The following is from the serial column of Masayuki Takayama, who brings the weekly Shincho released today to a successful conclusion.
This article also proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but also for people around the world.
What is Penagan?
My biography includes "Los Angeles Correspondent."
I have also interviewed Peter Drucker in my scrapbook.
But to tell the truth, my English is not very good at all.
I went to an English school in front of the station for a while before arriving.
So I turned on the TV when I arrived, thinking I would be okay.
CNN News came on, but they were talking so fast I couldn't understand half of what they were saying.
I was particularly troubled by the word "penagan."
The word came up repeatedly, but it wasn't in the dictionary.
The head of the foreign news desk was spiteful and did not provide me with an assistant, so for a while, I had no idea what a "penagan" was.
Then the real estate agent I had asked to help me find a house came to me.
He showed me a map of the area and said, "I have an excellent place for you."
"Look, right next to San Visene," he points with his finger.
The map spelled "San Vicente Street" then hit me.
"Do you guys make t in the word silent without permission?"
The realtor nods.
Now I had a clue to solve "penagan."
I started putting the t in somewhere and finally came up with Pentagon.
They read the t in multinational, but the pronunciation sounds like "motai" instead of "multi."
The American accent is terrible.
It is an Aomori dialect with an English circle.
I solved the problem, and when I went to the parking lot in town, I couldn't understand the language of the black man in charge. It was like a rap song.
I couldn't even park the car without the woman in the passenger seat translating for me.
The so-called ebonics (black English) is, first of all, incomprehensible to the Japanese.
It took OJ Simpson three years to correct his black English when he first saw Nichole, a white female waitress. Then he asked her to marry him, and the tragedy began.
Even OJ, who grew up in the English-speaking world, took that long to master habitual American English.
Los Angeles has other Mexican Spanish accents.
You can only become an Angeleno (Los Angeles native) when you can hear and understand each of them.
It is the situation on the West Coast. If you go to the southern part of the U.S., you will encounter a different kind of English.
Even in the U.S., English is spoken in such a selfish way.
In this sense, English is similar to Chinese; Cantonese people do not understand the Shanghainese language.
However, the meaning of "蘋果日報" can be understood by Shina people everywhere.
Japanese people can also go to the bathroom and order noodles if they write Chinese characters.
Our Ministry of Education does not understand that.
They believe that speaking English is excellent and that "speaking with foreigners" is the leading way of English education.
Thus, they have English classes starting from elementary school and have prescribed the proper education to have a gaijin stand on the stage to teach and listen to live English.
Gaikokujin were recruited, and it is now widely believed worldwide that if one can speak English, they can become a teacher in Japan.
Many Julian Blank-type offenders are mixed in with the "press a Japanese woman's face into your crotch" crowd.
Incidentally, the Sri Lankan woman who died after refusing to be deported also wanted to learn English in Japan and become an English teacher, even though Sinhala is her native language.
The scary thing is that people think a Sinhala accent is acceptable in Japan.
In fact, it seems that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) has realized that the English world is full of accents, and they have started saying that understanding accents are part of proper English education.
As proof of this, the Ministry of Education introduced three speakers in the listening section of the Common University Entrance Test not too long ago.
One was an American with a Pennagan accent.
The second was a Brit; he read "Rain in Spain" as "Line in Spain.
The third was a Japanese-American whose English was tested by "listening and distinguishing" between the three accents.
Isn't it stupid even to ask?
I guess they will start putting Black English and Sinhala accents on the test soon.
What is the point of learning such English if you are not an interpreter?
Japanese people do not know how to pronounce Chinese. Even so, we can understand their intentions by using Chinese characters.
That's all there is to languages.
Use the extra time for Japanese language education.
This article also proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but also for people around the world.
What is Penagan?
My biography includes "Los Angeles Correspondent."
I have also interviewed Peter Drucker in my scrapbook.
But to tell the truth, my English is not very good at all.
I went to an English school in front of the station for a while before arriving.
So I turned on the TV when I arrived, thinking I would be okay.
CNN News came on, but they were talking so fast I couldn't understand half of what they were saying.
I was particularly troubled by the word "penagan."
The word came up repeatedly, but it wasn't in the dictionary.
The head of the foreign news desk was spiteful and did not provide me with an assistant, so for a while, I had no idea what a "penagan" was.
Then the real estate agent I had asked to help me find a house came to me.
He showed me a map of the area and said, "I have an excellent place for you."
"Look, right next to San Visene," he points with his finger.
The map spelled "San Vicente Street" then hit me.
"Do you guys make t in the word silent without permission?"
The realtor nods.
Now I had a clue to solve "penagan."
I started putting the t in somewhere and finally came up with Pentagon.
They read the t in multinational, but the pronunciation sounds like "motai" instead of "multi."
The American accent is terrible.
It is an Aomori dialect with an English circle.
I solved the problem, and when I went to the parking lot in town, I couldn't understand the language of the black man in charge. It was like a rap song.
I couldn't even park the car without the woman in the passenger seat translating for me.
The so-called ebonics (black English) is, first of all, incomprehensible to the Japanese.
It took OJ Simpson three years to correct his black English when he first saw Nichole, a white female waitress. Then he asked her to marry him, and the tragedy began.
Even OJ, who grew up in the English-speaking world, took that long to master habitual American English.
Los Angeles has other Mexican Spanish accents.
You can only become an Angeleno (Los Angeles native) when you can hear and understand each of them.
It is the situation on the West Coast. If you go to the southern part of the U.S., you will encounter a different kind of English.
Even in the U.S., English is spoken in such a selfish way.
In this sense, English is similar to Chinese; Cantonese people do not understand the Shanghainese language.
However, the meaning of "蘋果日報" can be understood by Shina people everywhere.
Japanese people can also go to the bathroom and order noodles if they write Chinese characters.
Our Ministry of Education does not understand that.
They believe that speaking English is excellent and that "speaking with foreigners" is the leading way of English education.
Thus, they have English classes starting from elementary school and have prescribed the proper education to have a gaijin stand on the stage to teach and listen to live English.
Gaikokujin were recruited, and it is now widely believed worldwide that if one can speak English, they can become a teacher in Japan.
Many Julian Blank-type offenders are mixed in with the "press a Japanese woman's face into your crotch" crowd.
Incidentally, the Sri Lankan woman who died after refusing to be deported also wanted to learn English in Japan and become an English teacher, even though Sinhala is her native language.
The scary thing is that people think a Sinhala accent is acceptable in Japan.
In fact, it seems that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) has realized that the English world is full of accents, and they have started saying that understanding accents are part of proper English education.
As proof of this, the Ministry of Education introduced three speakers in the listening section of the Common University Entrance Test not too long ago.
One was an American with a Pennagan accent.
The second was a Brit; he read "Rain in Spain" as "Line in Spain.
The third was a Japanese-American whose English was tested by "listening and distinguishing" between the three accents.
Isn't it stupid even to ask?
I guess they will start putting Black English and Sinhala accents on the test soon.
What is the point of learning such English if you are not an interpreter?
Japanese people do not know how to pronounce Chinese. Even so, we can understand their intentions by using Chinese characters.
That's all there is to languages.
Use the extra time for Japanese language education.
