We’ve all seen it, or heard about it happening. How does everyone else react? Do you have any go-to phrases like すみません、直接に答えていただけますか？Or 私にも日本語が分かりますので..
I should add that I’ve lived in Japan for 6 years, have N1, and have good enough Japanese to have fooled a few people over the phone, so I genuinely don’t think it’s a case of ‘work on your pitch accent/pronunciation etc’. It’s just being visibly non-Japanese I think. Maybe too much eye contact..?
It doesn’t happen all the time, just occasionally when I’m with a Japanese friend (or non-Japanese speaking Asian friends!). They find it awkward and normally don’t say anything. Even though there’s no harm intended, I find it pretty rude and want to say something, but I want to try and be polite about it.. what do you guys say?
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I’ll do the passive aggressive way and say to the person “すみません、聞こえなかった。もう一度お願いします”. They’ll usually direct their gaze at me from that point.
Or if I’m with my wife then I’ll tell her ”ちょっとごめん、財布取ってくれる？”. It’s our code for “leave the conversation”. If she wants to stay then she’ll say “鞄にあるよ”, to which I let her do the talking. This is usually reserved for conversations with the police or someone who’s blatantly ignoring my existence.
Nothing.
If they want to speak to my wife, they’ll speak to my wife. I don’t have any particular desire for them to acknowledge my understanding of their language, as it usually doesn’t put me at any kind of disadvantage. I know the language, I can handle myself, and I am in zero rush to prove it.
It happens all the time everywhere. Don’t take it personally. I’ve trained my husband to wait for me to respond instead of him if someone addresses him directly when they should be speaking to me, then I give the appropriate response myself.
Maybe talk with your spouse about how you’d like them to react in this kind of situation.
It’s a natural reaction. Go to western countries with your asian spouse and the non-asians will talk to you instead of them.
If you start to talk then they will look and talk back to you. I don’t mind it, I let my wife do the talking if the Japanese staff prefers to talk to her. I don’t have anything to prove and I’m tired of hearing “nihongo jouzu desu ne” anyways
No advice, but my favorite part is when I go to the register, pay for something myself, and they still hand my wife the change and receipt instead of me. She always has the “just keep it moving” attitude so she goes with it, but just once I’d like to react like “excuse me why did you just give my change to a stranger?? I don’t know this person!” I bet the cashier would never do it again.
It doesn’t bother me so I don’t say anything. Scroll my phone if it’s taking a while lol.
Ditch the friends, ditch the spouse?
I’ve studied Japanese for over 10 years, lived in Japan for 7. Have N2 (tried N1, passed listening almost perfectly, failed on reading). My partner is Chinese, and has studied Japanese and lived in Japan for a shorter time than I have. Often I’ll speak to people in Japanese, and they’ll turn to him and talk to him instead, even if they’re answering the question I just asked.
I’m not terribly bothered by this at places like restaurants, but sometimes he tags along with me to do things unrelated to him and it still happens. The worst example was when I went to get a physical My Number card so I could do online pension and visa stuff. I went to a temporary My Number Card sign up office and my partner came with me with the plan of getting lunch after.
There was an older man, 40s or 50s, helping with the paperwork. He’d talk, and I’d respond and ask him questions about what I needed to write on the forms. He’d turn to my partner and give answers to him, like “Tell her she needs to …” My partner tried not to speak to the old man because he could see I was getting irritated. When the old man handed my partner all my informational pamphlets and said, “Please translate these for her later” I said, “I understand Japanese” with slight irritation. The old man ignored it, and just continued telling my partner what I needed to do afterwards, and what to expect in the mail.
In the end, me getting irritated at the man did nothing, as he had already determined that there was no way I could understand him. It’s not always like this, at least. When I needed to go to the pension office, my partner also tagged along, and the man (late 30s) there did not talk to my partner once and completely conversed with me about my issues and the steps to fix them.
I’m not sure if it’s a generational difference, or if perhaps the people who talk to whoever looks the most Asian are accustomed to interacting with tourists who don’t speak any Japanese. But generally, if someone has already decided that you won’t understand them, there’s not much you can do.
This has never happened (to me).
Perhaps it is just the case that your (OP) proficiency is not what you think/expect? Maybe you’re just not where you think you are? Maybe your spouse’s “friends” are just assholes/ignorant nobs?
What a bizarrely specific thing to have a 蜂 in your bonnet about…
I really don’t care, I have bigger things to worry about. I only care of we are negotiating, because my wife is terrible at that, but I haven’t really been in a situation where they would only talk to her
I don’t know why there’s a lot of people here who really take offence to this stuff here. To me it’s just the same in the west when waiters ignore the non fluent Asian and speak to the local. And yes it happens to me in Japan too as I’m not native. I personally don’t care as long as I get what I want – good for me that someone else is doing the ordering?