Survey on how learning Japanese has possibly affected your native language and vice versa

Japanese Language
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Hey Everyone,

As a quick background, I am crafting a survey for a linguistics course about multilingualism and how someone’s native language may affect how they process their learning of Japanese. This survey also attempts to uncover any influence learning Japanese possibly has had on an individual’s native language.

If you are interested in taking this survey I would greatly appreciate it. It is entirely anonymous, no personal information or data will be collected, and it shouldn’t take up more than 5 to 10 minutes of your time.

For those interested, thank you very much!

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Apologies for not filling out the whole survey, but a couple of points really ring a bell.

do you often mix-up vocabulary across your foreign languages

Definitely. Japanese has substantially displaced my third language, granted I don’t practice speaking it much. But when I do, Japanese words keep coming up all the time and it takes considerable effort to filter them out.

えっと〜 instead of native filler words

Oh yes, absolutely. Thankfully, people are considerate enough to ignore ramblings of a madman.

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That was very interesting. I would love to see the overall results and compare that to my own answers.

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Age ranges are a bit weird. I’m 25. Would you want me to be a part of 20-25 or 25-30? I put in the latter but I feel like those could have been made with both the upper and lower range inclusive to avoid any confusion. Not sure if its too late to change doe.

Also just my experience, I felt a little awkward answering some of the first questions. Like I have studied Japanese far more than 3 years (maybe like 7) and am several years down the road from when I first could pass N1. Was I supposed to answer with what I do now or what I did at earlier points in my studies? How I approached studying has completely changed as time went on. It asked about learning Kanji but I haven’t actually studied Kanji in like 6 years. But I did go through WK at the start which is how I grew familiar with almost all of the Kanji needed for N1. So if you’re just interested in that earlier part of my journey it would be pretty misleading if I said what I’m doing now half a decade later. Maybe I’m just not the target audience for this survey so it’s fine as is and I’m the problem, but I thought I would at least give my experience in case you find it helpful. Best of luck in compiling the data!

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I had the same thought. We started around the same time but you’ve been moving a lot faster than I have but some of these I feel like “maybe in the past?” But not now. So I just answered as I would for “now”.

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I found the survey interesting, however it seems to me that you’re not asking about one very important aspect: Do you live in a Japanese environment? Do you use Japanese in your daily life? From experience I can tell you that a language you’re confronted with on a regular basis, not just because you study it in your free time, but because you need it to communicate with co-workers or do daily life will have a larger impact on your native language habits. English, for example, is not my native language, but I regularly have to write reports in English or communicate with co-workers in English. Because of this, English words creep into my vocabulary, especially when I’ll talk about work stuff in my native language. Something similar was happening when I lived in Japan.

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I’m not far enough into Japanese learning to be (noticeably) affected yet so I won’t fill in your survey, but I can tell my experiences with English (it’s not my native tongue).
Yes. YES, it creeps into my native language. Quite a lot (and I don’t mean loanwords). That’s a phenomenon across nearly my whole country and everyone who is at least some sort of familiar with English (= mostly internet users). You can even find English words in the business language that replace or are directly used instead of our own words.
You can imagine it this way in a daily conversation: Instead of saying “Yeah, it’s a bit sad” one says “Yeah, it’s a bit 悲しい”.

Of course, with Japanese it will surely be not to that extent for me personally, since it’s not so common as English in my environment. But I’m quite sure, it will affect how I think and try to explain myself (concepts) because English already does that too. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some Japanese vocabs slip not only through my mind but also out of my mouth (like filler words or some fix expressions like なるほど).
It also definitely affects one’s personality (how one expresses oneself, thought patterns, and behavior, etc), as far as I can tell from my own experiences with English.

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:eyes: Spanish?

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I wanted to share some thoughts that I can’t write in the survey. In my opinion learning other languages from the same language group, or languages with shared roots, has improved my understanding of my native language.

And likewise, my understanding of those other languages within the same group is better thanks to my understanding of my native language. AND my understanding of each of those other languages is better thanks to the other-other languages.

So. I’m English. Learning German really gave me a better ‘feel’ for English and I felt I had a better understanding of it and of German too. As they are both Germanic languages.

Learning Spanish also gave me a better feel for, appreciation of, and understanding of parts of English, too, and vice versa. Since English has a ton of latin and french roots (and Spanish too is a romance language).

Learning Dutch also gave me a better appreciation and feel for English and German both, but to a much lesser extent than learning German did. imo that’s because I already learnt a lot from German. If I had learnt Dutch first and later German, then it would be the other way around.

You get to see all these aspects, or qualities, characteristics, of these language groups from different angles and that feels really nice. It tickles the brain.

And I feel learning Japanese has not affected my understanding of any of those other languages, nor do I really feel learning them has affected my understanding of Japanese. It’s just too different and unrelated imo.

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In general I think these things you are asking about, like does learning Japanese affect your accent, or your mannerisms, or whatever. I have experienced all of those things, but in my opinion this is not related to “learning a language” but is related to how immersed you are and how much you are studying at that time. So when I am spending weeks totally immersed in Japanese studies and video games and anime and music and whatever, then I adopt many more mannerisms and patterns of speech and accent etc. But I think that after some months in an English environment then I will adopt more the typical English mannerisms. Living in the Netherlands, I will adopt more Dutch mannerisms and even the Dutch style of English, et cetera. I think this is a separate phenomenon to learning language. Living with Chinese people has done much more for my “うん”-ing in normal speech than studying Japanese for much longer has.

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PS I know a tiny bit of Chinese and sometimes think of simplified hanzi instead of Japanese kanji, when I’m trying to write, without noticing -_-

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Though I understand this was maybe not the goal, I did miss a bit the focus on other languages (though I do appreciate there were a few questions on that). I recognize a lot you mentioned in the questions for me third/fourth languages, but not much on my native language.

I’ve been studying on and off for more than 10 years now so I definitely feel that.

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This literally happened with me today at work except I blurted out a Filipino word instead of the equivalent in Norwegian. It happened because the shift included just me and my Filipino coworker. Even though we never speak Filipino together, I still get in “Filipino mode” when I’m chatting with her because of her accent and she doesn’t always remember a word for something and says it in English instead. I’m sure if there were another coworker present (everyone is Norwegian), I would not have forgotten how to say it in my native language.

It was something I had to say to her quickly (“don’t poke at it!”) and that’s when brain be braining to get the message across. (= “Ikke stikk den!” became a mix with bisaya “ikke tusluk den!”. She was so surprised and started laughing, it was so funny :joy: She even said it was cute, hahaha.)

For the record, even tho Filipino is technically my second language, I’m barely at a conversational level. To get an idea of my Filipino level, I’d rate myself as N5/N4 :see_no_evil:

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No, I’m German. Is it the same situation in Spain? :see_no_evil:

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I appreciate the response! I’m not much of a math guy, so realizing how I goofed the age ranges is rather embarrassing. Sadly I can’t change it now, so I have to just live with this mistake for the rest of my life.

I really appreciate your time to give me some feedback on my survey as I hadn’t realized I should of asked time lapses in studying Japanese. It WOULD have been quite interesting to ask questions about individuals such as yourself who used to study more avidly then took a break for whatever reason. I wouldn’t say you aren’t the target demographic do to your experience, but rather me not asking questions that would better include you.

I appreciate your time and criticisms! They are really helpful!

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I definitely think you are onto something that mannerisms may be adopted due to immersion rather than the language itself. However, I do find that with myself (someone who has never been to Japan and only really “immerses” with anime or Japanese Youtube content), Japanese has affected me more than I had realized. As you stated, Japanese and English have no real relation to each other, at least in any recent linguistic history, however I found that learning Japanese has really strengthened both my understanding and appreciation of English. I imagine if I studied other Germanic or Latin-based languages it would be to a greater degree, but I do find this phenomenon fascinating (thus influencing aspects of this survey).

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Honestly, this is something that entirely slipped my mind. For reference I wrote this survey for a Sociolinguistics course with the survey designed around Japanese language learners at my college. I only sent it out to forums such as this in hopes of getting more responses, not realizing the demographic would be wildly different. Your critiques make so much sense and I feel a little embarrassed not asking them as it is vital aspect for learning a language. Whether it be those who are living or have lived in Japan, those with close Japanese frieds/partners, or those study it for work related needs, all of these aspects are vital for a survey like this. I really appreciate this feedback.

Also, for someone whos native language isn’t English, you definitely could have fooled me. Your English is phenomenal!

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Vanilla studied so avidly, he didn’t have to study kanji after that :slight_smile: This guy never takes a break, haha

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Thanks for the reply! Just one thing to note

I didn’t take a break and it was more just that as time went on and my level improved, my study approach changed as well. I didn’t mean it’s been half a decade since I learned a Kanji because I stopped learning. It was because for the 1000+ new Kanji I encountered after finishing wanikani I just learned the word I saw them in and didn’t give the individual Kanji any special attention. Maybe that would qualify as Kanji study under some people’s definition, but we have some people out here actually learning meaning, readings, components, and how to write Kanji even and I’m just over here “memorizing the shape of the word” so I’m hesitant to call it Kanji study haha

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Yeah, specifically something like “qué sad” (how sad).

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I’ll be terrified if someone’s think im trying to be cute! or flex image

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Oh my. Guess, one could call that the curse of English. :grimacing: :sweat_smile: