珍客

Communicating with the Japanese may seem like engaging in battle. The structure of their language makes it a formidable foe. different ways of speaking depending on whether the speaker is male or female, young or old, king or commoner; an almost complete absence of plurals; agglutinative verbs which pile ending upon ending into a baffling string of sounds; and the oddly Japanese practice of speaking and writing in varying levels of politeness, a system of social nuance translated into vast grammatical complexity.

The tactical approach to communicating with the Japanese presented in this text will enable you to maneuver successfully through these difficulties and achieve the linguistic success you are seeking. You will learn the basic patterns that will enable you to communicate meaningfully with native speakers of Japanese. The emphasis in the text is on high frequency patterns, the stress is on function and utility. Rather than learn three or four variations of the same phrase, you will learn, with the same effort, ways of saying three or four different things. With these patterns you will be correct, accurate, effective and, as important as anything else, polite.

The tactical method recognizes that the Japanese language has been enormously influenced in the last one hundred years by English. There are literally thousands of words in modem Japanese which have been imported from English. Nekutai, naifu, resutoran, shinema, tenisu, toire--these are all perfectly acceptable Japanese words derived from English (They mean, by the way, necktie, knife, restaurant, cinema, tennis and toilet.) This is not "pidgin Japanese", but the standard, everyday, way a Japanese would express these concepts. You will have to learn how to pronounce these borrowed words in a Japanese way, but you already have a massive vocabulary. You already know a lot more Japanese than you realize.

The tactical method also recognizes that the Japanese you meet will not expect you to speak any Japanese at all. The Japanese have the idea that their language is mysteriously, uniquely, and sacredly difficult. At the same time, very few Japanese are confident about their English. despite the fact that all Japanese high school graduates have studied English for at least six years. Your efforts to express yourself will be warmly and enthusiastically received. The Japanese will be universally eager to help you. This will reinforce your efforts and you will thereby progress.

Lets be realistic and recognize that you are not going to be bilingual or even fluent in these few lessons, You will not be able to develop abstract and convoluted commentaries in a circumloquacious manner on abstruse theories of religious or
mystical divination. But simple ideas, yes. Your limitations will be largely determined by your ability to say things simply--hard enough, even in English--and your interest in building up a vocabulary in those subject areas you want to talk about. Keep it simple, get to the point. And memorize vocabulary.

One last comment. It can be done. You can do it. It doesn't take special talent. It va]1 require some normal mental alertness and flexibility. It will also take some work. You will get out of it what you put into it. But by focusing your efforts on the high priority stuff, the core nuts and bolts, the essential patterns presented here, you will realize a surprisingly strong return on your time and effort investment.

Good luck!