I have been living in US for over 13 years now. And my English has greatly improved since then. But recently I noticed some stagnation on my progress for the past several years. I still take an ESL class to get rid of my Japanese accent. That has been working out well, so I can re-learn English that I acquired from my Japanese English teacher.
But I have been noticing that something is not right about the way I work on my English skill. That is that I somewhat stopped “to assimilate into the culture more.” The longer I have been in this country the more I miss my own country; language, TV shows, neighbors, sceneries, food, and its cultural value.
Attaining the cultural value is the most important element to learn the new language proficiently. I heard that in Japan, the start of early English education was launched successfully over in Japan, but now there is a concern that children may lose some of the Japanese value.
The Japanese cultural value is so strong and deep based on hundreds years of history, and there are a lot of ideas and concepts that deeply rooted in every Japanese mind.
Spending childhood and adolescent years in Japan has definitely confirmed my identity and idea of life, and it is impossible to change it just because I am in a different country.
With my English level which meets satisfactory communication areas in daily life as well as business settings, the recent problem with not improving my English further as I wish is very hard to overcome now that I am wanting more and more to go back to Japan.
The language is not just a communication tool; it is your heart and soul.
It is part of your life that decide the quality of life itself.
When I go back to Japan, I want to be viewed as “bilingual”, but not “Americanized Japanese”. For some reason, that is the utmost concern. To prevent that I have been trying to think like Japanese even when I am speaking English. It is not easy “trying to act like Japanese and American” at the same time. It is very frustrating!
Japanese language evolves so much various slight changes according to the current fads and influence of societal transformation, but yet, you are to expected to use traditional way of using “respectable form of Japanese” which needs to be carefully handled depends on the circumstances you are in, in terms of who you are talking to and in what settings.
I will have to strategize my English learning skills with all the complicated elements of my background.
At least I don’t have to worry about sounding like a man because there are hardly any variations of expressions in Female and Male language in English like those in Japanese.
I hope people who are learning Japanese knows the difference, because it is one of the most unique elements of culture about Japan.
By the way, the above photo shows a wax museum in Tokyo, Japan. The most instersting display was "torture room". The room was too spooky to take a photo.
