Quote:
Originally Posted by GoNative
I'm not sure how much you have travelled but in my experience in countries that have completely different alphabets or writing systemsto english generally have more signs in english if they want to promote tourism. You see if you travel to say Portugal, Argentina or Germany you can still at least read the letters on the signs even if your pronounciation may be totally wrong. For someone wanting to holiday in Japan who's never studied Japanese (the vast bulk of people who travel to Japan) they just couldn't manage with only Kanji and Kana. Especially as not many Japanese people can speak english that well and even if they do they are often too shy to try. People from China and Taiwan manage reasonably well without any english signs as they can read the Kanji but they generally can't read the kana.
I don't see the use of english as slow culture loss though. Kanji itself was derived from Chinese characters. Wasn't that also a huge culture loss if you think of it that way? It's just the culture evolving as all cultures do. Anyway some of the funniest stuff you'll see in Japan in the engrish on signs. It's way too funny to get annoyed at!  |
Okay then, you've got me here :L
It's true the only country I've traveled to that doesn't use Roman alphabet is Japan. And I admit I have heard that the Korean train systems have English announcements too...
So I'm guessing it'd be the same for places like China and Thailand right?
Hehe, yeah I suppose so. I just hope 'evolving' doesn't equal losing!
Oh oh, don't forget shirts Japanese people wear with English on! In only a week there, I saw some gems of shirts with English on lol