Which Members Speak Fluent English?

hmm Member with good English I think Graduated Member of Team 4 Nakamata Shiori can be included on this criteria, I forgot in which events Nakamata show some Magic trick in English and now she entered Waseda University

 

Saito Makiko is, she's from Osaka but she's half filipino. There's also Kinoshita Yukiko whom half spanish. Not sure about their English though...

 

Yukko doesn't speak English. There's been a few times she's mentioned that just because she's a halfie, doesn't mean she speaks English. Same with Keira and Murashige.

 

Shige seems to speak good Russian though!
It's too bad there aren't more girls like that, who speak different languages well. Just looking around here, it's definitely effective at getting corresponding groups of overseas fans interested in the 48 group. I've seen Russian fans first interested because of Aanya and American fans first interested because of Hirari. Overseas fandom is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of Japanese fans, but it's not nothing. Nationality is definitely a thing that draws people together.

 

^And even if you don't think about fans, if they actually have roots from another country, why won't they learn their other language? Yukko knowing Spanish, Keira knowing Portuguese (br), don't they have interest on that? I guess that's just how the Japanese culture goes / does.

 

Chiyori Nakanishi study English, and Saho Iwatate French.
Yukko know very little(She asked his mother and brother who taught) but dont is very good. Only can say two or three sentence

 

well, pretty much every American has roots from somewhere else but they usually don't attempt to speak any language other than English.

 

Man, I remember that opening ceremony.

 

It is hard to learn another language other than the language that is spoken where you live. Yukko would only speak spanish with 1 of her parents which makes it naturally hard to keep up.

 

Children can learn any language without much effort, but they're usually not interested in it. They don't understand why one parent won't speak "normally" like everyone else and often refuse to answer in that language. It's only when they grow up that they regret it, because from a certain age (around 12 or so) for most people it becomes hard to learn a new language, let alone become fluent in it.

 

I guess.... I have cousins in France, Germany and England, and all them know both languages, their native (portuguese) and the language from that country, and know lots of other cases that they usually learn both languages, and it feels like in Japan they simply don't care about learning any other language than Japanese. I wonder if that's also because of the difficulty? Since even their alphabet is different

 

It all depends on the parents. Some are determined to teach their children their mother tongue while others don't care that much or they give in when their child refuses to speak the other language. It also depends if parents are able or willing to switch from their native language to the local language. But I've been wondering the same thing, why do most Japanese speak barely any English? Many will say it's the way English is thought in schools, but I can't imagine it being much different from the way kids are thought French in many western countries. I noticed many tourists in the Netherlands are surprised by how pretty much everyone here speaks English and they think the education here must be excellent, but I don't remember learning that much in school. I've learned English mostly by watching tv, video games, music etc. I've studied French in school for 7 years and I still feel I can barely produce a decent sentence. So I'm thinking maybe it has to do with the amount of exposure to the English language, especially from a young age. I don't know how popular foreign media are in Japan and how often subtitles are used instead of dubbing.

 

It is different when comparing European languages to Asian languages. It is easier to speak German or Spanish when you know English and etc, at least you use the alphabet. I'm an American of Asian descent (Chinese&Mongolian), so I understand what it is like to speak 2 completely different languages. I feel like I become worst when I speak one language over the other. That's why going from say Japanese to English is extremely hard because of grammar and other major differences. That's why Japanese halfie who of Asian descent retain their language a little better.

 

I think the Japanese don't know English all that well simply because they don't need to. When you think about it, how many of them are actually going to be put in a situation where they need to know English to survive or make a living? If all English is to them growing up is a high school class they need to take to graduate and get into a good college, then what's the need to practice it daily once they graduate?

 

Well there's jobs where you need to speak English

 

^
I do wonder how many of those jobs are in hot demand among graduating students, though I have read that there have been efforts in recent years to improve the Japanese people's English skills.

In any case, I suppose being an idol doesn't really require it, as people have mentioned before.

Part of me does wonder sometimes if the reason that some of the younger members are more decent at English is because they are currently taking classes about them as opposed to having an interest in it (or a natural skill in learning languages).

I remember having that passing thought when I saw the first episode of Tentomuchu's new variety show.

 

I've noticed from my completely un-scientific study, that South Koreans seem to be much better at learning english and good pronunciation than Japanese. I don't know if it's studied more often, considered more important to them, or what? I'd be interested to know what their secret is.

 

Probably because they have more vowels and ending consonants other than "n". Also because it's pushed harder on them, it's a part of their university entrance exams but it doesn't mean every Korean you meet will speak English. A vast, vast majority do not, or they possibly only know a small handful of words. Heck my university peers' English varies in level, so it also depends on how hard/well they study it (remember English is to them as is Korean/Japanese to us.. it's very hard either way, arguably English is harder for a non native speaker, in my opinion), there's a good chance some can't be bothered.. because... well, it's Korea, why speak English when you know Korean?

 

Trust me, I wasn't expecting every Korean to know English