The English ban and the theory that the native language is the strongest
I haven't felt this frustrated in a while – or rather, something I wanted to say was mentioned by someone else before I could express it. I figured I'd jot it down. It's about this news: "Rosetta imposes an English ban on all its employees." (Article in Japanese)
Rosetta bans English for all employees.
The content of the news is such that there's no need to use English or Chinese if you're conversing on Rosetta's VR translation conversation platform. The very act of forcing oneself to use a language other than one's mother tongue can diminish the effectiveness of communication. So, if that's going to be the case, why not use your mother tongue and fully demonstrate your potential? This is the gist of the story, which I presume is also a PR activity for the product developed by Rosetta.
The frustrating part is that I've been contemplating for quite some time about imposing a ban on any language other than one's mother tongue, including English, within the company/community I'm part of, called BASSDRUM.
I've been living in New York for over seven years and have been working in an English-speaking environment for a substantial period. When I first immigrated, I even wrote articles like this, but now I think I can say I'm able to speak English quite well and don't struggle much in English meetings (though there are still occasional difficulties).(Article in Japanese)
The big question that cannot be avoided. About "English"
I don't know if it's just me or if it's a common thing for English speakers, but when I try to watch English movies or dramas with Japanese subtitles, the English enters my ears, and the discrepancy between what I see and hear makes me uncomfortable. As a compromise, I often end up watching movies with English subtitles. Surely, after seven years, I'm at that point.
However, this just signifies that I've cleared the minimum requirements as an English speaker. Even at my level, it's quite challenging to make statements that go beyond mere information and carry a deeper nuance. In my mother tongue, Japanese, I can naturally make personal statements and carry on conversations with my unique phrasing or timing, without giving it a second thought. But can I do that in English? Not at all. To compare it to playing piano, if my mother tongue allows me to play a complicated piece by Chopin with grace and finesse, English only allows me to clumsily pluck out "I Stepped on the Cat."
I've often been driven to frustrating situations like, "Damn it. If I could express this in Japanese, I could get more people interested in what I'm doing." Even so, there are people who make an effort to understand me, and I've made close friends, but there have been numerous opportunities lost due to communicating in English. There must have been many people with whom I could have become friends if there were no language barrier.
Human beings inherently prefer listening to a graceful performance of Chopin over "I Stepped on the Cat". Even as Japanese speakers, we've had experiences where we feel uncomfortable listening to a foreigner's Japanese, or conversations just don't flow smoothly. The reality is that native English speakers in America also feel the same kind of discomfort towards a foreigner's English.
"Probably, this person is very talented when speaking in their native language, but because their English is strange, they come off as stupid."
What often happens in work situations is that people tend to underestimate you because of this. In fact, I've been looked down upon quite a few times because of these situations.
On the other hand, living in America for the past few years, I've noticed a certain trend. That is the attitude of "why bother speaking English when you can fully express yourself in your mother tongue?" I really feel this. Even if they don't understand the language, people respect those who can perform a fluent Chopin-like performance.
A prime example of this would be Marie Kondo, the tidying consultant known as "Konmari," who has become a social phenomenon in America. In her highly popular Netflix show, Konmari speaks almost exclusively in Japanese, using her native language to accurately convey the nuances she wants to express. If she had struggled to communicate in English, there would likely have been fewer viewers, and it would never have become such a social phenomenon.
If you go to the local frozen yogurt shop, you'll routinely hear groups like BTS and BlackPink proudly singing in Korean, and the African American clerk, who likely doesn't understand a word of Korean, often scoops yogurt into cups while enjoying the music.
In this way, it seems that the number of people who can express themselves fully in their mother tongue and be accepted is increasing.
Marty Friedman, the former Megadeth guitarist, is now one of those foreign talents who speaks Japanese extremely well. Marty commented something very interesting about why BABYMETAL was accepted in America, from the perspective of a native English speaker. (Article in Japanese)
The big question that cannot be avoided. About "English"
He believes that they should continue singing in Japanese. It makes people want to learn Japanese when they hear it. Indeed, people often ask what those girls are singing about, and it stimulates interest in learning Japanese.
Many Japanese artists try to appeal to Americans by singing in English, but it often doesn't work. One of the downsides of Americans is that they react negatively even to the slightest accent. In contrast, in Japan, if I speak Japanese with a bit of an accent or make mistakes, people find it cute.
However, many Americans are even bothered by British accents. An exception might be the extreme "Katakana English" like the lyrics of Shonen Knife's songs, which are seen as funny and cute. Moreover, even if you sing in perfect English, you'll end up competing with all other American singers, so you ultimately lose your individuality.
Singing in Japanese not only stimulates curiosity but also creates a sense of mystique. It's more interesting when you don't understand.
I was struck by reading this. I think it's probably true. Our native language is an attractive weapon for us. It's not a cross that should make us feel timid.
If this was 20 years ago, we would have had no choice but to overcome the language barrier on our own. We would have had to force ourselves to speak in English to cross certain barriers, and no matter how fluent the Chopin, if we didn't understand it, we wouldn't have been able to convey it.
However, we are now, perhaps for the first time in human history, able to overcome language barriers using tools with a little effort.
The most obvious of these tools is the translation engine. DeepL's translations have become quite accurate. If you write a manuscript in Japanese and translate it with DeepL, you can then just tweak the odd parts to produce a fully usable English text.
Some people may say that translation engines are still full of errors and are not usable, but in fact, a lot of these issues can be resolved with effort on the human side.
As you can see if you read "The Complete Guide to Machine Translation", if you make sure to write out the subjects and objects that tend to be omitted in regular conversation, you can narrow the range of machine interpretation and minimize mistranslations. This book clearly teaches what "machine-friendly language" is for the coming age of automated translation. (Japanese Book)
For example, just changing a sentence like "I'll go later" to "I will go to your place later" can help the machine to understand the sentence more accurately. Machine translation has almost reached a practical level, and if you think it's not enough, instead of waiting for the machine to catch up with us, we should take the initiative to approach the machine.
Even after living in America for 7 years, I'm still at the "The cat got in the way" level, so I wonder how many decades it would take for members of BASSDRUM, the organization I belong to and who live in Japan, to become fluent in English and be able to conduct business overseas. By that time, everyone will be an old man or woman.
Therefore, what we need to work with foreigners is not to become fluent in English, but to become perfect at using automatic translation. If we can do that, we can communicate in our own language with people all over the world, not only in English, but also in Chinese or Spanish.
I've been experimenting quite a bit with this, because I strongly believe in it.
In BASSDRUM, we have members like amo from Taiwan who speak Chinese, and members like Nakata-san who feel more comfortable expressing themselves in English. Keita-san is originally from Brazil.
We sometimes have conversations among non-Japanese speakers, following the rule of "not using any language other than our mother tongue".
A powerful ally in these conversations is the conversation translation feature of Microsoft Translator. It's like a chat room, and you can choose your native language when you enter. Then, when you input your speech in your native language, the translated words in each member's native language are delivered to each member. With this, it's possible to have a conversation in Japanese, Chinese, English, and Portuguese all at the same time.
In fact, Portuguese was quite tough, but Japanese, Chinese, and English were translated with sufficient accuracy for us to understand each other. We do connect with each other on Zoom to hear each other's voices, but we can't understand directly what each other is saying.
However, our respective mother tongues, which we don't use when we usually communicate in English, are, well, fluent and beautiful. And from there, you can feel the deep flavor that their speech emits, as I mentioned earlier.
I didn't understand 100% of what Keita-san was saying in Portuguese, but the indescribable bossa nova feel was soothing, and I was a bit enthralled.
In that context, I'm sure my Japanese was thought to be "cool".
At BASSDRUM, we are thinking of expanding the use of automatic translation in our community to involve more people, regardless of borders. Personally, I still practice English conversation every day because I have other motivations, such as wanting to understand the news better or dealing with angry phone calls from my child's school teacher.
And, I was hoping to declare "No English Conversation at BASSDRUM" after doing more of these experiments, but as I mentioned at the beginning, someone beat me to it. However, because it is a very sympathetic approach, and a movement I want to support, I decided to speak up, even though it might seem like I'm following suit. I wish I had moved faster.
With this approach, I want to become friends with colleagues (technical directors) around the world and share interesting work, which is what I want to do from this year to next year.