Chinese Herald PEN column
Qinghaiguan Huang Wenwei
If you want to find shortcomings for Shohei Ohtani, a well-known baseball player and national idol in Japan, he is simply picking a bone in the egg, and he is superb-class in terms of football skills, appearance, character, and personality. Nowadays, there is almost no day when Shohei Ohtani is not seen on TV.
In fact, it is not a shortcoming, it can only be said to be a little lacking. That is, in public, Shohei Otani always relied on translation to express himself. Of course, this can also be said to be for the needs of work. Ohtani can spend more time practicing his skills, and language communication is solved by teamwork. It is said that Mr. Kazuhei Mizuhara, the interpreter who always followed Shohei Otani, had an annual salary of 100 million yen.
However, it seems that Otani does not know English at all, and occasionally speaks a few English words, and his pronunciation is quite regular. He's a member of the U.S. team, he's not playing for Japan, he's not a politician, he doesn't need to rely on an interpreter, he should speak English on his own, communicate with his teammates, even if he doesn't speak it well, it's natural, maybe it's cute. Maybe Otani strives for perfection in everything and lets the authentic English of a professional translator take his place.
Shohei Ohtani's personality is very representative of the Japanese, or rather a typical Japanese, courteous and slightly shy. On the court, he picks up scraps of paper and puts them in his pocket. But he, like many Japanese people, is ashamed to speak English. People in the world always ridicule the Japanese for their English pronunciation being too Japanese, and they are seriously influenced by the Japanese language. Generally speaking, it is one of the national characteristics of the Japanese people that they do not like to speak English, they do not speak English well, they are too shy to speak English, and they have an equally difficult attitude towards other foreign languages.
Shohei Ohtani has been in the United States for more than six years, and there should be no problem with daily English communication, but now the translator is inseparable. Of course, no one can be perfect, but his baseball skills are already at the top level, and he has been loved by fans in Japan and the United States, and even football fans around the world. It would be better to be able to speak fluent English in public at ease, which is a bone in the egg.
Super-notch baseball players such as Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui, who came to the United States many years ago to develop in a foreign country, have been in a foreign country for a long time, and it is conceivable that the indispensable factor is that they can pass the English test. Even though Hideki Matsui was already speaking English very well, he retired and went to English classes in New York several times a week. Ichiro Suzuki's English pronunciation even has a Japanese flavor, but in the United States he bravely speaks in English.
In the recent sports news, Shota Ohtani's alumnus and 18-year-old baseball player from Hanamaki Higashi High School in Iwate Prefecture was admitted to Stanford University in the United States and received a full scholarship equivalent to 50 million yen in tuition for four years. Rintaro Sasaki has the momentum of the back waves of the Yangtze River pushing the front waves, and the future is limitless. He will join Stanford's baseball team. In the near future, when he enters the American Professional Baseball team, he will not need a translator. Maybe he'll surpass Shohei Ohtani.
Nowadays, Japanese people have more and more opportunities to come into contact with foreigners, and overseas tourists and foreign workers are coming one after another. There are more opportunities to talk to foreigners, and if you speak English boldly, Japan will be more popular with foreigners. TV Tokyo has a program "Why did you come to Japan" (You は何しに日本へ?), and the reporters who interviewed the reporters actually needed an interpreter to follow, and even if they said hello to foreigners, they stammered, and there were not a few reporters on the TV station who spoke decent English.
It is undeniable that there are also some Japanese who reject foreign Chinese, and everything is good at domestic production, even the language, and they have no idea of learning a foreign language at all. Some netizens once said on social networking sites that when they heard Chinese tourists speaking Chinese on the street, they felt awkward: The voice is so high-pitched, why is the Chinese pronunciation so ugly? I have to debate with it, there are thousands of languages in the world, and any foreign culture and language must be respected and respected, and cannot be disliked, this is a matter of principle. There is nothing wrong with Chinese, what is wrong is that it sometimes carries inappropriate feelings and emotions and makes people unhappy.
When it comes to English education in Japan, for a long time, English classes were mostly taught in Japanese. Many Japanese people lament that they have studied English for many years, but they can't speak a word. It is said that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Culture is gradually replacing English teachers in elementary and junior high schools with native English speakers. As a result, Japanese English teachers will be replaced by native English speakers when they reach retirement age. If students are exposed to the pronunciation of a large number of native English teachers from an early age, English education in Japan will change dramatically. Since 2020, I have been learning English in the third grade of primary school, after being in the fifth grade. The number of foreign English teachers is increasing, and students practice the English words and phrases they have learned from their home English teachers in English conversations with foreign teachers, and English communication between children is becoming more and more enjoyable. In the lessons of foreign teachers, students are exposed to a large amount of live English, which will help to develop English listening skills. Once you are able to listen to English correctly, you will be able to communicate in English smoothly. Since FY2016, Saitama City has been implementing its own internationalization program for English education in all municipal elementary and junior high schools, and English has been taught from the first grade of elementary school.
Shohei Ohtani, this article is not really about your shortcomings, but about the common shortcomings of Japanese people. Speaking English and other foreign Chinese boldly is the only way to bring Japanese people's Chinese skills in line with international standards. The power of role models is endless, and one day when Shohei Ohtani, a national idol, talks eloquently in English on TV, it will surely set off an upsurge in learning English in Japan, and it will become a symbol of Japan's internationalization.