[MMM]

Originally Posted by Aniki

MMM, I'm not the one who should be reminding you that Japanese requires to learn 1,900 kanji + hiragana and katakana, while the English alphabet only 26 letters and that's just the writing system. You still think that to the Japanese people Japanese language would be easier to learn then English?

If learning English only requires knowing 26 letters, then why was I studying English through 12 years of school and then still taking English writing classes all through college?

Because it isn't as easy as you'd like to think.

Originally Posted by Aniki

And just because you haven't heard a Japanese person say that "English is so easy to learn", it doesn't tell anything. Japanese is almost hard for every Westerner (only Finnish would find Japanese easy because both languages have similar sentence structure), but it depends on persons will and effort. For one person Japanese might be hard to learn, for another it might be easy. Same goes for any language, no matter who's learning it and the way of thinking doesn't play a huge part in it.

OK, I'll be more specific. I have never heard a Japanese person say "English is so easy." I have, on the other hand, heard thousands say "English is too hard". Just look at the Looking for English Help section hre.

Originally Posted by Aniki

I’ll give you the short story. After the establishing of the USSR Russian language became an “official” language in all of the Soviet Union and was thought in schools, used in media, etc. And while it was an official language of the Soviet Union in all but formal name, all national languages were proclaimed equal.
In that period a lot of Russian loan words were acquired by other languages because of every day use, causing harm to them and after the fall of USSR when all countries got their independence the whole damage became seen. Some countries are still having problems with eliminating the damage, and the problems mostly consists in people who got used to it in time, and don’t understand what’s the problem with using Russian words with their native language.
Now, I'm NOT saying that the same thing is going to happen with Japan if English is going to be made and official language. I'm only trying to prove that if a foreign language "officially" steps into a country, in time, it will cause a lot damage to the native language.

That's an interesting story, but I am not sure how it makes learning English easy.

Originally Posted by Aniki

True, I'm not going to argue with that. Maybe I was overreacting about this, but I didn't make my assumptions from out of nowhere. Recently there was a show about the Japanese who are living here and they told that with each generation of Japanese young people show less interest to traditions and that is slowly becoming a problem in Japan. I've also read somewhere about it on the net.

Since Jesus walked the Earth younger people have been less interested in the traditional ways than the older generation. That's cultural evolution, and is perfectly normal.

Originally Posted by Aniki

This is how I see the presence of English as the second official language in Japan. English will lose the status of a 'chosen' second language and starting from elementary school everyone will be taught no matter they want it or not. And being an "official" language in going to be used in courts, government meetings, food products, documents (of any kind) and other merchandise will be printed in both languages, all street signs, advertisement sign boards will have both languages in them, same goes for the media foreign movies will dubbed in Japanese with English subs and otherwise.
Now imagine a kid being born 10 years after "in such Japan", and think how hard will English be for him to learn when it's so evident in everyday life?

I guess I am not seeing where the benefits outweigh the hassle and expenses it would be to enact this.