Do Japanese have a problem with us?

[Zatias]

I use the auto-translate function politely. If a Japanese player asks me something (or any player for that matter), I am sure to respond in a nice manner. But the other way around? Maybe about 10% of them reply ; ; But as soon as I see another talk to them in Japanese, there's an instant reply... Is there a button that allows Japanese players to blacklist all English-speaking people?

I love that this is a game where people of different corners of the world can enjoy together, but why do a lot of the Japanese seem to have such a problem with us English-speakers?

Maybe this isn't appropriate, but it really bugs me sometimes. A lot of us are extending our hands out to be nice, and we mostly get ignored ; ; Sorry if this is inappropriate again; I know not all Japanese are like this, but the vast majority I run into are.

[Malamasala]

They just feel they are really bad at English, and it would be embarrassing to attempt to talk in that language. I've studied Japanese but I rarely attempt to speak to them since I feel like I'm not good enough to say what I mean. It doesn't help that they write their borrowed words as they sound, not how they are spelled. Like SuTa for Star, meaning they don't really get much help reading Star when they are used to read SuTa.

The auto-translator is also pretty stiff for asking typical endgame questions. Like "How many more NMs is your group planning to pop?" "Would it be ok if we took turns popping NMs?" and so on.

[noodles355]

To be honest most japanese apperciate the effort if you try and talk to them in japanese. The reason they dont reply often is because as said above, they feel embarrassed they cant do the same.

But like every nation there are still assholes.

As to the other issues, possible JP players don't have an Arabic keyboard, too. (Yes, our Alphabet letters are called Arabic). I certainly don't have a Kanji one and I'm hoping to study Japanese when I have a little extra money for classes.

Actually japanese keyboards also use the QWERTY layout of western keyboards. Also there are no kanji keys. You write kanji the exact same way as on a western keyboard with microsofts IME - type the hiragana and press spacebar to swap to kanji/katakana. The normal keys double up as hiragana keys so you can switch modes by pressing a button (so Q>た W>て E>い R>す T>か etc), but to be honest most of my friends just use it like a western keyboard's IME (type tsu and it comes up つ) anyway.

Edit: beaten by bungiefan

[Zatias]

That is true I guess. The auto-trans is pretty meh for stuff like that, which is why I use "@?" when asking how many NMs they have left to pop, and "Team Up?" if they have a lot remaining. Still scarce on the replies, however It's not THAT hard to type a number or reply with "No thanks."

But yes I agree, they do need to expand the auto-translate as of late, hell we don't even have "Abyssea" in auto-trans yet! XD

[Glamdring]

this isn't an excuse to bring back the PS2 complaint is it? Because even SE said the Auto-Translate could not be expanded due to PS2 limitations.

As to the other issues, possible JP players don't have an Arabic keyboard, too. (Yes, our Alphabet letters are called Arabic). I certainly don't have a Kanji one and I'm hoping to study Japanese when I have a little extra money for classes.

And the point about them being ashamed of their English proficiency, dead on. Shame is an extremely important matter to the japanese and their sense of honor. If we correct them or crack a joke at a mistake it's just playing to us, but to some of them it is a very serious issue. Maybe we both need some sensitivity training, us to curb insensitivity, them to not be so sensitive, I don't know. You're dealing with a cultural gap, American humor doesn't translate well to Japanese, and vice-versa. Our humor is seen as coarse and disrespectful, theirs as stilted and abstract. There are many other issues as well.

They do love american markets and american dollars though.

[bungiefan]

As to the other issues, possible JP players don't have an Arabic keyboard, too. (Yes, our Alphabet letters are called Arabic). I certainly don't have a Kanji one and I'm hoping to study Japanese when I have a little extra money for classes

It's Roman letters, and standard Japanese keyboards are QWERTY with a few extra buttons, and extra paint on the keys to indicate Japanese input when using direct kana input. They normally use Roman letter input, which converts to kana on the fly as they type phonetically what they are saying.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...e_Keyboard.gif



This is a Japanese keyboard, standard with any computer there. They can easily type our letters. In fact, they must to type macros because they have to use the same /commands as we do. /tell /ls /ja /ws and the like.

Auto-translate indicates that you can't input Japanese, and thus they can't comunicate in detail for anything auto-translate can't handle. Thus they just ignore you if they feel their English isn't good enough, since you won't be able to respond in Japanese, and likely can't read it to understand more detailed questions. It was easier before they added the parentheses around the phrases to indicate you were using them.

[Juilan]

i never have issues with JPs ... and i'm an english speaker person, although i do talk to them in japanese, just wish it was as easy to talk in japanese on this as it is in 14, but they also seem to like french.

@Glamdring not arabic, Phoenician at best, our words are greko-roman not arabic, our numbers are indian/arabic though (since they were exported by the rhagput)

also with the correction thing, none of my friends have seen an issue with it, they actually ask me to help them tune it... which is ironic since they know i understand their language too

[Myokoji]

Hmm, I sort of see what the OP is saying, and I agree that they may feel they're not able to respond in a useful way due to limitations.

Also some people misuse the auto-translate, for example using "All Right!" as a phrase for "Understood." Especially British people since we don't use that phrase much, except for saying "OK". In English 'all right' has a few meanings, in Japanese it just means great or woohoo or whatever. So I've seen some JPs get confused by it. And also [head] [north] is another...

Even those of us that can use Japanese, we cannot communicate because the client restricts us from typing Kanji >.<; Which I know will never get changed.

[SNK]

This might be a good read if you're curious as to how some JPs feel about things.

http://www.jpbutton.com/?page_id=742

[kingfury]

This might be a good read if you're curious as to how some JPs feel about things.

http://www.jpbutton.com/?page_id=742

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Just to support SNK's link, this read was an eye opener for me. Just to elaborate on what SNK said, a guy named "Elmer the Pointy" conducted an experiment that involved NA players submitting a bunch of questions they would like answered by Japanese players. Of all the questions submitted on the Blue Gartr boards, 10 questions were chosen and translated for all Japanese players that wanted to take a stab at answering them.

I say eye opening for me because I've never had the opportunity to hear genuine Japanese opinions directly from the source in regards to how they feel about certain aspects of NA culture or what's important to them. It felt like I was watching a documentary, but you're reading it instead. You can almost picture the different types of people as you read through each comment (or maybe that's just me lol). It was very interesting to hear so many different responses from such a large range of different points of view.

Again, if you're truly concerned about this topic, take a moment and read through the questions and answers posted throughout the page. More specifically Zatias, one of the questions listed is in fact:

-"How do you feel about English-speaking players attempting to speak Japanese. (i.e. Using limited Japanese phrases, saying “w” etc.)

Here's the direct link to the question and answer page:

Talking Points – BlueGartr Forums

Also, in an effort to promote positive communication bridges, someone posted this great Japanese translation site inside another thread a while back that might help when trying to construct some useful NA -> JP dialog versus using the auto-translate function. Very easy to use, so check it out:

Nihongodict.com