Someone on Twitter once wrote, “I traded my excellent English to sound like a 5 year old in two languages.”
I’ve noticed as my Japanese has progressed (I can gurgle, point and things and demand cake) so my English has slowly declined. I still write more or less every day in English, consume a lot of English content etc, but it just seems a bit more of a struggle to get the words to flow. My sentence structures sometimes come out back to front and read more like a bad translation than the awesome clean copy I used to be known for.
Just wonder what other people’s experiences are of transitioning towards a better understanding of Japanese from English. It’s more to help me prepare for what’s to come (as writing makes up a chunk of my income) and whether I need to alter how I approach things.
Ta!
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Edit with some further context:
I am a native English speaker (Londonish), read a lot, write a lot and speak a lot. It just seems to be a gradual cognitive decline specific to writing.
37 comments
I keep foreign friends. I haven’t felt my skill in English decline at all, however my mother tongue is german and that is for sure going.
I would recommend to keep in touch with family or foreign friends, maybe flex your writing muscles with exercises?
Besides the moral/ethical issues in academia, ChatGPT is an excellent tool for having an academic dialogue. Just let it know what level/style you’re aiming for, and it will adjust itself.
I hang out with other native English speakers and look at Reddit etc every day. My job mostly entails me speaking Japanese or translating so I think making sure I’m speaking my native language normally is also important. I’ve pretty much only ever dated other native English speakers here though so I’ve never felt my English got weird.
Reading – preferably novels, but anything longer than a tweet will be fine.
Speak with native English speakers, or if that’s not an option, teach English on the side. Just don’t tell your students it’s for your benefit. 😛
I recommend playing text based video games or reading lots of books. Helps keep my vocab up
Don’t worry about having a good English, at least you’re aware of your error and can learn from it. Many natives cannot even write acceptable English, but they are easily understood. Don’t stress yourself out while learning English, instead, embrace the mistakes and enjoy the adventure.
Have your job require it! 🤪 I’m a medical editor, so a good grasp of the English language is essential. Also lots of reading and writing helps keep the skills sharp.
Are you tired? Nothing exhausts me more than functioning in Japanese all day and I end up a mess in English. My daughter witnesses and laughs at me. I also have a special kind of bilingual hell where occasionally my brain wants to say a Japanese word in the middle of an English sentence and won’t give me the English. Everyone is giving good advice, but don’t discount being tired or stressed.
English isn’t my first language but, I found reading books, listening to podcasts and also keep my native friends really helpful for me to keep my English skills.
Read fiction and talk to foreign friends regularly.
Every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home wine-making course and I forgot how to drive?
Totally understand what you’re going through. Can speak 3 languages (mother tongue, english and japanese). The first 2 were already at natuve or near native level, until I stepped up my japanese to business level and now they’re somehow falling apart at a very alarming rate. I try to keep myself familiar by using both mother tongue and english at home, or watch really gritty serious shows in those languages. But most of the time I use Japanese at work, so I’m still worried…
I keep up with an academic topic of interest in English, usually by taking an online course once or twice a year. Most things I read have a lot of technical vocabulary so being able to explain what I learned in my own words helps a ton. You can also study more complicated terms and vocab in Japanese that match those kinds of topics even if your grammar isn’t there up there yet. I think it builds confidence to be able to recognize words in a second language that would be common in your field in English, and the gap between the two languages might shrink a little faster.
I spent two years acquiring fluent written and spoken Japanese and was horrified to be asked by an English cabbie on my first trip back to England “and where do you come from mate?” When I replied “England” rather frostily he said “no offense but I put you down as a colonial.” And my English colleagues asked me why I never gave a straight answer but always went all round the mulberry bush first. Ring a bell
New York Times Crossword, Reddit, and American Club.
Do NOT expect podcasts to help keep you anchored to standard English. They are full of the most careless, hesitant fractured English on the planet with a few notable exceptions. I can still listen to the Economists podcasts, for instance despite their continued reflection of outdated elite politics.
I think that to some degree it is inevitable. Our brains can only do so much. So if you are making rapid progress in other languages, your range of expression in your native language is bound to take a bit of a hit. Of course this can be mitigated by using your native language daily! But will this hinder your acquisition of Japanese, which I assume is also important to you?
I always see it as prioritizing. I live in japan so improving my Japanese is priority no. 1. After that comes maintaining my native English vocabulary and expressions and after that comes maintaining my Spanish…to whatever extent is possible after 1 and 2. Haha.
The English I use is absolutely more limited than it was before I left the US. But it’s never caused me any problems. I do translation work and when the right word or expression doesn’t come to me right away, well, that’s where the dictionary, thesaurus and Google come in!
Watch movies, read books, listen to music, follow recent news back home. You tube has news channels like BBC and CNN. Meet up with fellow foreigners that live here. Join sports teams football, soccer, biking, etc.
i watch alot of football/soccer, so i listen and read analysis articles from youtubers/websites and that usually keeps my english on top of things
Reading, maintain friendships with native English speakers in Japan and elsewhere.
Also, use Grammarly when you write.
Oh yeah. I can’t spell big words anymore. I used to be a good speller. It’s embarrassing when it happens in front of adult students.
If you go home you’ll recover quickly in my experience.
Your mind is busy working in two languages. That won’t change right away if you leave, but if you are back home for a couple weeks you’ll probably be just fine. Or if you get better at Japanese. If you are thinking in both languages and only at a 5th grade level, thats what you’ll be translating back and forth in your head. Learn more Japanese to have better head thoughts between languages maybe?
I’ve got nothing backing up these statements, just my own thoughts.
Like 95% of my friends in Japan are English speakers xD
Bye-lingual
https://preview.redd.it/ix1p7aexjaab1.jpeg?width=405&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=e0ac7bd8ab5372ae168dc9514ceb98cec4770820
Keep friends that speaks only your language, read a lot, text and think in your language
Your English will never get worse. That’s not scientifically possible if it’s your native language. You might just be tired.
The same. I am not native. I read and listen tones of english content for a work everyday, but I haven’t speak english since I came to Japan, which is a bit less than 5 years ago.
A while ago a pair of tourists asked me a road, and at those moment I realized I can’t speak english anymore. Nothing, but japanese words were coming to my head at those moment.
I seriously started to think of English lessons since people in my company think they can ask me for business trip to America anytime if it would be needed, lol.
Engage in debates. Both reading and speaking are key.
Let loose after a rigid day off monotonic simple speaking.
I can relate with this so much. I feel like I’m limited in both languages. Probably the solution is to read more but I hate reading.
As someone just starting to learn Japanese I’m looking forward to when my inner dialogue can be fluent in Japanese.
‘Londonish’
You’re from Essex, init. It’s alright to admit.
The best way is to -use- it, tbqh.
I’ve been in Japan for the last decade, but my English hasn’t atrophied too badly. Mostly because I use(d) it every day at work (writing/reviewing 30 page long business reports) with native English speaking coworkers and clients. I also regularly speak English outside of work with online friends in VR, so I’ve get plenty of regular use of both business/academic and casual speech and writing.
On the other hand, my Japanese atrophied terribly when I was in the U.S., where I consumed plenty of Japanese content, but never spoke it or wrote it.
It depends on what your interests are, but I find online debate (actual debate, not twitter/reddit) can also be very good for your written English. Also, reading. Read text in the style that you wish to write like to develop. SciFi and older literature are excellent sources of “fancy” words and sentence structures.
The thing that probably trips me up most are newer slang words. I’d heard some of my younger friends use “for real” more often than I would, but it took me a while to realize that “fr fr” was just “for real” x2 and it was just a part of the gen z vernacular. Another time a teenager used “GOAT” to mean “greatest of all time,” and it took me a second to process what she meant. I knew GOAT, but I’d never heard someone use it outside of the internet so I was a little taken aback. That might just be me turning into a boomer, though.
Are you journaling? That can help. Or penpals (email one, not snail mail if you prefer)
I had the exact same anxiety as you. It just felt like my brain was getting slower and thoughts became sludgy.
What I did was I started a podcast on an academic area that I studied in school.
It’s a horrible podcast – very few listeners. But, it’s my baby and I love it.
I write out a script. And, that’s enjoyable.
But, I think the best thing for me is verbally expressing somewhat complex thoughts through recording the podcast. It forces me to articulate the stuff that I read and get it ‘out there’. It’s a great exercise for someone who spends his days asking people ‘how are you?’ and ‘do you like cake?’
Interestingly, it’s made me a better teacher. My explanations to my students are now better and I’m less stressed in general because I feel I have a forum.
I do absolutely no promotion and I just let it sit there, somewhere on the internet.
Start a blog about the demise of your once legendary loquaciousness