In the Japanese blogosphere there is a discussion that comes up fairly often about discrimination against foreigners in Japan.  Today I ran across an article on CNN about English Only Signs at a cheese steak store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The sign in question reads “This is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING ‘PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH.’” and the city’s […]

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This article from the Daily Yomiuri discusses wa or social harmony in Japan. I found the following excerpt to be very interesting:
The researchers found that the Japanese were more than twice as likely as the Americans to opt for the ambiguous response … One of the question topics with the highest rate of ambiguous […]

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I recently read an article in the Daily Yomiuri that advocates the ‘good enough’ or ‘just try’ approach to conversational English. This brings a new perspective to my goal of improving my communication skills in Japan. I would be happy to speak ‘good enough’ Japanese but the question then becomes what is […]

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