Which Members Speak Fluent English?

lol I know, but there's k-pop fans who expect university level Koreans to be completely fluent in Korean because of the university entrance exams.... it's so far from the actual truth lol

 

Really long rant about the Japanese educational system incoming, feel free to skip:

This, in my experience, is exactly it. I'm currently working as an English teacher at the high school level in rural Japan and, while some of my students are motivated to learn, many of them (expecially the low-level students) simply cannot see how they will ever use English in the real world and therefore feel that it is not necessary to even try. Japan is still very isolated in terms of the number of foreigners and has a very low immigration rate. Most people will, in reality, never need to speak English; this is even more true in a rural area where most graduates will either go on to a junior college/technical school or straight into employment.

Another big issue is with speaking vs. writing skills. In the past, all of the English knowledge required to be accepted into a university was tested via a written examination. This is changing in recent years, with some schools having oral tests as well, but there is still a huge focus on reading and writing rather than speaking. Most Japanese teachers of English seem to focus a lot on learning grammar patterns and do very little conversation. The speaking aspect is a big part of my (and other ALTs) job, but I only have 1/2 classes a week with the students I teach and I don't teach all of the students.

Additionally, although they have recently added English to the elementary school curriculum, it is taught by teachers who themselves generally know very little to no English. This can be the case in junior high schools as well, I've heard mixed things. High school teachers should be fairly fluent, but many of the older English teachers (generally close to retirement) also have very little spoken English ability. In my experience, the younger teachers are all pretty good at English, but I work with one older teacher who can barely make a few sentences (his first words to me were literally 「日本語は大丈夫ですか？」 "Is Japanese okay?"). Starting from last year, there was a new rule that only English was to be spoken during English classes, so hopefully this will improve things. I personally haven't seen much change yet, but I think we'll start to see things improving in the next 10 years or so as older teachers retire and more young ones enter the workforce. Abe has also been pushing for increased focus on learning English, so we'll see what comes of that.

I don't know enough about English education in other countries to compare it to, but I have a friend who taught in Korea previously who now teaches at Japanese elementary schools. He said that the Korean students he taught were a lot more willing to speak up and participate in class. In Japan, students never raise their hand to ask questions and rarely speak out in class because that's just what they're used to (although I have a couple more energetic classes who are getting better about it). I'd think that a different and more mistake-friendly atmosphere could make a difference, although I'm sure that there's a lot more to the story.

As for idols, I'd think that they'd be in the group that sees little need for English. Realistically, they don't actually meet many foreign fans, and they're probably not planning on eventually having a job that would require English. Plus many of them miss a ton of school anyway.

TL;DR The Japanese educational system has some issues and many students don't see a need to learn English.

 

@SunnySK42: Thanks for that...I'm planning to teach english in Japan soon and am really interested to know what the basic issues about why many students don't care much about learning it. It is understandable in some ways, but things can change.

 

For the same reason a lot of English native speakers don't learn foreign languages seriously, they won't need them outside of the classroom. It's just another school subject like maths and history to them.

 

I think only two members speak fluent english; Rina Hirata and Rena Nozawa. Maybe other members can speak basic conversation but they really need improvement. I don't know about all the video on their variety show but I think they just wanna be funny so they purposely make a stupid mistake on english.

if the video does not show watch the video here
The interview by Fuji TV. They both very fluent in english.
Other then both of them, I don't know. But their sister group apart from Japan 48G have members that speak fluent english like JKT48. And JKT's new english version of Gingham Check is pretty good and I think they have a good pronounciation

 

I think Rena has a Indonesian accent when she speaks english lol. Rina is American if I'm not mistaken so its no surprise.

 

Haha...I don't really care about it as long as I understand her. Maybe she also can speak with Australian accent.
But like Rina said it would be more fun if other members could speak english. It would be easy for us to speak to them. Nevermind, music is universal and who cares if they don't speak english. We just have to speak japanese then eventhough I don't speak japanese .

 

I haven't heard of it, but I'll look it up. If anyone is interested in teaching English in Japan and has questions, feel free to PM me.

To get back to the topic a bit, I found a video of Kondo Sayaka speaking English at an event in Singapore for anyone interested:


if the video does not show watch the video here

 

Yeah...she's very fluent in english. Of course she's fluent in English since she grew up in Michigan I think. But now, all of them already graduate.

 

refer to AKB48 concert at USA 2009 i'm very proud of Akimoto Sayaka

 

Yuko being one of the best english speakers in AKB is a little scary. I think Greed's image of Yuko cooking explains it all.
Also, there's this.


if the video does not show watch the video here

^ Yuko getting questions explained to her by kindergarten kids.

 

She totally owned that concert.... and love her accent as well.

Have a family member teaching girls english at a high school in Japan, south of Tokyo, for a while now. Wouldn't be surprised if he married one eventually....he isn't that old.

As for Akimoto Sayaka her accent is excellent though in that concert she struggled looking for words a bit... I think lack of use made her rusty.

 

Akimoto sayaka being half Filipino really helps. Not all but a large portion of people in the Philippines speak english. I don't consider halfies and members who grew up overseas that speak english anything special. Its like giving credit to Japanese people for knowing Japanese. But I would be excited to see pure Japanese person who only lives in Japan speak English.

 

There's this Team 8 girl who lived in San Fransico. But I forgot her name.

 

Hamamatsu Riona

 

Hamamatsu Riona

if the video does not show watch the video here
English speaking 2:43-

 

^Riona's English is fluent o.o

I'm kind of curious after reading these posts now. Are there any videos of the members speaking English? I'm interested to see Yuko's, Paruru's, and Akimoto Sayaka's skills lol. Because if I recall correctly, I watched a variety show where Yuko understood the English being spoken by responding with the correct aizuchi.

Working as a translator for the group sounds like it'd be fun lol

ＥＤＩＴ：

if the video does not show watch the video here

ＥＤＩＴ　２：

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

She has that native American accent, if she and Hirari is in a conversation, you probably wouldn't able to tell they're Japanese.

 

Yeah I was a little surprised lol. I thought that was a funny sketch though xD.

 

Is it me or do the girls have weird looking legs?