Language is more than just a tool for communication. Language is about social ties and human contact, which is why it’s not only important to learn vocabulary and grammar (in natural sentences!), but it’s also important to learn the social implications of the language.
The allure of slang
When you learn Japanese, learn it all – Tokyo-ben, Osaka-ben, honorific and humble formal Japanese, 5-year-old 虫キング-loving (Mushi King) Japanese. Learn to understand the elderly and youth, hosts and working professionals.
You’ll pick up enough slang on TV; it’s hard to avoid even if you wanted to. It’s out there every day. Maybe you want to impress others with your newly acquired arsenal of slang terms. I did. We’re humans, and humans thrive on communication and success, and communicating their success. But while it may be an amusing party trick at first, it can grow into a habit.
I know all about the attraction of speaking in Japanese slang. When I was a university student studying in Tokyo for a year, I was down in Harajuku, Shibuya, or Shinjuku talking in slang. Later on, I regretted relying on it as much as I did. It took me a long time to get my Japanese back up to a socially acceptable level. I had forgotten how to speak like a normal person!
Learning to speak Japanese socially
The easiest way to communicate effectively in Japanese is to mimic how the people around you talk. This is a trick I learned when I was working as a bar tender at an upscale restaurant immediately after graduating from university. If you mimic the way a customer speaks and behaves, you’ll often get much better tips. It’s the same when speaking Japanese – Learn to copy the way people speak in any given situation, and your “tips” will be the impressed satisfaction of native Japanese speakers.
Don’t be paranoid about minor slip-ups. They’ll slide. But don’t walk into an interview with a Japanese company and respond to a question with, “俺、そんなのしらねぇ” (“Me? Hell if I know.”). Interview’s over. No job for you.
Basically
Just like you don’t want to speak rigid “textbook” Japanese, you also want to avoid using Japanese in the wrong social context. I recommend you learn all of your “KY” (空気がよめない) and “どんだけ” terms, and don’t forget internet slang like “w” (笑い) and “orz” (the figure of a man bowing on hands and knees), but remember to use your newfound expressions only where they’re going to be well received.
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I couldn’t agree with you more on this one. This kind of linguistic modeling is absolutely the way to go. Although in my first 4 years I should have done a bit less — I was working at a junior college for women. You can imagine how, well, gay I sounded talking like an 18-year-old girl.
The real problem, however, was that my guy friends were too polite to tell me that I was talking like a girl. 2 years it took them to finally have a sort of “intervention” over beers. No wonder it takes people so long to get it right here — nobody ever blasts you for using the wrong gender/formality/etc forms here! Anyway, great post! Keep ‘em coming!
Good advice here but one correction: In Japan you don’t get tipped (unless by some tourists who don’t know)!
I didn’t mean ‘tips’ as in money given to thank a server for their services, but as the satisfaction you get from good communication.
I hope I’ve lived in Japan long enough to be completely comfortable with dining-out culture by now.