Japan and Bilingualism

My daughter invited a friend from her school over last weekend, and I got pressed into service as driver. (“Whatever you do, don’t say any of your bad dajare puns around her,” my daughter pleaded beforehand.) When we arrived at the station to pick her friend up, I made sure to speak only English to my daughter, since I know how Japanese view anyone who is pera pera (fluent) in a foreign language with awe. Sure enough, her friend’s eyes got wide at the site of my daughter speaking English casually, which made me happy as a father. The Japanese know they’re not the best when it comes to learning foreign languages, and anyone who can speak other languages is quite kakko ii (cool). When soccer player Hidetoshi Nakata went to Rome to play professionally, Japanese fans were stunned by video of him speaking Italian fluently, and his popularity soared. (You could probably calculate in money terms what his learning Italian was worth to him, since many licensing deals followed worth millions.) Another star to receive a boost from his linguistic ability is Okinawan-Taiwanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro, fluent in Mandarin as well as English, and whenever he’s in a movie speaking either language, his fans go wild.

When Nakata spoke Italian on camera, his fans squealed with glee.