Do Japanese have a problem with us?

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Originally Posted by SheKicksHigh

xenophobia is a large componant of japanese history and culture, deal with it
and most of NAs being morons on game doesnt help much either

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A bit less elegant way of putting it, but, there you go....

Holy crap, you know absolutely nothing about contemporary world cultures. Way to go.

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Originally Posted by Starcade

That would be valid if the parties involved deserved such respect.

There's two factors involved, and at least one of them is conduct which is probably greatly excused by the poster I slammed in say that he wouldn't understand (and that there was no point explaining it to him).

1) is a feature of Japanese culture in which outsiders ("gaijin") are scorned. The Japanese honor social order on a very very high scale -- this is why many people are becoming shockingly disturbed at the Japanese's handling of the Fukushima disaster.

2) is the rampant (and, especially, unchecked) cheating which goes on at the US level. As I inferred earlier, "naming shame" -- bringing shame upon the _family_ of someone who has done something wrong in Japan -- has become a very real enforcement of social order. Bringing shame on your family is almost a lethal offense in Japan.

I have absolutely no problem with the Japanese wanting nothing to do with the US playerbase. I think they use the language barrier as a defense mechanism. The barrier is, and, IMHO should be, intentional.

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Fyi, japan is pretty similar to the US in 2011. To an extent, what you said is true, but as the years go by, it is becoming less and less true.

edit: late, but to clarify, that is a very small extent. Japan has changed a lot in the last decades.

Stop feeding the Starc- err, i mean, troll.

lol @ Starcade. That is all.

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Originally Posted by rog

But you expect them to learn english?

It is easy to say you do not mind playing with japanese players, because 99 times out of 100, they will be the ones speaking in a second language, not you. Have you ever tried communicating complex ideas in a language you do not understand well, using vocabulary you never would have learned in school? It is not easy, and it is not fun. You take for granted that most japanese can understand at least basic english, but just because they can understand it does not mean they want to put the effort into doing so while they are trying to relax and play a game.

I can understand some basic japanese myself, but you will not see me trying to play with the japanese, unless they are the ones speaking english. Want to know why? Because even if i can understand what they say (i cannot always), it is not enjoyable trying to decipher moon runes that are scrolling through my chat log while trying to fight some big bad nm. It is hard work, and not enjoyable.

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I never said I expected them to learn English, I merely said I don't like that we have to speak their language to be accepted XD at least by some Japanese. Please don't put words in my mouth :P

Edit: Also would like to point out some of my original post was thrown in there as a joke (such as "do they have a button that allows them to blacklist all English?") so don't think I am sitting here bashing Japanese when I'm not XD it's rude to ignore people in general, and that's what the main topic was.

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Originally Posted by Starcade

1) is a feature of Japanese culture in which outsiders ("gaijin") are scorned.

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Just no. Stop posting.

Just stumbled upon Googles Translate tool o.o Very cool, and from what it looks like very powerful in that you can plug in a full phrase or a sentence and also hear what it would sound like translated. Can anyone that speaks Japanese please confirm if this tool is accurate enough to hold conversations or not? I've updated the choppy translations I've found using the other translation site "Nihongodict.com" since I've found this one, and would like to know if it's legit. Thanks.

Google Translate

For example:
Plugging in "Can we take turns?" yields "Wareware ga kōtai suru koto wa dekimasu ka?" Is this correct?

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Originally Posted by Starcade

That would be valid if the parties involved deserved such respect.

There's two factors involved, and at least one of them is conduct which is probably greatly excused by the poster I slammed in say that he wouldn't understand (and that there was no point explaining it to him).

1) is a feature of Japanese culture in which outsiders ("gaijin") are scorned. The Japanese honor social order on a very very high scale -- this is why many people are becoming shockingly disturbed at the Japanese's handling of the Fukushima disaster.

2) is the rampant (and, especially, unchecked) cheating which goes on at the US level. As I inferred earlier, "naming shame" -- bringing shame upon the _family_ of someone who has done something wrong in Japan -- has become a very real enforcement of social order. Bringing shame on your family is almost a lethal offense in Japan.

I have absolutely no problem with the Japanese wanting nothing to do with the US playerbase. I think they use the language barrier as a defense mechanism. The barrier is, and, IMHO should be, intentional.

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I've been to Japan, as well as lived in various other parts of Asia. I never felt Japan was anything like what you are describing here. A lot of them were very friendly and welcoming to me and my American husband. Some of them were rude (not many, probably on the same ratio of rude North Americans). They're very modern and pretty Westernized. I think you have been watching far too much old anime.

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Originally Posted by kingfury

Just stumbled upon Googles Translate tool o.o Very cool, and from what it looks like very powerful in that you can plug in a full phrase or sentence and also hear what it would sound like translated. Can anyone that speaks Japanese please confirm if this tool is accurate enough to hold conversations or not? I've updated the choppy translations I've found using the other translation site "Nihongodict.com" since I've found this one, and would like to know if it's legit. Thanks.

Google Translate

For example:
Plugging in "Can we take turns?" yields "Wareware ga kōtai suru koto wa dekimasu ka?" Is this correct?

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You can use Google translate to translate web pages as well. It works with the Japanese parts of this forum.

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Originally Posted by HFX7686

You can use Google translate to translate web pages as well. It works with the Japanese parts of this forum.

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Wow, very cool ^^ I'll have to try that :) Thanks
or
Uwa ̄ , hijō ni kūru! Watashi wa tameshite mite yo. Arigatō :D

/Kingfury prays this is the real thing lol ><;

Not really. It can usually give you a rough idea of what someone says, but you definitely do not want to use it to speak to someone.

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Originally Posted by rog

Not really. It can usually give you a rough idea of what someone says, but you definitely do not want to use it to speak to someone.

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Yes, as Rog says, you can read but I wouldn't try replying.

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Originally Posted by rog

Not really. It can usually give you a rough idea of what someone says, but you definitely do not want to use it to speak to someone.

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Aww man :( Understood, but what of the example in my above post? How accurate was that translation? The one about taking turns.

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Originally Posted by kingfury

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Aww man :( Understood, but what of the example in my above post? How accurate was that translation? The one about taking turns.

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Not very, to my knowledge.

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Originally Posted by rog

Not very, to my knowledge.

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Could you provide the proper translation, or another source similar to Google Translate? ^^

Uh, maybe 順番ですよ ? That should get the idea across, but there is probably a better way to say it. I am not very good with japanese.

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Originally Posted by rog

Uh, maybe 順番ですよ ? That should get the idea across, but there is probably a better way to say it. I am not very good with japanese.

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/stagger ^^; Well I don't have a kenji Keyboard so I would need the translation in phonetic terms. :)

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Originally Posted by rog

Uh, maybe 順番ですよ ? That should get the idea across, but there is probably a better way to say it. I am not very good with japanese.

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pluging 順番ですよ ? into Google translate yields, "It is the order?" o.^

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Originally Posted by kingfury

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Aww man :( Understood, but what of the example in my above post? How accurate was that translation? The one about taking turns.

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Sorry for mostly romanji, but I don't have japanese text on this comp atm (rebuilt awhile back got lazy getting reinstalling some stuff).

The correct phrase for taking turns is kōtai de suru or: 交代でする

So if you want to be polite you can say something like,

Sumimasen, NM [or ??? or w/e you want for taking turns, for the most part they know what NM means, and if they don't they can easily tell by the rest of the sentence] ga koutai de surimasuka?

Or more proper: Sumimasen, watashitachi wa NM o koutai de surimasuka?

Though you can probably drop the implied "we" (watashitachi) bit as that feels a little "booky".


[edit] just for future reference if you see the lines across a vowel that just means an extension of that vowel sound (as in the "o" in "kōtai") if you can't type that however you can ad a "u" after the vowel to meant the same thing. so koutai = kōtai

On Bismarck we say, "tsugi" for "next". It gets the point across just fine.

"tsugi mo ii desu ka." "Is the next one okay?"

Edit: I am aware that 'tsugi' is in its improper form. It would probably be more proper to say 'tsuide'. But, I'm not professional, nowhere near, so please forgive me. They forgive me in game... if they take the time to read the romaji I've given them. ;)

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Originally Posted by Romanova

The correct phrase for taking turns is kōtai de suru or: 交代でする

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Translates to "Rotate" right?

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Originally Posted by Romanova

So if you want to be polite you can say something like,

Sumimasen, NM [or ??? or w/e you want for taking turns, for the most part they know what NM means, and if they don't they can easily tell by the rest of the sentence] ga koutai de surimasuka?

Or more proper: Sumimasen, watashitachi wa NM o koutai de surimasuka?

Though you can probably drop the implied "we" (watashitachi) bit as that feels a little "booky".

[edit] just for future reference if you see the lines across a vowel that just means an extension of that vowel sound (as in the "o" in "kōtai") if you can't type that however you can ad a "u" after the vowel to meant the same thing. so koutai = kōtai

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Awesome! ^^ Thanks /salute

And it's hilarious that you mentioned the Macron symbol as I was searching all over the place as how to put this into FFXI using a console USB keyboard lol. Very cool to know :)

Now the biggest question after your proper example would be, would Japanese players understand--:

Can we take turns? --> Wareware ga kōtai suru koto wa dekimasu ka?

--enough to catch my drift? Or would they be like, ‹huh?!› and /ignorpet me and keep on doing whatever they were doing? lol

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Originally Posted by kingfury

Now the biggest question after your proper example would be, would Japanese players understand--:

Can we take turns? --> Wareware ga kōtai suru koto wa dekimasu ka?

--enough to catch my drift? Or would they be like, ‹huh?!› and /ignorpet me and keep on doing whatever they were doing? lol

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They would understand that. Well, if they can/want to read that much romaji. Sometimes they ignore romaji as it can easily be mistakened for English/French/German/Spanish/etc. Another reason why the language barrier is so frustrating.

(I don't think I'll ever let that go. MMOs are about interacting with other players, and we can't do that if we cannot speak properly to each other. I love playing on a multinational server because I'm exposed to so many different cultures and thought processes, but I hate not being able to at least attempt communication.)

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Originally Posted by Meyi

They would understand that. Well, if they can/want to read that much romaji. Sometimes they ignore romaji as it can easily be mistakened for English/French/German/Spanish/etc. Another reason why the language barrier is so frustrating.

(I don't think I'll ever let that go. MMOs are about interacting with other players, and we can't do that if we cannot speak properly to each other. I love playing on a multinational server because I'm exposed to so many different cultures and thought processes, but I hate not being able to at least attempt communication.)

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Cool, thanks! ^^ At the very least, if I can loosely convey what I'm trying to say in a semi-proper way (though I'd be stuck like Chuck trying to understand any responses since I'm stuck on a Console atm ><; ), I will feel much better when attempting to communicate with Japanese players.

In any case I'm glad at least to have found Google Translate for the time being. It's really satisfying to actually "hear" the dialog that's being translated as well as get the Japanese characters when translating. Here's to hoping for such technology being placed inside FFXI one day eh.

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Originally Posted by kingfury

Now the biggest question after your proper example would be, would Japanese players understand--:

Can we take turns? --> Wareware ga kōtai suru koto wa dekimasu ka?

--enough to catch my drift? Or would they be like, ‹huh?!› and /ignorpet me and keep on doing whatever they were doing? lol

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they'd understand it, but even in my version as I said it's ok to put in implications. Japanese is the same as any other language in that there is slang, and a million different ways to say the same thing.

However, as meyi said, I would strongly recommend keeping it as simple as possible because you are using romanji. Think of how slow you maybe to read something written in kanji or hiragana, then remember they are essentially doing the same thing.

However, I do recommend throwing sumimasen at the beginning when you ask something like this. It means "excuse me", in the sense of how you would tap someone on the shoulder and say, "excuse me, is this your wallet?"

It's usually polite to use it when you come out to ask a question without you guys already being in the middle of a conversation. So if it's something where you happen upon a group and want to take turns, it's definitely a nice touch.

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Originally Posted by kingfury

In any case I'm glad at least to have found Google Translate for the time being. It's really satisfying to actually "hear" the dialog that's being translated as well as get the Japanese characters when translating. Here's to hoping for such technology being placed inside FFXI one day eh.

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If you are willing to, there have been tools over on windower's website that do just that for years.

Do you feel uncomfortable when you are surrounded by people you have a very hard time understanding? I am sure many Japanese players feel that same way. Back when I used to play a different MMO the Japanese always stuck on a different Universe/Server to avoid those hard Language Barriers and those who understood it came to ours and played with the North Americans.

Don't assume, try and find different Understandings, thoughts like that is why many people have conflict with each other. Never look for a black and white, look for Gray areas too. lol.

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Originally Posted by Romanova

However, I do recommend throwing sumimasen at the beginning when you ask something like this. It means "excuse me", in the sense of how you would tap someone on the shoulder and say, "excuse me, is this your wallet?"

It's usually polite to use it when you come out to ask a question without you guys already being in the middle of a conversation. So if it's something where you happen upon a group and want to take turns, it's definitely a nice touch.

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I agree, but perhaps instead of typing 'sumimasen', one could use the auto-translate of {Excuse me.} At least then it will write it in hiragana for them, making it a bit easier. Although, using auto-translator might be a big flag to ignore. I'm not sure which is best. But, best of luck with communications all the same.

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Originally Posted by noodles355

As someone currently living in Japan I think that the Japanese are only greatly _insulted_ by idiots like you.

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This, but also its because if you're Japanese and speak english well, we're expected to be personal translators. so generally we dont bother.

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Originally Posted by Meyi

I agree, but perhaps instead of typing 'sumimasen', one could use the auto-translate of {Excuse me.} At least then it will write it in hiragana for them, making it a bit easier. Although, using auto-translator might be a big flag to ignore. I'm not sure which is best. But, best of luck with communications all the same.

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ya, again the idea behind it is to avoid the translator as much as possible but at the same time keeping things simple. I guess it could depend on the server.

As I said back when I was on hades it seemed a good majority of the playerbase knew to use certain words like sumimasen, omedetou, yoroshiku, etc. So I'd imagine them seeing it over and over again in romanji, probably made it easy words for them to read.

But ya they seem to love it when you make the effort instead of just falling back on the translate function, even if it ends up being "baby japanese"

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Originally Posted by Miera

Do you feel uncomfortable when you are surrounded by people you have a very hard time understanding? I am sure many Japanese players feel that same way. Back when I used to play a different MMO the Japanese always stuck on a different Universe/Server to avoid those hard Language Barriers and those who understood it came to ours and played with the North Americans.

Don't assume, try and find different Understandings, thoughts like that is why many people have conflict with each other. Never look for a black and white, look for Gray areas too. lol.

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Phantasy Star Universe on Xbox 360? Most of them just play on the first server for years now.

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Originally Posted by noodles355

Just no. Stop posting.

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Stop lying. Really... stop -- lying.

A large feature of Japanese culture is the fact that they openly scorn outsiders/"gaijin". That's why it usually takes double the effort to get half the respect from the Japanese as a "gaijin". You really need to look at the concept of social order in your country and how it relates to their view of outsiders.

JP ONRY is not just a hacked Engrish.

Yes, go to Asura server at NA night time stay in port jeuno you will know why.

All those garbage shouts, bullying, lol'ing, whenever someone shout for event there always another guy shout back say he suck.

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Originally Posted by kingfury

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/stagger ^^; Well I don't have a kenji Keyboard so I would need the translation in phonetic terms. :)

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There is no such thing as a kanji keyboard. You type in the Roman letters for the hiragana or katakana and then convert them to kanji by pronunciation. Typing in nihongo gets you にほんご and then pressing spacebar converts it to 日本語. Pressing spacebar again gives you more choices of how to convert those kana to kanji. That's what the IME is for.

Excuse me about odd Japanese drop a line(s).
at first,my complain ecpecially in abyssea
Sometime,even my English skill,I'm the only person who use(or want to use)English in my PT.

Someone said "personal translator",actually I sometime felt like that.Even my PT is fighting,some people send me lots of tell and I hardly see fight log.and,"Your personal translator"is speaking Japanese for PT member.2 language and fight,at once.

I mean,It might not be only language matter.I have and had(retired) good friends both Japanese speaking,English speaking.
I'm so lucky I can speak twice of people,and I know both side has mean people.(maybe me too?)

Some new player talks to me ,sometime in Roanji,I'm glad to tell them what means.
Also,it's a old story,before zilart and NA version,some of my friends,who doesn't speak English,was looking forward to see new player.Nation was not a problem,at first.

I understand when English speaker talked to me in roimanji,unless it's hard to understand..(Good Morning=Ohio is my favorite spelling mistale by my friend)
Sometimes,ans in fact,I feel unfonfortable amang Japanese who wants to stay away "gaijin"(sorry)
On the other hand,too long English tell while we're fighting is beyond my capasity.

I appreciate for this thread to try to understand japanese or telling mean words :)
I cannot find the answer yet,but it's not only the language.

P.S please don't call me "JP ONRY"when you find lots of spelling mistake,,,

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Thanks for compliments,but my friends say "I don't understand what you say,but I understand what you mean".like that?

+1 to Illusionist for trying. :D That's very sweet of you, we appreciate it, thank you.

I don't think anyone of this thread would ever expect the Japanese to speak English to us. That's not where the frustration lies. The frustration lies in being ignored when we use auto-translator. It's kind of strange since the auto-translator at least appears in proper Japanese yet it is ignored as much as romaji.

I wish we could at least spread some form of common manners among all players regardless of their language. I hate it when English people ignore me too. Even a simple {I'm sorry.} would suffice. Something to prove that whatever it is I just said was at least read and validated as being worthy enough to get a response.

On the other side of the coin, Illusionist, I generally dislike playing with English speakers who say "English only" as well. It shows a lack of consideration.

I'll never forget the party I had in moon as bard. It was really early in the morning, about 7 AM here (so Japanese midnight) and I got invited to a Japanese party. I didn't mind since I could understand enough hiragana and katakana to get a basic gist of what was going on. But when I was invited, there was a bit of a chat going on between two of the members. The leader was asking if we should invite a "gaijin" whitemage, to which the other party member began to laugh and respond with, "no, 'gaijin' are idiots. They're terrible." Naturally I informed them then that I was a 'gaijin' and wouldn't be afraid to leave due to being 'inferior'. Quickly they began to apologize as they didn't want to lose a bard. -smirk-

I think instances like that have permanently tainted my view of the Japanese player base. I'm still sore about being ignored because I cannot speak back. I am angry that it is technically against the rules for me to speak with that part of the player base. But, I have made lots of Japanese friends that I will never forget. And I know that not all Japanese people hate us. :) I'm always willing to accept everyone and give them a try.

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Originally Posted by illusionist

Excuse me about odd Japanese drop a line(s).
at first,my complain ecpecially in abyssea
Sometime,even my English skill,I'm the only person who use(or want to use)English in my PT.

Someone said "personal translator",actually I sometime felt like that.Even my PT is fighting,some people send me lots of tell and I hardly see fight log.and,"Your personal translator"is speaking Japanese for PT member.2 language and fight,at once.

I mean,It might not be only language matter.I have and had(retired) good friends both Japanese speaking,English speaking.
I'm so lucky I can speak twice of people,and I know both side has mean people.(maybe me too?)

Some new player talks to me ,sometime in Roanji,I'm glad to tell them what means.
Also,it's a old story,before zilart and NA version,some of my friends,who doesn't speak English,was looking forward to see new player.Nation was not a problem,at first.

I understand when English speaker talked to me in roimanji,unless it's hard to understand..(Good Morning=Ohio is my favorite spelling mistale by my friend)
Sometimes,ans in fact,I feel unfonfortable amang Japanese who wants to stay away "gaijin"(sorry)
On the other hand,too long English tell while we're fighting is beyond my capasity.

I appreciate for this thread to try to understand japanese or telling mean words :)
I cannot find the answer yet,but it's not only the language.

P.S please don't call me "JP ONRY"when you find lots of spelling mistake,,,

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Thanks for reposting this. Even if it is difficult to understand at times, and is filled with numerous mistakes, you still got your point across just fine, and i am sure all of us appreciate the effort you took to type it out (twice in fact). It is interesting to hear from japanese players about this.

It seems that we are really not much different. When i first saw your original post here, i was glad to hear from you. And when you deleted it, i as quite upset. Admittedly, it was quite rambly, and did not really get much of a point across. But it was the effort that counted. I was just glad that you even tried, especially since your english is not very good, and it probably took a lot of time and effort to type out. It was difficult to read at times, but it still meant a lot that you at least tried. And the Japanese players are really the same way. Unfortunately a fair amount of Japanese players do ignore NA players using the auto translator, because they do not wish to deal with someone who does not speak their language (fair enough, it is quite a bit of effort speaking two different languages at once, and needing to repeat everything said in two languages), but will gladly respond to anyone who responds in even the most broken japanese. Much like us, the japanese players appreciate the effort to at least try to speak in japanese.

illusionistさんありがとうございました

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Originally Posted by rog

Even if it is difficult to understand at times, and is filled with numerous mistakes...

...Admittedly, it was quite rambly, and did not really get much of a point across. But it was the effort that counted. I was just glad that you even tried, especially since your english is not very good, and it probably took a lot of time and effort to type out. It was difficult to read at times, but it still meant a lot that you at least tried.

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I found the above post easier to understand than some Americans and Brits I've met, for whom English was their first language.

Illusionist's English is 10000 times better than my Japanese, and though I'm sure you didn't mean to, Rog, some of what you typed there might have come across as quite nasty.

I appreciate that when shouting for an event, JP players may not wish to have english people along so they would have to type instructions in 2 different languages, even if they speak perfect English (I'm part of a JP LS and have done events with them. There's only 6 of us in the LS and only 1 person speaks English very well, so I've done many events with him translating to me). I do, however, think that if I managed to use the auto-translate to ask them if I can join, I'm not asking a lot for a reply. Even if it's simply {I'm Sorry}.

Edit: And I get annoyed by anyone that uses auto-translate phonetically... {May}{Bee} is obviously not going to translate into "Maybe" FFS >.> use common sense please?

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Originally Posted by Starcade

Stop lying. Really... stop -- lying.

A large feature of Japanese culture is the fact that they openly scorn outsiders/"gaijin". That's why it usually takes double the effort to get half the respect from the Japanese as a "gaijin". You really need to look at the concept of social order in your country and how it relates to their view of outsiders.

JP ONRY is not just a hacked Engrish.

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No, you really don't know what you're talking about.

I had typed more, but I'm responding to Starcade here, not like it's going to do a hill of beans worth of good.

P.S. Get help. Seriously.

I have a lot of Japanese friends that I've known for years. Out of a linkshell of 30 ppl, only 4 knew English. I got back a lot of feedback on why most JP players wont "Party", notice the quotation, with most players from different backgrounds. First, it is hard for them to figure out what we are talking about as it is for us. I mean how many of us understand the scribble scrabble in party chats? Secondly, the communication using auto-translate is too frustrating and complex, so to invest time in trying to figure out what others want from you or from them is a pain. Lastly, all that is stated is limited to only party chats. You wont get these kind of responses (at least, not often) from other events.

The Development Team could have implemented a program allowing auto-translation to appear in the language of the player's region or software. I know this almost an impossible due to them having to rewrite somethings, plus cost, and downtime to get this going, and ultimately, the game has come too far to have this kind of development to be implemented.