingual/ English speakers to translate. Of course my Japanese friends who took me along would translate for me on really confusing parts but they included me because I bothered to try, and they could laugh at my many faux pas and teach me too. And they got to learn American English from me as well. It was more fun than just going to all the international English centered pubs. I climbed frigging Mt. Fuji all night ( and alone after the 2 gaijin i started with went off on their own) so I could experience sunrise above the clouds 🗻🌄 and I got to hang out with some Shinto at the top who invited me to walk down with them They overheard me speaking Japanese , noticed i was alone, and invited me to join their pilgrimage group. I wouldn't have had that great experience with the Shinto followers if I had tried to keep up with the English-only hikers. The Shinto people were kind and interesting. And , BTW, I learned first hand that clouds are not soft, warm, cottony puffs like in cartoons, ...they are cold. and dark. and wet inside. ☁️🌧💦😢 And I'm glad I made them laugh at my surprise yelp at being doused in cold wet vapor totally unprepared.
i speak fluent spanish as a foreigner and spanish-speakers are delighted when i speak their language. they immediately want to have a conversation about where i’m from. feeling grateful i didn’t study japanese.
Probably cause Spanish is a language that’s heavily associated with working class routes, versus eastern languages that were often perfected in the noble courts
Native Spanish speaker here. We absolutely love when non soanish speakers try to learn our language and most of us are more than happy to help you practice. Not everyone is like this; some people (old and young) will literally only speak to someone in spanish if that person is native. Theres a bunch of reasons for it but its really not as common
@@alexanderthegreat1270 no, Spanish is and was a language of nobility must I remind you that the Spaniards brought Spanish to the americas and the islands and taught people to communicate in Spanish. the Spanish you learn in classes is the Spaniard style Spanish and not the regional “compacino” Spanish that is of result of mixing the indigenous linguistics and the conversion of Spaniard Language into slang bc they had a hard time learning it (think of aave in America or southern language in the south.) Even the compacino can change their linguistic style to be more “Articulate” when needed to show ettiequte. Latino people have always enjoyed the fact that people are now learning their language and aren’t feeling ostracized in society that doesn’t speak their native language or bc they see that their language is more accepted. They enjoy the thought of people loving and enjoying the culture,traditions that they enjoy aswell.that’s all
it’s not that his japanese is bad, it’s just that she’s not listening for japanese. english is my first language but working in LA, when i had customers who were obviously more comfortable in spanish i would expect to take their order in spanish. sometimes i couldn’t understand what they were saying at first if they ordered in english, not because their accent was too thick for me to understand but because it’s not what i was preparing to hear.
When I went to Japan, most of the Japanese people could actually understand what I said! I was so glad for that cause I would have been so embarrassed if they couldn’t 😭
I have never actually had this happen. I've been in japan before, even when my japanese was still highly questionable. Even in small towns they have always been very chill.
Yes. Same. I've been here 3 years, hasn't happened even once. It's a phenomenon. Do they just suck a Japanese but don't want to admit it to themselves maybe 😂 some of my foreign friends do have bad accents (although they've never complained about this). On the other hand, many of the staff working at shops are actually not Japanese, although they are Asian. I think many foreigners incorrectly assume that they should be easily understood regardless of their bad Japanese without realizing that the person that they're speaking to is also struggling with Japanese.... Ironically
@@SkyeAten I sometimes see this phenomenon in the comments on UA-cam for a video where there's a bilingual person who usually speaks in one language but on occasion just happens to speak a sentence in the other language or switch languages mid-speech. When the brain encounters information it doesn't expect, it tries to fit it in to the expectation at first, and then it doesn't make sense so the brain becomes confused. It doesn't mean you've suddenly become racist while watching a video and refused to acknowledge the person speaking a different language. It's a biological limitation of humans (but even Word doesn't recognize words if you type some foreign words unexpectedly). If you think the other person is racist when this happens towards you, though, it tells more about your insecurities than about what the other person may be.
What exactly are you saying and who are you talking to? I've lived in Japan for 3 years and this has never happened to me. I've been to big cities and countryside areas. None of my foreign friends have experienced this either. Then again, people have said that I have a very good accent... Maybe your Japanese just isn't as good as it could be? Just keep practicing! ❤️😊
I work in a theme park (so I see a lot of tourists) and I really like and appreciate it when people take the effort of trying to talk to me in my language. Even if it’s crap, it’s nice that they try. Obviously I always continue the conversation in English because that is much quicker and more practical, but still.
@@aloetragedy1568 Especially foreigners who have bothered to learn japanese should welcome the afford from someone japanese to actually speak English. Though I am sure they would welcome the opportunity to practise their japanese even more.
thats when u hit them w the "sorry do u not speak japanese..?" to throw em off. id honestly rather just have them deny me service up front than beat around the bush & pretend we all dont know whats going on lol.
I would recommend speaking a bit more loudly and clearly, maybe also emphasizing that you are going to repeat yourself slowly: 発音が悪くてごめんなさい！もう一度ゆっくり話しますね！XXXをお願いします。 I would bet that in most cases this would resolve the situation. But in case it does not, you can proceed with being passive aggressive haha. I'd probably just that I'm going to go to another place and leave..
@@BewareOfStinger Save your breath, my friend. A lot of people from western countries (especially people from the U.S) are just really eager to take any sort of presived slight as malicious intent, especially when it comes to 'racism'. You will not convince them that their could be any reason why people from other nationalities might treat them a little differently, other than "they are just racist". But I commend your efforts.
This is similar to how native Spanish speakers are interacted with here in Texas. Because of the large amount of Hispanic people (immigrants and native Texans), many Texans know at least a little Spanish, and because of that, many native Spanish speakers never learn English, so there are often times when this such case occurs- especially in areas where there are larger communities of non-English-speaking folk. Someone will get very prepared to use Spanish and then kind of glitch out when the person uses English. It's even funnier when the person they're speaking to doesn't even know any Spanish 😂. My own sister has had that happen to her just days ago and she's only half Mexican. Everyone always assumes she speaks Spanish, but she actually knows none.
For those out there studying Japanese that feel discouraged. I’ve been to japan many times, and for many months. Not once has someone does this with me, but with my friends, yes fully. I don’t think it’s a race thing, but more so a intonation thing, if you’re serious about being understood, study your pitch accents and speak with confidence. 99% of Japanese people are very kind and understand, superficial or not 😊
It's funny though, there are quite a few people in the comments that say this, but they have one or two likes at most... It's like the people who watch this video just want to be victims. I've been here almost 4 years now and I also haven't experienced this yet. I really feel like the people that are complaining about this, aren't even trying to check themselves. There can be so many reasons for miscommunication when you go abroad, accent is a big one... but it literally seems like they all just want to be victims of racism instead lmao. They don't even try to consider the other possibilities, accent, culture, resting b**ch face (must be scary for waiters and many foreigners do it without realizing lol). or they are just generally rude themselves, but expect to be treated kindly and then when they're not, they scream racism. That's literally what it's starting to look like to me. Not even my other foreign friends here have experienced this...
She'd probably feel bad that she couldn't help you. She's more likely nervous because she's never talked much to foreigners and it's an unfamiliar situation so her brain shut down, kind of like how ours do during presentations, interviews or other stressful or unfamiliar situations. Let's not be so quick to automatically assume the worst out of everyone.
That happened to me before when I was in Japan but it's the other way around. A Japanese asked me something and I can't comprehend whatever he's saying, then suddenly he asked me "You're a Filipino aren't you?" in japanese. That's when I realized that all along he's speaking in Tagalog! I can't help but laugh whenever I remember that moment. I really find it funny thinking that we finished our conversation with him asking me in tagalog while I'm replying in nihongo.😂
This happens so much more often than people think... I've had funny encounters as well. But unlike how we laugh at our experiences, some people walk away and call everyone racist if the interaction didn't go perfectly sigh
Sometimes foreigners are ignored if there is a Japanese person with them. People don’t expect the foreigner to speak well, or assume it will be easier to speak to the Japanese person. This is a surprisingly common experience. I hope this makes sense- I read your comment using google translate.
Two key words you should learn: な に そ れ nani sore (What’s that?) JUST for when they’re confused or if you’re confused, btw ignore the spaces it’s just so they can match the sounds or smt idk
Exactly the same in Taiwan. 😂 They look at you with that blank stare. Then a Taiwanese person says exactly the same thing you said and they are understood perfectly. 😂 My husband said it is because they have a hard time processing a foreigner is speaking the local language and automatically expect they won't be able to understand a foreigner.
Yeah, this. The brain doesn't expect it so it just doesn't process. Happened to me at the airport in Warsaw once. Security woman said something, I said "Sorry I don't speak Polish", then she repeated it and then I noticed it had been English all along...
Because they speak a completely different language than Japanese and is notoriously difficult to pronounce properly unless you’re a native speaker. If you don’t speak the tones properly the meaning completely changes, and most foreigners can’t pronounce the intonations.
I'm from a small country and the same here, people don't understand other nations speaking the local language because they are simply not used to hearing different accents. The same happened to me in other small countries where I tried to learn the language, but not much in the UK or US when speaking English, probably because I was visiting multicultural areas anyway where people were used to hearing accents. Even though it is likely they have never heard my accent before. Japanese or Taiwanese people probably haven't heard anyone foreign speaking the local language before and can't process the accents.
Even if a foreigner speaks japanese fluently, it might be be weird for japanese bc they don't see a foreigner speaking japanese often, don't get discouraged though, they still appreciate that you are trying to speak japanese.
Agreed. Although this video is an exaggeration, it's easy for Japanese people to get nervous when in an unfamiliar social situation with foreigners. This even happens in somebody's native language, like how your mind goes blank during an interview or presentation. Westerners (especially Americans) in the comments are so quick to call this "racism" even though they've done the same thing to non-english speakers for hundreds of years.
Hi I'm a Japanese student who's studying in Canada. First, I'm so sorry for people who experienced this kind of thing in Japan. But at the same time, I'm so sad that many people consider this as discrimination, but I just don't want you guys to think in negative way all the time. I'm still learning English, and sometimes people don't understand my English, but I had never thought that's discrimination. And I encourage people who are studying Japanese! I know it's hard, even for me it is, but let's keep making efforts together! I'll do my best to improve my English! Love y'all! 🥰
And if they dont understand theya sk you to repeat, not straight refuse and ignore you.. stop saying they dont do it on purpose to make Japanese look good while theyre racists
Nah, don't feel sad, it is just this bad habit of people labeling people as racists/xenophobic at the drop of a hat, especially with how bad the connotation for those words are. I've lived here 3 years and maybe it has happened a couple of times to me but I wouldn't feel they are just straight up discriminating, some times they are just expecting some other language, since most tourists don't actually speak japanese. 99.9% of the time clerks do instantly respond in japanese to me and business as usual. On the other hand I've felt people in Japan (at least Tokyo) are very helpful and I've felt I've met a rude person maybe once or twice in 3 years which is pretttty good
Yeah but it's more fashionable and enjoyable for people to scream racism in these days... No one's going to admit maybe they're Japanese accent just sucks.
This happened to me when I was in Japan. I repeated the phrase 3 times and eventually left to get my translator (this was many years ago). When I repeated to the translator he wasn't sure why they didn't understand me, he said my pronunciation was a little bit off but still understandable 🤷♀️
Your translator might be good at understanding accents. It takes getting used to... but once you are, you can easily make out words monolingual native speakers can't. Or you were just dead gorgeous and struck the waiter dumb ahaha It's interesting though. How often did this happen to you? I mean, everyone here seems to be using their bad experiences to somehow confirm that everyone in japan is racist... which just feels extremely weird for me because I've been here for 3 years now and I have yet to experience this once... hm.
Is the lack of understanding to do with accents and natives not hearing a particular non native accent enough? I'm British and when i was first introduced to an American accent, i could only under one or two words. But recent years of watching so much American TV, I now understand 95% of what they say lol
This happens to me all the time. I know they are not being rude. I live in a rural area, well away from any additional foreigners and I speak Japanese fluently. But often times, when I speak to a local, they look to my wife for "translation".... even when she says the exact same thing. Other comments are correct... they don't mean to seem rude, it just happens. Gotta roll with it and move on.
To be fair its any language I think, when some non native speak French to me sometimes it takes 5 seconds for my brain to re calibrate to their accent, and then from there I can figure out whatever they say, same for English, and same for others I guess when i speak Bisaya or Spanish (and hopefully Arabic and Japanese within the next 2y)
If I was studying Japanese, this vid would discourage me from trying to speak
You shouldn't be discouraged based on solely this. When learning a new language there's usually gonna be rude/ignorant people, so you just have to push through that and keep going. I mean it's not like those people are gonna do anything about it anyways 🤷♀️
I’ve had it happen to me, and it was.
It may happen, there is a higher chance if you’re with a native, they’ll just look for them to speak even if you speak perfectly
They don’t mean to be rude (I think)
They just don’t wanna mess something up or serve you something wrong (although that wouldn’t happen in a situation like the vid)
Yah it happens to me a lot and I'm shy to speak it around people sometimes. But you gotta power through.
@@SkyeAten rlly never ? happened to me 24/7 in japan. still happens to me regularly at work xD
like the amount of times i ordered food and they brought the english menu to me to then still repeat the order in japanese and suddenly they got it ....
15 yrs in Japan. It's not usually being rude. They see the foreigner, their brain desperately starts digging up half-remembered highschool English lessons but nothing you say sounds like the English they know. By the time they realize you're _not_ speaking English the situation has already escalated.
Maybe say “ano…” first since it’s smth most japanese people say before speaking. Like using “ummm” in english.
Hello! Nice to meet you~ how do u bdo? 1 cheese caki pleasu
In my country the Netherlands we have a similair "problem" alot of people who try to learn the language ( Dutch ) and they stumble alot of Dutch people will automatically switch to English, completely defeating the purpose of the person trying to learn. It is not done intentional but I have noticed this happen every time again over the years
@@Prince.M00NBEAM I do the same. Switch to French or German or English or Sranang or Papiamentu or Crioulo and not really notice the other side prefers not to.
Imagine if you are not speaking English yourself. It would be funny because u are only fluent in ur native language and has Japanese communicational skills. They will be ao confused when you say "I don't speak English"
Say something rude and they'll understand you perfectly fine.
Urazai 🤣
Once I was talking about namco games in a store and a woman got scared
Isn't the case everywhere though? 😂
@@AlexandreTateishi Everyone is scared of BANDAI NAMCO's monetizing practices, no surprise here 🤣
Okay
Start by saying the magic intro word. "Hai eeetto/はいええっと" then say the name of the product. Always works like magic. I do it all the time. So in this case. Hai, eeetto, chiizu keiki onegai shimasu, would work perfectly. Eeetto is the word to switch Japanese people from English to a Japanese mode. You are welcome.
Haha this made me laugh so hard and I bet it's true!
Papa bless. Thank you for sharing the secret.
ホワット エィ レジェンド！！
Went to Japan for the first time last month, can confirm this is true. Aa/Eto/Ano are like dog whistles to get the attention of native Japanese speakers. I don't mean that in any kind of rude way, I just mean when you say those words you get their attention automatically, like a reflex.
Bless
For those who didn't get it : Some Japanese deliberately do not understand foreigners who speak fluent Japanese because they do not look like Asian-
What if I look asian but have a strong accent?
What, didn't they meant to say some foreigners have deep hard accent which is not understandable for the natives
@Irsyad Amir his pronunciation was actually very well, he even pronounced the Japanesed English words like the Japanese do
@@Wcrklmn you must be horrible at Japanese then
@Irsyad Amir actually I think one part of it is that foreigners may "lack" certain non verbal communication cues they expect in certain situations which makes them have to think about what they just heard you say even if its clear, that's giving them the benefit of the doubt that they aren't just scared out of their wits having to talk to a foreigner
I'm Japanese but I could understand his Japanese very well. I honestly can't tell much difference between two people😅
So don't worry! Japanese people, at least those around me, are happy when they see people from other countries studying Japanese!
Sorry if this is not the main point of this video. I'm still learning English, so I hope you can understand a little bit.
This comment is so cute 💖🥰🥹
Yes, I live in Japan and this has never happened to me. Everyone is always helpful and kind when I speak Japanese here. The Japanese staff always understand what I am saying. This video is a bad example, it's really exaggerated. I think it's offensive to Japanese people because it doesn't actually happen like in this video.
This is encouraging to those that are learning the language 😊 Your English is great as well, perfectly put I would say. Keep it up! The encouragement and the great speaking skills!
The video discouraged me a bit to continue with learning japanese (already have a hard time to stay focused on it). Your comment made me want to study it more. I hope I can learn it so people can understand me when I travel to Japan in the future!
Your written english is very good!
Your English is really good. Keep it up! :)
“They won’t understand you” you mean they intentionally don’t understand you/pretend not to lmao
Generally they are processing your accent. I thought people in China were being rude af to me because no one understood my Chinese. Turns out my Chinese was just reallllllly bad. I'm much better now and don't have any problems. I assume Japanese is similar.
@@bartsimpson1161 but ive seen a lot of comments that his japanese / accent are really good so that may not be it
@@bartsimpson1161 it’s pretty well known that Japanese people can be extremely xenophobic and rude to foreigners. I think it could go either way, but in this case the speakers accent is nearly identical to the native speaker so 🤷🏻♀️
Also Chinese has tones or whatever they’re called, making it verrrryyyy hard to speak it with a proper accent. Japanese doesn’t have that
I'm guessing it's the accent like how it happens when foreigners speak English
@SilkandStones you mean they demand you to speak English in America?
I am Japanese, but if the man in this video speaks Japanese as well as he does, I can understand him without any difficulty.
I'm trying to learn mandarin. I'm sure I butcher it at my level. I am always super understanding to asians learning english.
Yeah, as a foreigner in Japan, my experience has been that some Japanese people might be nervous about speaking to a foreigner, but once you start speaking OK Japanese, 99% of people will talk to you normally. There's just this 1% who see a foreign face and can't understand. I have spoken to people like this with no problem while they couldn't see my face, then when they saw I am a foreigner, suddenly they couldn't understand anything I said.
@@Nezuji I would think it would be just surprise because I would bet that not many foreigners actually take the time to even learn the basics when they travel lol
I am learning Japanese
Please help me friend
@ayakosaito7323ですよね！
In my experience, they try to do this, but I immediately tell them I know what they're doing and that it's embarrassing for them, and they suddenly understand me perfectly
Bro imma do that next time 💀
May I ask a situation in which you respond? I'm going to Japan for Christmas and speak it conversationally. I have a friend as a local guide, but I'm trying my best to speak it fluently.
pro gamer move. i seriously admire your determination and confidence.
I thought the video was an exaggeration damn 💀 good for u tho I would start crying on the spot lmao
My boys a menace to Japanese society🤣
Thats the equivalent to when Americans tell you "wow your English is so good" although you've been living there since you were born 💀
Not quite. The mindset is more negative in this case. "Your English is so good" isn't the same as "I refuse to let you believe I understand you because in reality, I don't want foreigners learning Japanese". I had an old woman say "いってらしゃい!" as I biked past her on the street nowhere near houses and she didn't even know me. She told me she wished me safe travels.... but implied *out of her country*
@@dawniebug784 ? How does safe travels imply out of my country?
This comment gives me flashbacks
@@dawniebug784 man she was just telling you to be safe😭
@@Midnight_Star1021 いってらしゃい is a phrase you only say when someone is leaving the house.
That part is lost in translation.
For some natives, it’s probably more of an intonation thing. But y’all can’t deny some natives def are racist as heck for like no reason. I wish we could all just vibe together.
True, but it's very rare. But this video is making it seem like it's extremely common, and that isn't right. More often than not foreigners simply have a worse accent than they'd like to admit...
(As a side note the guy in this video has a very good accent... But he's obviously just demonstrating exaggerating the situation. It's not necessarily him that's having this problem.)
>all just vibe together
Eh sure, but I would rather countries and cultures preserve their tradition and identity.
I really hope Japan doesn’t make the same mistake as the West and become a melting pot of different cultures and ethnicities.
@@SkyeAten thats just it with accent, im 99% sure if a southern or a british born went to a place like Germany or Italy it would be hard for them to understand as certin accents speek much differently even tho its the same language
@@alexandert2275 lol you can preserve your culture without shitting on others in the meantime.
@@alexandert2275 The west has invaded every country and killed its natives to almost extinction. It’s just sweet karma.
This is common in Japan. The locals do not expect you to be speaking their language. So they are trying to process what you are saying as English. Japanese is full of English loan words, so it's an easy mistake.
On a side note, this can also happen in reverse. There may be the rare Japanese person who is confident enough to try to speak to you in their heavily accented Japanglish, and you might not immediately recognize that they are speaking in English.
Yeah I think this is exactly what happened here, dunno why many people in comment section take it in a more negative way.
It happened to me the other day, I was trying to understand something in english, and didn't understand anything, turns out it was spanish with accent, then I could understand everything.
Not, it's just that they doesn't want to, it's easy to ear english from japanese
I'm a Band-Maid fan, and that description of their "Japanglish" is spot on.
Now i'm understand about this issue, it's about the accent and foreigners tone which locals get surprised and hard to understand
"I have no idea what language he's speaking, but whatever he said sounded exactly like ordering cheesecake in Japanese!"
This comment is underrated. I threw you a like.
W derp
lmaooo
😂😂
That’s so funny 😂
I’m Japanese. Still understandable. I think salesperson is Foreigner too. 😅
Ahahah
Lol
私はその言語をあまり話しません。私は部分しか理解できませんでしたが、私には理にかなっています
@@Zoeyyyyy16 『私は』は省略可能です^ ^
Whyy... that's horrible. I live in a section of the United States where we see LOTS of Spanish speaking customers. It would be disgusting if we pretended not to hear them based on their accent even though they're speaking English 😐🤨
What a great way to discourage me from continuing my japanese studies
Don't be discouraged, that's what the racists want, and you don't want them to win, right?
Im not trying to be rude but arent you being a little dramatic?😅
@@user-pn9qh3sw1t Yes!
They are extremely racist BTW so if your doing it to go there and your not Asian then 💀 ☠️ 💀💀
There could be many reasons she didn’t respond it could’ve been she straight couldn’t understand as he had a very heavy English accent. Which by the way can be practiced. A lot of people that learn Japanese think oh I know the words, I know the grammar and can make sentences perfectly so I’m fluent, they will be able to understand right? but just like any language perfecting your accent takes time. Also if something like this discourages you think about why you wanted to learn is one mishap gonna change why your interested.
His Japanese is 100% understandable😅
What the video's pointing out is what's called, Japanese bullshit.
¿Hablas Español?
THE Japanese seem picky about pronunciation. I said “anime” like an American and my Japanese friend didn’t understand. I then said “ahhh-neee-may” and she finally understood. Told me she loves it.
When I hear a foreigner speaking incorrectly-accented english, I can still hear what they’re saying. It isn’t difficult, but Japanese seem unwilling to try, even if pronunciation is slightly off
.
@@electrictroy2010 To be fair that's not typically Japanese. I speak English as a second language with close to no accent and yet if I slightly mispronounce a word, suddenly many people seem unable to understand me. At first I thought it was my fault but then eventually I realized it wasn't. Many people seem unable to guess what you're trying to say from context alone.
the joke is that he didnt say please, or onegaishimasu, did you get it?
Living in Korea and get this all the time. I realized my Korean isn’t actually that bad when I noticed I had no trouble being understood on the phone 🙃
Especially since speaking on the phone in a foreign language usually is a couple of levels up!
Korea and china are a bit morr nationalistic in those areas, but in my experience they stand by it and wont beat around the bush about it and just annoy you.
Like you'll know why a korean or chinese is being a douche, but the japanese will sternly deny it to the end
@@Lemontarts01 I'd just switch to English and say "Sorry I thought you could speak Japanese/Korean (Depending on where I was)" and make a snide comment on how they are Japanese/Korean but can't speak their own language suddenly I imagine that they'll understand what I'm saying after
@@basedbrit4206 well British people do it to foreigners on daily basis as well, so why are u so shocked.
@@jakubkruczek2772 Because foreigner's oftentimes speak American and we do genuinely struggle to understand
Bonus round: when someone is Western and speaks fluent Japanese, is with someone that is Asian that only speaks English. Their heads explode and they don't know what to do. It's pretty funny to watch until you remember how blatantly racist this is.
In most other cultures, they will default to whoever they can communicate best with. But in Japan they default to those that look like them the most. Especially outside of Tokyo and Okinawa.
Racist or Xenophobic?
@@pauloazuela8488 you understand that those really are the same thing right?
@@Duskraven67 No they do not.
@@pauloazuela8488 Racism: the irrational fear/hatred of those that don't look like you
Xenophobia: the irrational fear/hatred of persons and/or cultures unfamiliar to you.
@@Duskraven67 You gave the definition enough to be known there's a difference. Just believe what you believe but the majority and even in literature looks at them as different terms
nah it’s usually on purpose though i went to japan once and they refused to serve us because we weren’t asian 💀
How do you know it's because you weren't Asian? Did they actually say that? This is never ever happened to me or any of my foreigner friends living in Japan. However I have heard of foreigners being kicked out of bars for starting fights or using rude language... So.......
(also, if the restaurant even has English menu's you know being a foreigner is not the problem... they usually serve foreigners then. I know it's easier to accuse people of racism.... but you need to check yourself too. Were you and your friends smashed? Or being very loud? Was someone rude to a waiter?
Being a foreigner is not the common denominator , it's not the problem, or this would have happened to me by now and I've been here nearly 4 years. Hasn't happened to any of my foreign friends either. What kind of crowd you hanging out with that gets kicked out a restaurant? lmao
@@SkyeAten nah they had a full english menu there, ignored us and then proceeded to serve everyone who came in after us
i love japan and i’ve been learning japanese for at least 8 years
i was with my parents and my sister and we did nothing wrong at all and were ignored completely
@@m1lksoda i’m sorry to hear that. as a japanese person, i think they ignored you because they assumed you couldn’t speak japanese and got scared (you might be surprised as to how scared people in japan are when they meet a foreigner because they want to be polite but don’t want to mess up).
@@skyblue9213 i can understand that, it just felt a little weird considering they advertised as being a restaurant that had an english menu
If the listener isn't expecting to understand you, doesn't matter how fluently you speak. The phenomenon this video depicts is universal. It's not just a problem for folks trying to speak Japanese.
THE Japanese seem picky about pronunciation. I said “anime” like an American and my Japanese friend didn’t understand. I then said “ahhh-neee-may” and she finally understood. Told me she loves it.
When I hear a foreigner speaking incorrectly-accented english, I can still hear what they’re saying. It isn’t difficult, but Japanese seem unwilling to try, even if pronunciation is slightly off
.
@@electrictroy2010 It's not an unwillingness to understand. It's inexperience hearing the language being spoken by foreigners. We are used to sifting through alternate pronunciations. If they haven't had to communicate with a lot of different accents they just have not learned how to shift mental gears and bring the words into focus.
Americans generally don’t have this universal problem; we have _so many_ people from all different countries, speaking English, which is also a challenging language, that we _have to_ learn to understand anyone. 😊
My favorite time was when I got to “translate” the English of two Different foreign people for each other!
@@electrictroy2010
You ever seen the Key and Peele Roll Call video? Maybe same concept. Your mispronunciation is so far off.
Like calling a torch (flashlight) a touch.
I’d love to travel Japan and learn more about their culture and language but there’s one minor problem..
I’m Black 🧍🏽
@@rhythmneko you missed the point of this video
To be honest, whether you are black or white, the feeling of being afraid of foreigners is the same for both.
@@rhythmneko literally not what his comment was saying
I’m with you on that one.. I’m brown😭🧍🏽♀️
@@rhythmneko I don’t think you know this but Asian countries are extremely racist towards non Asians and especially black people but nobody really talks about it
As a forienger who used to live in Japan I felt that emotionally.
Did you have a bad accent? Because this has never happened to me, not in my 3 years here lol
@@SkyeAten "the only way this could ever happen even though hundreds talk about this is if they're ALL worse than me!"
Why are you deepthroating so hard? Have you ever thought (unlike the Japanese) that different sections of people are different? Someone in aomori may be less willing to try understanding foreigners than someone in Tokyo (random example)
Chances are, with the # saying "x" happens, you are not better than all of them, just have different experiences
@@SkyeAten Why the hell are you laughing?
@@SkyeAten Maybe your appearance pass as Japanese
As a fellow non-asian foreigner who's lived in Japan for 5 years, I've never experienced this.
I’m half Chinese and when I go to China sometimes people do this to me too 😭 It’s like they choose to not understand but its just because of the culture there, and for the most part people aren’t like this. But it can be infuriating especially because I have always maintained good pronunciation and have grown up with Chinese culture but people just assume I don’t know anything…would be nice to not cause a scene what feels like everytime I just want to practice my Chinese and speak my moms mother tongue.
Edit: I’m a little sad that people are assuming I have an accent or something and that I’m not as educated on Mandarin Chinese as I claimed. I assure you I don’t have an accent, I have been deeply self conscious of my Chinese my whole life and have worked really hard to maintain it to “prove” myself because I have felt excluded in the past because of my appearance. When I ask every relative or friend, they tell me I sound almost if not just like a Mainland Mandarin speaker. Chinese pronunciation has always been super easy to me, which is why as I said originally, for the most part when I go to China everyone understands me perfectly. Just sometimes, it happens that the odd person assumes I don’t speak Chinese and so they listen for English and then get confused. And even when I’m understood, sometimes it’s like “shocking” or whatever because I don’t look Asian enough I guess. I really don’t mean any disrespect to any Chinese mainlanders or other language communities where this happens, it’s not a constant issue, but it does happen more than it should, and pointing that out is in no way trying to generalize each and every speaker, it’s a cultural issue, there is no one individual or group of individuals to blame. Just wanted to share my experience. Those experiences have definitely made me feel bad and still have some effect on me, but they don’t control me and they aren’t representative of China as a whole. Man I miss China, haven’t been there in forever because of travel restrictions.
Maybe but it could also be that they are not used to hearing accents so they don't understand. The first time I hurd british english I was very confused. I am also a francophone and some part of my country the accent is so thick that I can understand their french.
The opposite problem also exists... that if you're a non-Chinese Asian person who goes to China and everyone around you insists on speaking to you in Mandarin and carries on forever even though you don't speak or understand a word of it.
When I lived there sometimes it would help me you ask kindly: “do you understand what I’m saying?” And that seemed to help shake whatever off and pay closer attention to you. :)
Happens to me in Ethiopia too as an Ethiopian-American. I’ve got good pronunciation but most 2nd gens don’t know Amharic so it surprises them when I do.
I have a theory. I like learning languages and practicing with native speakers. When you mess up or you use a wrong word that sounds like the word you meant to say sometimes people can figure out what you meant to say. The only language where that has never happened for me is Mandarin. I feel like when you make a mistake in Mandarin they have no idea what you're trying to say lol. To be fair my Mandarin is terrible, but i think it's also something about how their brains are wired. They can't hear you say x and figure out that you meant y.
As a South African we have 11 official languages. This causes a multitude of accents. We all have become proficient to understand every single accent.
That's really cool actually! 👍
South African here. I agree with you completely. I can speak English and Afrikaans, currently studying Japanese and would like to learn Xhosa. For us it's usually easy to understand pretty much anyone who speaks English with a foreign accent
@@eliatmalak wow!
I speak Afrikaans and English fluently and a little bit of South Sotho. Still learning.
@@Jessie-ev2th keep practicing. Always good to learn a third language
That's actually so cute! Like you guys don't want to let such a silly barrier as accent stop you from understanding each other
I’m Japanese but I can understand and he speaks Japanese naturally. She means Japanese have a stereotype about foreigners’ language, maybe.Actually,however, his Japanese is so good, so most Japanese would understood the phrase. Please don’t be disappointed😔
This isn’t to be rude, but I would like someone to point it out to me. My punctuation as an American isn’t the best either so don’t take this to harshly.
Your punctuation and grammar could use some work. A quick example: “foreigners’ “ should just be “foreigners” with no apostrophe, super minor, but changes a lot about the sentence. Another example: “foreigners language, maybe.Actually,however,” should be “foreigners language? Actually,” “actually,however” is redundant, either can be used, but both is unnecessary, “maybe” should either be removed or at the start of the sentence with a “?” Instead of “.” At the end. Also add a space after punctuation to keep your sentence from being cluttered looking.
You did great by the way, any native English speaker should easily be able to understand that, I just thought I should add some input to help you get even better❤
@@NoHope_ lol wtf is wrong with you? Are you the person from this video? 😑
@@gaming4K im helping them get better at english? whats wrong with you? i said multiple times that they did great and were understandable, but not perfect. Stop overreacting because i tried to help someone clearly trying to learn the language.
It's ok. I'm Asian from America. People here always try to make Asian people worse than them but they do it too and are very violent. They do worse than the video. They will cut in line in front of Asians, spit and punch them, but also say we are the bad ones. Don't let these foreigners lie to u and try to make it sound like they are so loving to us. Asians experience worse racism than they do.
@@gaming4K bro was trying to give advice what is wrong with you?
全く問題なく聞き取れます笑笑
きれいな日本語
カフェで働いてないでしょう。
These videos are like the pre war German propaganda films.
@@robinolsson7003なんの関係があるんですか
@@notinterested8452wdym??
Isn’t this, like, really rude? I mean if you accent isn’t too strong and you speak fluently, are they choosing to not to listen to you or..?
I think it's the intonation/pitch accent thing.
I feel as if it's not an active choice, I mean sometimes you cant understand people because they have a strong accent or speak really fast so I wouldn't call it "racist"
@Shoka Lgbt japanese people will panic at the sight of a white person speaking japanese, that's all.
@@peachrose744 exactly, the thing is foreigners often pronounce anglicisms in Japanese same as they would in English, for Japanese it is hard to comprehend because they adapt everything so it would sound Japanese and easier for them to pronounce
@Shoka Lgbt 黙れ
i feel like i should say this. i’m black. when i went to japan in 2023, i had been learning japanese for maybe a year through duolingo, a little anime, and some curious google searching. stayed in various cities including tokyo, osaka, and nagoya for about a week and a half and everyone i spoke to understood the little japanese i knew and some even said i sounded like a native with my pronunciation. everyone was very polite and extremely helpful.
being intentional and focusing on politeness when learning the right things to say and the ways to say them in a foreign land makes it easier for natives to be comfortable speaking
be confident in yourself and your ability. 🙂
speaking it aloud is very important.
The secret for foreigners:
Start your sentence with
あのー
えーと
The staff will switch to Japanese mode and understand your foreign face speaking Japanese.
This is a really good tip!!!
Thanks!
Also "eh?!"
this is so funny but so true lol
It doesn't work. Maybe if you watch anime all day, you believe this. But I live in Japan and you're better off starting your order by clearly stating what you want rather than mumbling through some filler words. あの does not make you sound fluent 😂
I'm a foreigner who lives in Japan, and speaks Japanese, this sometimes happens. But,
DON'T BE DISCOURAGED OR TAKE IT PERSONALLY.
Sometimes it's because they get a bit shocked or nervous, sometimes it's because you have a thick accent, and sometimes it's because the person just sucks. Unfortunately, this situation exists anywhere when using your non-native language. PLEASE CONTINUE TO WORK HARD!!!
thx!!!
naw bro im literally gonna quit my duolingo japanese lessons at this point
@@vyxns 🤣 lmao
@@PlzCa1mDown lol
Why are you calling yourself a foreigner like that's normal. Tf is wrong with you.
Meanwhile, someone attempts speaking French to me and I'm over the moon. No matter if they have an accent or are learning, it's very touching being addressed by a stranger using your mother tongue, especially if you live overseas
Parle vu france
Oh du français ! 👋🏻
C'est la raison pour laquelle j'ai arrêté le japonais et j'ai commencé à apprendre le français.
Mais normalement c'est pas le cas.
lots of japanese people say "jyozu" which is mean "skillfull" even if you japanese is a bunch of trashy weeb words like "doumou arigatou")
I can't tell you how helpful this video is. I already suffer from crippling social anxiety and I have a tremendous fear of being misunderstood. Now I know that I will certainly experience panic attacks in Japan. Thanks!
learn how to cuss them out and they'll understand you real good.
I too have a lot of social anxiety, but honestly poointing at the menu or just whipping out google trsnslate (SMALL WORDS AND PHRASES ONLY. I cannot explain enough to you how WRONG google translate will get long sentences. It lacks context, proper formality vs. Informality, and the order of sentences. And just words in general. But short things like "where to buy hat?" And "one cheesecake please" will help a lot. I got around perfectly fine with my limited Japanese and barely speaking much of it both times I went. They are generally very helpful too, and not too judging, so I never felt much anxiety there as opposed to America. Only once, and that was because of my own malfunction. I felt embarrassed because I didn't know if a shop was open or not and walked in, and they were like "CLOSED!" So I rushed out and... opened the door too hard. It hit the wall and I wanted to cry.
It's because of having a strong foreign accent? Or why do you think it happens?
Yo, some people really do have strong foreign accent, All I do to solve the issue, is setting a type of stereotypical chinese tone + acting using an Anime Character type of voice,
When you do this it tricks some people to believe that you are very good at it!
Unless you can't help but say : Whyta-ishey Waw Pollll Desuuuuu.
In that case someone needs to train a lot!
@Shoka Lgbt nah I don’t think it’s racism, I’ve spoken Japanese at restaurants before and after repeating myself a few times at first they told me that it just threw them for a loop. It’s like when I worked at a factory and if you started to speak Korean to the Koreans they’d freeze for a sec or you’d have to repeat yourself a few times at first. My buddy khadar is Somalian and has a very strong accent, when I first met him it took me a few tries to understand his accent so I think it’s along those lines.
@Shoka Lgbt also his Japanese was ok but it was kinda mumbled a bit
On a second listen it was fine
@Shoka Lgbt 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
"Can I have a cheese cake?"
**cashier proceeds to be creepy**
CHEESECAKEを頂けますか？
How can you claim to be fluent in your language and not understand what he's trying to tell you? He's saying "cheesecake" for crying out loud. Just being casually xenophobic.
@@Chance57he has a very strong accent.
@@celestialorb1680 It doesn't matter. I talked to people with way stronger accents all the time and it's no issue. She's just being ignorant. Cheesecake isn't even a Japanese word, it's a loan word for Christ's sake.
@@celestialorb1680 if I can understand an Indian guy talking twice as fast as normal and only pronouncing half a word. Then a Japanese person can understand a small mispronunciation
@@celestialorb1680 彼の訛りがこれを妨げてはならないと思う.チーズケーキはかなり普遍的です
This is the most counterproductive bull.
“Oh you want to learn my language in an attempt to make communication easier for the both of us? Great, don’t YOU speaking MY language is too confusing.”
Because that's not the message.
maybe try getting good so people can understand you?
They're not saying "don't speak Japanese", they're saying that Japanese people are deliberately racist (which isn't entirely untrue).
She can't understand because the Japanese pronunciation of foreign words is subtly different to what you'd expect so that Japanese can't understand when foreigners say them. It's doubly difficult as a foreigner because you "think" you know how the word is pronounced because you recognise the same word in English. I can confirm this is highly accurate.
You want productivity, get an activity book.
That's why listening is so important.
pov: you went into the comments to find the meaning of this video.
Legend has it we're all still searching 😂
@@flumyxx for real, I’m confused with multiple answers😂😂
Dose anyone know
still looking
@@meihatsume1165 so basically from what I heard from some of the comments were that “maybe the accent is off” or bc “they are being blatantly rude bc it’s a foreigner” or they “don’t look Asian” but don’t really take my word for it that’s just what I heard from the comments
This happened to me probably twice while I lived in Japan for three whole years. It’s not like an everyday occurrence don’t worry. I think it would happen more if you were with a Japanese person because the person may assume that Japanese person is there to translate for you so they probably don’t even pay attention to what you sai the first time. That happened to me when I was out with my husband. But they don’t just stare and silently beg for help from him they do honestly try to listen to me the second time.
Yeah, I feel like if anything, people were excited that I was making an effort to learn the language
Same. Same. Actually hasn't even happened to me yet. Been here 3 years too.
私はアメリカに住んでいたこともあり日本に外国人の友達も結構いますが、このような状況になったことは一度もないです。外国人の日本語が理解できなくても、丁寧に聞き直したり確認するだけで、隣にいる日本人であろう私に無言で目線で助けを求めるなんてありえません。そんな失礼な店員がいたらクレームレベルですよ。英語のコメントを見ても日本人は人種差別をするのかと誤解を招いているのになぜ動画を消さないのか理解できません。
こういう経験がない在日外国人はいませんよ笑。外国人の友達がいるのはちょっと信じがたいです😄
ちなみにレイシズムだとなんて誰も言ってない、ただ店員は客さんが日本語を喋ってくるの期待してない問題なので、被害者意識ならなくて結構です👍
それな
急啓、
彼らは日本人を傷つけ、日本人の衰退を推し進めたいと思っています。 彼らはそれを「多様性」と呼んでいます。 日本人の抹殺。 白人の祖国の大部分に対して行われ、現在は日本人とすべてのアジア人に危害を加えようとしています。
「反白人」と「反アジア人」
私は本物のアメリカ人であり、人種によるヨーロッパ人であり、真のアメリカ人です。 彼らは私たちを傷つけるように日本人を傷つけたいと思っています。
反白人の人も反アジア人になる。 反撃してください！
ほんまに
Many people in the comments are saying that they have similar experiences living in Japan, Korea or China. They speak the language fluently but still get ignored or just stared at without an acknowledgement. If it wasn't a thing that happens, there wouldn't be multiple videos making fun of the phenomenon as well as something that people mention about their experiences in Japan as foreigners.
I live in Osaka after graduating from high school in 2010. Originally from California, started learning Japanese as my choice of Language (already knew Italian from growing up in Rome till 12yo) so I didn’t want to take Spanish. I instantly fell in love with the Asian culture. My Japanese isn’t the best but I can hold a conversation and read. Still practicing everyday. 🇯🇵
I'd be like "am I speaking another language? Shall I repeat myself in hindu?" In Japanese just so it can be ironic
Sarcasm is not common in Japan as a form of humour... you'd just come across as being a jerk.
British people often are overly sarcastic in the US and it's often received as being mean. Japan's far less sarcastic than UK/US/Canada/Australia/NZ
@@TheNewGreenIsBlue they deserve it.
@@TheNewGreenIsBlue but his intention in this case wound be to offend
@@Birdcell-i4z you’re lying to make this sound better, everywhere I go there’s always someone who doesn’t have, in your words, “perfect English” even I don’t speak “perfect English” because I have a speech disability which hinders me from pronouncing certain words correctly, yet I was raised here my whole life, white, blonde hair, blue eyes the whole cabash. You can go pretty much anywhere and be served if you have the money and are able to show some kind of knowledge of what you want. America is the lease racist country compared to foreign third world countries, clown😂🤡
@@ludwigwittgenstein1280 regardless of whether they deserve it or not, if they don't understand the intended meaning, your petty offense will just go over their heads.
I work with a lot of Japanese engineers, they get excited every single time they see a non-japanese person try to speak it.
Exactly. This just doesn't happen in Japan. Maybe the very very minority. I've never had a problem. Every Japanese person I've encountered has been so patient and kind.
"They won't understand you"
That's a weird way to say "they're being racist"
Edit: these guys arguing the difference between xenophobia and racism is funny. They both mean being prejudice towards other people, it doesn't matter the race or country, if you're acting like this, it isn't okay. As a Mexican, I can assure you, I understand, but you gotta understand that this video, albeit staged shows that you can annunciate and sound out something completely correct, yet the native will only look toward the other Japanese person for the answer. There shouldn't be no context, no other meaning to what he said, it's plain wrong to ignore and disprove someone solely because they come from another country. As for people telling me "oh you're wrong, this is xenophobia, it's different." I just gotta say, naw,, it isn't. Whether it be race or country, you're still showing prejudices against other people. There's no justification for that, go ahead and argue some more, my opinion stands.
First wtf second:
just think about it like this. as a natural english speaker you are not used to speaking to people you can barely understand and if someone is standing next to say a chinese woman who looks american you naturally turn to that person immediately. Personally, I'm German and I have no problem understanding why they do it...if you're not a native speaker, it's 80% sure that even if that person thinks they're good at German, you absolutely do can not understand XD
Also...bro u dont know what racist means
@@starrs802 I can easily understand someone speaking english with a strong accent. I don't know what you're on about. Japanese people definitely pretend they don't understand what foreigners are saying on purpose to be xenophobic
Access to Japanese people is not a human right.
Their body, their choice. Stop harassing Japanese people to be in your life. Anti-Asians do not belong. Asians will not erase ourselves to please hostiles for their benefit. Get out colonist.
@@AsherianVeritas ?
Such a beautiful language
Wait till you hear Spanish
"La Mancha" sounds so cool
I love that you're being honest and not just painting a fantasy of Japan like nearly everyone else on UA-cam
Hey I'm learning Japanese to increase my marketability, not feel accepted every time I go to order a taco.
This is the least of Japan's problems lmao
Watch a lot of the big name Japan youtubers, like The Anime Man, Chris Broad, and Connor of CDawgVa, as well as AkiDearest, Sharla in Japan, amd Tokyo Lens, and Gigguk. They all have mentioned this a few times, especially Joey (The Anime Man) how you will speak perfect Japanese to them and they start answering in English everytime you say another thing in Japanese. They either just act like you aren't speaking Japanese and insist they can't understand, or answer you in English despite how many times you answer in Japanese.
Why is this such a common trope/meme? Western foreigner here. Traveled through Japan for three weeks in 2018, speaking Japanese only - in hotels, conbinis, trains stations, stores, ramen restaurants, clubs, you name it. This didn't happen to me even once.
Been here five years. Same, it hasn't happened. Or when it has, it's because I'm lazy and told my Japanese girlfriend to do the talking for me, or she just automatically speaks for me anyways.
Dude. This always happened to me when I lived in Korea.
It also happens to my friends when they go with me to Mexico and they speak Spanish.
Maybe I’m biased since I was an ESL teacher for years, but you can talk to me in the most broken version of a language I know, and I have no difficulties.
“When a foreigner speaks the local language in literally any country for the first couple of months”
I’m Japanese. This skit doesn’t make sense at all… Is the waitress a racist?
edit: As other Japanese comments here say, his pronunciation is really good and there’s no chance that the waitress couldn’t understand it. That’s why I was confused. (But I'm sorry “is she a racist” was too much)
Eh, as someone with a good grasp on Japanese but white (with an Australian accent) a lot of people are confused when I speak Japanese. Most of the time they apologized and said they weren't expecting it.
@@raidenkonkon I’m sorry that happens… I thought that won’t happen because I live in Osaka where many foreigners speak Japanese and it’s not that surprising to most people.
Do u live in japan or did u grow up abroad? Because if you've had experiences with foreign customers, u can get why some store clerks do this and it's not racist, they just wanna get their job done. Maybe don't jump to harsh words so quickly?
@@dystopia4755 I grow up in Japan but yes I’ve had some experiences with foreign customers because I work as a cashier in Osaka.
I just didn’t know why the waitress pretended like she didn’t understood it when the pronunciation is fine and clearly understandable.
@Frosty Toasty Thank you for explaining it, now it makes sense! Yeah this could happen if the man’s pronunciation is bad. It was confusing because his pronunciation is too good haha
もうすぐ８年間日本に住んでいるフランス人ですが、一度もこういう店員さんに会ったことがないです！
うまく伝えなかった時は自分の日本語がポンコツだったからです。。😅
Same man, Ive lived in Japan for over 5 years and never once have I ever experienced this
I'm half Japanese but look fully Filipino and I've never experienced this.
違う動画でも同じような内容を投稿していたハーフの方がいたんですけど、投稿者の見た目は日本人にもいそうな外見なのにそういう経験をしたって言ってました。
しかも東京で。
30+ years living in Tokyo.
I do not find this to be a big issue at all, and it is not my impression that there are a lot of Japanese
who are deliberately pretending not to understand foreign pronunciation of the language.
Conversely, it is my experience that some foreigners can underestimate how small differences in their intonation can impact the comprehensibility Of their speech to some Japanese listeners.
I also find that some foreigners seem to carry a base level of frustration around with them, a kind of resentment if you will, regarding their language skills. The emotion makes solving any communication problem which may arise more difficult.
@@scottprina1207 Totally agree. I've lived in Japan 22 years and never had such a problem except during my early years when I overestimated my Japanese ability.
私は日本人ですが、男性の"レアチーズケーキ"よくわかりますよ、
なぜ女性は「え？」と言うのか？ あの女性はひどい俺は思う。。下手な日本語ですいません、外国人ですから。
急啓、
彼らは日本人を傷つけ、日本人の衰退を推し進めたいと思っています。 彼らはそれを「多様性」と呼んでいます。 日本人の抹殺。 白人の祖国の大部分に対して行われ、現在は日本人とすべてのアジア人に危害を加えようとしています。
「反白人」と「反アジア人」
私は本物のアメリカ人であり、人種によるヨーロッパ人であり、真のアメリカ人です。 彼らは私たちを傷つけるように日本人を傷つけたいと思っています。
反白人の人も反アジア人になる。 反撃してください！
@@schizofren_ia Because my dude, the video is an exaggeration. They wouldn't get tripped up over "cheesecake." This is more likely to happen at a post office or government city hall, which is much more understandable. Japanese people can get nervous when talking to foreigners, and these things happen.
@@shinikyokai8815 is she just racist?
awesome. that’s very encouraging-
great. i’m going to japan next june and this made me feel fabulous 😭
It's an exaggeration. You'll be fine. Japanese people sometimes get nervous talking to foreigners.
I had no issue. Everyone i met was kind and respectful. Even the taxi drivers were shocked to have a conversation and also appreciative. Don't be worried!♡
...has never happened to me in the almost 4 years I've been here. Not to me, not to my other foreign friends... Not when I'm alone and not when I'm with my Japanese friends. Please... please don't let the foreigners who show up here with a victim mentality make you worried about coming here. They get here, experience a miscommunication (bound to happen), or just some rude person.. and scream racism. It's ridiculous. It's not like that and it's NOT common.
When I first arrived, I hardly spoke any Japanese and there were so few "bad" interactions (aka, I didn't know how to say it in Japanese, took out my phone and used google translate while they patiently waited to try and understand what I wanted). But everyone did their best to understand me. I lived in Europe before and even with people speaking English, and being the same race, I met so many rude people.. so rude doesn't equal racist. lol. And I met at almost one rude person per day in Europe... whereas in Japan, gosh, I met one "rude" lady once, in my time here, at a phone store that said "please bring your Japanese friend and come back next next time"...because I couldn't possibly read the Japanese contract myself... I felt hurt when she said that, but then I realized, it's not because she was even actually being rude... it's because I felt incompetent. But most people experience that, them make tik toks of how racist people are.. lmao.
Take what you see with a grain of salt. I think it's as unrealistic to think "this isn't true! no japanese act like this! it's a gaijin victim complex!" as it is to think "all japanese are xenophobic".
People are very diverse and unique, so anything can happen, and as long as you are prepared to accept the possibilities, you will be fine.
@@PIVfirestarkproducon Yeah but this video is absolutely screaming "all Japanese are xenophobic", which you can see in the thousands of people saying how discouraged and angry they are about this. In truth, it's a very rare occurrence but I do think people with victim complex will be more likely to interpret any sort of communication problem as xenophobia. It's what they're expecting, hence their experience that "it happens 24/7 " (as one woman once told me here when I said it hasn't happened to me yet). Whereas in truth, there will always be communications problems between non-native speakers, as well as big cultural differences. Those don't automatically imply xenophobia but some people interpret it as such and make things worse by approaching staff as if they are already expecting them to be rude... they give off a bad vibe, and actually just end up attracting it themselves. *psychologyyyyy~
happens in the USA when your Japanese spouse speaks perfect English at Walmart and you become the English to English translator because the US cashier only hears the accent and not the English.
Don't even need to be asian. It happens to Australians in America too.
@@KoKoNuTz232 That must be really weird, English to English to English translation.
Same experience when i was at Australia and asked the shop assistant where i can return the clothes i tried. I repeated twice and she still couldn't understand me. I'm Asian but we speak English as our first language in our country so I couldn't process her reaction in my brain. I looked around wondering if I'm on Earth, realised that I'm definitely on Earth and cursed at her. And suddenly she understood me.
@@LuminescentQuarter Sometimes it's speed of conversation. Some people are patient and good listeners while some are brash and hurried listeners only hearing what they want instead of what is said. Case in point there is this mayor liberal who is rash and unfair in thought and opinion. I speak clear and slow with words that are sometimes uncommon. On City Council meetings she often claims not to understand me and she is rushing. A principal of an elementary school of those with speech impediments and she claims she can't understand me. If she can't understand me then she is cruel and abusive at her elementary school. Because she can't understand the children at her school either. She can't understand because she is listening to her self only. Often I get questions and my answers are complex. Because the hurried and rushed English speaker doesn't understand the question has a complex answer that can not be answered in under 5 minutes. They often want a Yes or No answer but either way would invalidate the answer to a question. This is where you find those of low English ability in the USA who only know English. When they complain they can't understand someone who speaks perfect English well these persons have enormous difficulty in solving even foreign language let alone accents.
Yea, only in the midwest. Pretty much any big city is used to foreigners of all nationalities.
I wanna go to Japan so bad but I’m afraid of this happening 💀
Don’t worry. This is literally exaggerated and never happens now. It’s not 2000.
Learn pronounciations
心配せずに日本に来てください！日本人もスマートフォンを持っているのでコミュニケーションできます！英語の能力はあまりない人が多いですけど…ごめんなさい🙏
@@user-lo4be6mq7g 👍
@@snowfront9357 there are plenty of people who say it does
I think in the US we have the benefit of hearing lots of accents. Going to college I was taught by people with strong Russian, Chinese, Indian accents and by the end of the year I was able to understand them perfectly.
End of the year? It took a year?
Nobody cares, stop yapping
I’m Japanese but I sometimes get comments “your Japanese is so good” 😅
日本語上手!
My mom had a hard time being raised with English as her second language, so she made sure English was my first.
I didn't start learning Spanish until I was already ~6 and till day I'll get "Why do you sound like a white boy?"
It's cool. I just speak English instead.
Been here almost 30 years and in all that time this only happened to me like twice...
Same. Non-asian foreigner who's been here for 5 years. This doesn't happen unless I'm lazy and my girlfriend orders for me.
Same.
HAHHA im weak. I remember i was on a bus with my japanese friend. The elderly japanese lady thought i was japanese, and my japanese friend was a forigner🤣 so she spoke to me the whole time while i looked at my japanese friend for translation🤣🤣 poor guy.
That’s when you hit ‘em with the “OI OI MAJI FUZAKENNA”
I’m Japanese and feel like his pronunciation is perfect tho!
Yeah this isn't a great video I think
普通に聞き取れるし分かるけど、この動画の意図って何🤔おんなじような内容の動画上げてる人他にもいた
わざと聞こえないふりしてるってこと？それとも外国人に話しかけられるとパニくるってこと？英語で話しかけられたら動画とおんなじ状況になるけど、日本語なら普通に聞き取れるし、片言だったとしても頑張って聞こうとするか聞き返すくね？
It's supposed to mean that some Japanese people will ignore foreigners at any chance they get, especially if there's a Japanese person as an alternative to speak to. (That's what I get from it)
@@watchmesquatch In the first place, if the seller ignores the customer's order, there is no way to do business. It is impossible for a Japanese person to ignore a foreigner. Even if they don't understand the Japanese, they will listen to it again. The only thing that is clear is that the creator of this video is not Japanese.
@@nyarry27 idk man, Japan can be pretty xenophobic. I've heard stories of people literally being denied shelter in bad weather cause they aren't Japanese
@@Breached18 Plus some restaurants in Japan are kinda segregated…
この動画の意図は、日本人は外見がアジア人じゃないと日本語がわからないと言う説。(意味不）
正直僕も外見白人のハーフとして、こうやって無視された事はないです。たまに混乱して、なぜか英語で答え返してくる件があったけどｗｗ
I’m Japanese and I’m sure I understand what he says instantly!! Please don’t be worry☺️☺️
Thank you 😊
Thank you/2
Thank you very much. I got really nervous.
Lol, as if you speak on behalf of Japan. And therein lies the problem.
"don't worry" または "don't be worried"
Thanks for helping us learn the language...
When I speak Chinese, they also give same reaction because they don't expect you to speak their language. that's why he thinks he speaks English, so he can't fully perceive it. When they continue to talk, they are very surprised after a while because they cannot believe that you can speak that language.
As an American this is so funny because a *some* of us expect everyone to speak English
Even in other countries
And a lot of the time they do
It’s weird
@@shadowfaxdog9733 a lot of my fellow gaijin coworkers didn't bother to learn Japanese, but we were working there at least a year and longer. Because I learned and tried speaking, I got invited to events, people's homes, and places that gaijin typically didn't go as often because there were fewer Bilingual/ English speakers to translate. Of course my Japanese friends who took me along would translate for me on really confusing parts but they included me because I bothered to try, and they could laugh at my many faux pas and teach me too. And they got to learn American English from me as well. It was more fun than just going to all the international English centered pubs.
I climbed frigging Mt. Fuji all night ( and alone after the 2 gaijin i started with went off on their own) so I could experience sunrise above the clouds 🗻🌄 and I got to hang out with some Shinto at the top who invited me to walk down with them They overheard me speaking Japanese , noticed i was alone, and invited me to join their pilgrimage group. I wouldn't have had that great experience with the Shinto followers if I had tried to keep up with the English-only hikers. The Shinto people were kind and interesting.
And , BTW, I learned first hand that clouds are not soft, warm, cottony puffs like in cartoons, ...they are cold. and dark. and wet inside. ☁️🌧💦😢 And I'm glad I made them laugh at my surprise yelp at being doused in cold wet vapor totally unprepared.
i speak fluent spanish as a foreigner and spanish-speakers are delighted when i speak their language. they immediately want to have a conversation about where i’m from. feeling grateful i didn’t study japanese.
Probably cause Spanish is a language that’s heavily associated with working class routes, versus eastern languages that were often perfected in the noble courts
Me too! The feeling of speaking multiple languages makes me feel very special
Native Spanish speaker here. We absolutely love when non soanish speakers try to learn our language and most of us are more than happy to help you practice. Not everyone is like this; some people (old and young) will literally only speak to someone in spanish if that person is native. Theres a bunch of reasons for it but its really not as common
Exactly
@@alexanderthegreat1270 no, Spanish is and was a language of nobility must I remind you that the Spaniards brought Spanish to the americas and the islands and taught people to communicate in Spanish.
the Spanish you learn in classes is the Spaniard style Spanish and not the regional “compacino” Spanish that is of result of mixing the indigenous linguistics and the conversion of Spaniard Language into slang bc they had a hard time learning it (think of aave in America or southern language in the south.)
Even the compacino can change their linguistic style to be more “Articulate” when needed to show ettiequte.
Latino people have always enjoyed the fact that people are now learning their language and aren’t feeling ostracized in society that doesn’t speak their native language or bc they see that their language is more accepted.
They enjoy the thought of people loving and enjoying the culture,traditions that they enjoy aswell.that’s all
多くの日本人は、日本語が母国語でないのに話せる人は珍しいと思っています。なので、外国語で話しかけられたと思い込み、日本語を話してくれていると気づけない場合がよくあります。
悪い意志があるかどうか、このような態度がある意味でとても失礼であることに気ついてほしいな…もっと母語者じゃいない人と会う機会があれば良くなるかな
つまり、多くの日本人は妄想を抱いているのです。。。
Agreed. I think this is the most common reason for such a reaction.
This doesn't actually happen in real life and I'm tired of letting the internet pretend it does.
it’s not that his japanese is bad, it’s just that she’s not listening for japanese. english is my first language but working in LA, when i had customers who were obviously more comfortable in spanish i would expect to take their order in spanish. sometimes i couldn’t understand what they were saying at first if they ordered in english, not because their accent was too thick for me to understand but because it’s not what i was preparing to hear.
When I went to Japan, most of the Japanese people could actually understand what I said! I was so glad for that cause I would have been so embarrassed if they couldn’t 😭
I have never actually had this happen. I've been in japan before, even when my japanese was still highly questionable. Even in small towns they have always been very chill.
Yes. Same. I've been here 3 years, hasn't happened even once.
It's a phenomenon. Do they just suck a Japanese but don't want to admit it to themselves maybe 😂 some of my foreign friends do have bad accents (although they've never complained about this). On the other hand, many of the staff working at shops are actually not Japanese, although they are Asian. I think many foreigners incorrectly assume that they should be easily understood regardless of their bad Japanese without realizing that the person that they're speaking to is also struggling with Japanese.... Ironically
@@SkyeAten I sometimes see this phenomenon in the comments on UA-cam for a video where there's a bilingual person who usually speaks in one language but on occasion just happens to speak a sentence in the other language or switch languages mid-speech. When the brain encounters information it doesn't expect, it tries to fit it in to the expectation at first, and then it doesn't make sense so the brain becomes confused. It doesn't mean you've suddenly become racist while watching a video and refused to acknowledge the person speaking a different language. It's a biological limitation of humans (but even Word doesn't recognize words if you type some foreign words unexpectedly). If you think the other person is racist when this happens towards you, though, it tells more about your insecurities than about what the other person may be.
ここまで綺麗な日本語を理解できない店員が居たら、単純にその店員に問題があるので気にしなくて大丈夫。というか、こんな店員居るか？？笑笑
日本に旅行した外人として、どこでも行けばこんな店員いるよｗｗ
@@Mikehawkbigg そうなんだ。こんなに綺麗な日本語を話しても理解されなかったら、嫌な気分になるだろうね。しかもこの動画のような反応の店員ってことは、そもそも話を聞く気がなさそうにも感じるし。日本は移民が少ない国だから、外国人＝日本語を話せないっていう偏見が強いのかも
めちゃくちゃ綺麗ですよね……
大学生の頃に京都でバイトしてましたけど、仮に接客時にお互いの言語を聞き取れなくてもメニュー（英語）を指差し確認したり、ボディーランゲージでコミュニケーションを取るのがバイト先でも他の店でも普通の光景だったので、この動画を見て「日本語をネイティブレベルで話せないと外国人は観光もできないんだ」って誤解されても……悲しいです
まして日本人同士でも吃音や難聴で滑舌が悪かったりコミュニケーションを取るのが難しい人ってたくさんいるのに、この店員の対応は……地域によってはあるあるかもしれないけど、これが日本の標準ではないと思う
Lol this happens to me every other day too. Sad when my friends are not around 🙃
@Shoka Lgbt 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
@Shoka Lgbt Guess looking like an asian finally has it's benefits
@Shoka Lgbt
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
What exactly are you saying and who are you talking to?
I've lived in Japan for 3 years and this has never happened to me. I've been to big cities and countryside areas. None of my foreign friends have experienced this either. Then again, people have said that I have a very good accent... Maybe your Japanese just isn't as good as it could be? Just keep practicing! ❤️😊
@@SkyeAten get over yourself. 🤣🤣
I work in a theme park (so I see a lot of tourists) and I really like and appreciate it when people take the effort of trying to talk to me in my language. Even if it’s crap, it’s nice that they try. Obviously I always continue the conversation in English because that is much quicker and more practical, but still.
i would recommend not switching to english. That really does bother foreigners and will leave a bad impressive. Remember, you are representing japan!
@@aloetragedy1568 Especially foreigners who have bothered to learn japanese should welcome the afford from someone japanese to actually speak English.
Though I am sure they would welcome the opportunity to practise their japanese even more.
thats when u hit them w the "sorry do u not speak japanese..?" to throw em off. id honestly rather just have them deny me service up front than beat around the bush & pretend we all dont know whats going on lol.
No, please don't use such passive aggressive phrases. It won't make the situation better. It would make it only worse.
I would recommend speaking a bit more loudly and clearly, maybe also emphasizing that you are going to repeat yourself slowly: 発音が悪くてごめんなさい！もう一度ゆっくり話しますね！XXXをお願いします。
I would bet that in most cases this would resolve the situation. But in case it does not, you can proceed with being passive aggressive haha. I'd probably just that I'm going to go to another place and leave..
@@BewareOfStinger Save your breath, my friend. A lot of people from western countries (especially people from the U.S) are just really eager to take any sort of presived slight as malicious intent, especially when it comes to 'racism'. You will not convince them that their could be any reason why people from other nationalities might treat them a little differently, other than "they are just racist". But I commend your efforts.
I ask them if they are Chinese in Japanese straight up. When they look offended ( which they always do), I say, ' Oh, you speak Japanese'!
@@theoaky8924 When youve lived here 15 years and tried to do the right thing the whole time youll be doing it too.
This is similar to how native Spanish speakers are interacted with here in Texas. Because of the large amount of Hispanic people (immigrants and native Texans), many Texans know at least a little Spanish, and because of that, many native Spanish speakers never learn English, so there are often times when this such case occurs- especially in areas where there are larger communities of non-English-speaking folk. Someone will get very prepared to use Spanish and then kind of glitch out when the person uses English. It's even funnier when the person they're speaking to doesn't even know any Spanish 😂. My own sister has had that happen to her just days ago and she's only half Mexican. Everyone always assumes she speaks Spanish, but she actually knows none.
I think Even I understood Japanese for “ CHEESE-A CAKEY” lmaOoo 🤣🤣🤣
For those out there studying Japanese that feel discouraged. I’ve been to japan many times, and for many months. Not once has someone does this with me, but with my friends, yes fully. I don’t think it’s a race thing, but more so a intonation thing, if you’re serious about being understood, study your pitch accents and speak with confidence. 99% of Japanese people are very kind and understand, superficial or not 😊
It's funny though, there are quite a few people in the comments that say this, but they have one or two likes at most... It's like the people who watch this video just want to be victims. I've been here almost 4 years now and I also haven't experienced this yet. I really feel like the people that are complaining about this, aren't even trying to check themselves. There can be so many reasons for miscommunication when you go abroad, accent is a big one... but it literally seems like they all just want to be victims of racism instead lmao. They don't even try to consider the other possibilities, accent, culture, resting b**ch face (must be scary for waiters and many foreigners do it without realizing lol). or they are just generally rude themselves, but expect to be treated kindly and then when they're not, they scream racism. That's literally what it's starting to look like to me. Not even my other foreign friends here have experienced this...
@@SkyeAten Agree 💯
Ok but her reaction to him speaking has me dying
Thanks for the good lessons!
This the type of thing to make me say never mind and go to another store smh. I bet if they said never mind she would understand quick 😒
She'd probably feel bad that she couldn't help you. She's more likely nervous because she's never talked much to foreigners and it's an unfamiliar situation so her brain shut down, kind of like how ours do during presentations, interviews or other stressful or unfamiliar situations. Let's not be so quick to automatically assume the worst out of everyone.
That happened to me before when I was in Japan but it's the other way around. A Japanese asked me something and I can't comprehend whatever he's saying, then suddenly he asked me "You're a Filipino aren't you?" in japanese. That's when I realized that all along he's speaking in Tagalog! I can't help but laugh whenever I remember that moment. I really find it funny thinking that we finished our conversation with him asking me in tagalog while I'm replying in nihongo.😂
This happens so much more often than people think... I've had funny encounters as well. But unlike how we laugh at our experiences, some people walk away and call everyone racist if the interaction didn't go perfectly sigh
普通に聞き取れるし、どういう意図の動画かよくわからない
変なコメントもついてるし
Sometimes foreigners are ignored if there is a Japanese person with them. People don’t expect the foreigner to speak well, or assume it will be easier to speak to the Japanese person. This is a surprisingly common experience. I hope this makes sense- I read your comment using google translate.
ほんとそれです。日本人が意地悪してるみたい
JAPANESE RACIST!!!!
帰国子女です、変なコメントというよりも皆んな疑問に
思ってるコメントが多いですね、
白人とか黒人が普通に日本語で注文しても、店員さんがその人の言うこと聞こうともしないこと多いですよ。私ハーフに見えるから小さいネズミみたいな声で注文を言っても問題ないけど、どっからどうみても白人のお父さんが注文したらこれ。いつもこの動画みたいな流れ。
日本には[外国人に見える人->どうせこの人の言うことなんて私には分からないでしょう]って人多いです。
Two key words you should learn:
な に そ れ
nani sore
(What’s that?)
JUST for when they’re confused or if you’re confused, btw ignore the spaces it’s just so they can match the sounds or smt idk
also I’m a beginner so yh this is like the only words that I can 100% say-
After my friend went there alone snd after the "horror stories" he told me i would never go there without a native friend by my side all the time.
Exactly the same in Taiwan. 😂 They look at you with that blank stare. Then a Taiwanese person says exactly the same thing you said and they are understood perfectly. 😂 My husband said it is because they have a hard time processing a foreigner is speaking the local language and automatically expect they won't be able to understand a foreigner.
Your husband is absolutely correct. They are expecting to hear a foreign language and not their own
Yeah, this. The brain doesn't expect it so it just doesn't process. Happened to me at the airport in Warsaw once. Security woman said something, I said "Sorry I don't speak Polish", then she repeated it and then I noticed it had been English all along...
Because they speak a completely different language than Japanese and is notoriously difficult to pronounce properly unless you’re a native speaker. If you don’t speak the tones properly the meaning completely changes, and most foreigners can’t pronounce the intonations.
I'm from a small country and the same here, people don't understand other nations speaking the local language because they are simply not used to hearing different accents. The same happened to me in other small countries where I tried to learn the language, but not much in the UK or US when speaking English, probably because I was visiting multicultural areas anyway where people were used to hearing accents. Even though it is likely they have never heard my accent before. Japanese or Taiwanese people probably haven't heard anyone foreign speaking the local language before and can't process the accents.
In their Brain : ERROR SYSTEM ERROR SYSTEM
How to speak Japanese as a foreigner in Japan: Have a beautiful Japanese woman repeat your statement while pointing. Done!
@ayakosaito7323 Does she also point? That's important.
i don't have one, so had to learn how to communicate by myself
Even if a foreigner speaks japanese fluently, it might be be weird for japanese bc they don't see a foreigner speaking japanese often, don't get discouraged though, they still appreciate that you are trying to speak japanese.
その日本の店員は自分のリスニングに自信が無く、日本語が話せそうな人に確認をとったのだと思います。実際に発音が分からず、メニューを聞き間違える事はあると思います。
母親以外がその幼児の話す言葉を理解出来ない事があるように、日本人は日本人以外が話す日本語に慣れていない為、上手く聞き取れない事が多いです。
私の職場にネパール人の方が働き始めた時も、同僚に「どうして聞き取れるの？」と聞かれた事があります。
私は差別では無いと思います。
彼女は自分のミスを恐れています。
Agreed. Although this video is an exaggeration, it's easy for Japanese people to get nervous when in an unfamiliar social situation with foreigners. This even happens in somebody's native language, like how your mind goes blank during an interview or presentation. Westerners (especially Americans) in the comments are so quick to call this "racism" even though they've done the same thing to non-english speakers for hundreds of years.
Haha nice and when this happens and they don’t understand me, I’m more persistent instead of letting my wife/friends speak. Confidence is key here!
Even my self as a Japanese have to tell my orders like 2 or 3 times😅
Why is that then? Is it really so hard to understand?
like when you write "hight" in your caption 😊the subtlety of languages makes them amazing to learn, thx for your great content ❤
Hi I'm a Japanese student who's studying in Canada. First, I'm so sorry for people who experienced this kind of thing in Japan. But at the same time, I'm so sad that many people consider this as discrimination, but I just don't want you guys to think in negative way all the time. I'm still learning English, and sometimes people don't understand my English, but I had never thought that's discrimination. And I encourage people who are studying Japanese! I know it's hard, even for me it is, but let's keep making efforts together! I'll do my best to improve my English! Love y'all! 🥰
And if they dont understand theya sk you to repeat, not straight refuse and ignore you.. stop saying they dont do it on purpose to make Japanese look good while theyre racists
Nah, don't feel sad, it is just this bad habit of people labeling people as racists/xenophobic at the drop of a hat, especially with how bad the connotation for those words are. I've lived here 3 years and maybe it has happened a couple of times to me but I wouldn't feel they are just straight up discriminating, some times they are just expecting some other language, since most tourists don't actually speak japanese. 99.9% of the time clerks do instantly respond in japanese to me and business as usual. On the other hand I've felt people in Japan (at least Tokyo) are very helpful and I've felt I've met a rude person maybe once or twice in 3 years which is pretttty good
Been to Japan several times and went to shops and similar places both alone and with my japanese gf and never had this problem before
Yeah but it's more fashionable and enjoyable for people to scream racism in these days...
No one's going to admit maybe they're Japanese accent just sucks.
Congrats 🙄
@@watchmesquatch Thank you! I really appreciate your sarcastic comment
@@watchmesquatch🤡
This happened to me when I was in Japan. I repeated the phrase 3 times and eventually left to get my translator (this was many years ago). When I repeated to the translator he wasn't sure why they didn't understand me, he said my pronunciation was a little bit off but still understandable 🤷♀️
Your translator might be good at understanding accents. It takes getting used to... but once you are, you can easily make out words monolingual native speakers can't. Or you were just dead gorgeous and struck the waiter dumb ahaha
It's interesting though. How often did this happen to you? I mean, everyone here seems to be using their bad experiences to somehow confirm that everyone in japan is racist... which just feels extremely weird for me because I've been here for 3 years now and I have yet to experience this once... hm.
Is the lack of understanding to do with accents and natives not hearing a particular non native accent enough?
I'm British and when i was first introduced to an American accent, i could only under one or two words.
But recent years of watching so much American TV, I now understand 95% of what they say lol
I think part is then expecting not to understand and thus not even trying
いや、さすがに分かるやろ。
店員さんはたぶん外人と話したことが少なくていきなり緊張してきたかも。もちろん、このビデオのシチュエーションはフェイクです。
もうすぐ８年間日本に住んでいるフランス人ですが、一度もこういう店員さんに会ったことがないです！
うまく伝えなかった時は自分の日本語がポンコツだったからです。。😅
I think for some people it's because they're not expecting you to speak in Japanese, so they're trying to understand what English words you're using.
This happens to me all the time. I know they are not being rude. I live in a rural area, well away from any additional foreigners and I speak Japanese fluently. But often times, when I speak to a local, they look to my wife for "translation".... even when she says the exact same thing. Other comments are correct... they don't mean to seem rude, it just happens. Gotta roll with it and move on.
To be fair its any language I think, when some non native speak French to me sometimes it takes 5 seconds for my brain to re calibrate to their accent, and then from there I can figure out whatever they say, same for English, and same for others I guess when i speak Bisaya or Spanish (and hopefully Arabic and Japanese within the next 2y)