英語＝アメリカ語？

Every non-American English teacher in Fukuoka has heard this dreaded phrase at least once: “Ano… sensei? You spelled that wrong. There’s no ‘u’ in color.” It’s enough to make a Canuck want to bang her head against the whiteboard. Or a Kiwi, or an Aussie, or a Brit, or… in fact, pretty much anyone who is not American. At least once a semester I must stop my class and explain to a room full of patiently waiting (or sleeping) ichi-nensei students that ‘no, in fact, I have not made a mistake.’ There are two commonly accepted ways of spelling words － the American way and, what I jokingly refer to as, the right way.

My students never laugh.

I tell them that it is a known fact that the only people in the world who spell everything the American way are the Americans. I go on to explain that most English-speaking countries around the world, save for the United States, use the British form of spelling, or a mixture of British and American. These ‘Queen’s English’ spellings, of course, have their roots in the historical evolution of the language. At one time words may have actually been pronounced as they are now written. Or, perhaps, it is due to the atrocious attempts at spelling made by the first printers before spelling was standardized. Anyone ever tried to read the first printings of a Shakespeare Folio? Don’t. Trust me. Perhaps American spelling, as well as the American rejection of the metric system employed by practically every other first-world nation on Earth, is a form of protest. I can well imagine a guy in a tavern in 1775 saying to his buddies: “We don’t want to be British, we’ll be Americans, thank you very much! To prove it, let’s have a revolution, gain our independence, and change our spelling and measuring systems into such a garble that no one but us will understand it. We’ll be able to spot a non-American at a hundred paces!”

Ribbing aside, it just doesn’t seem to make sense. Even our dear Fukuoka Now, despite its publisher being Canadian himself, chooses to utilize the American style of spelling over any other. Why? “We are seen by people all over Fukuoka,” Nick Szasz, the publisher and conceiving force behind this magazine, said one night over drinks. “We don’t want endless phone calls telling us, ‘Oh, there’s a spelling mistake on page seven.’ We also do translations － we can’t have a magazine that looks like it’s spelled poorly.”

Even though it’s not. Nothing against our American cousins; I actually believe that many of the edits they have made to the English language make sense. Isn’t “thru” a more accurate phonetic representation than “through”? We all say “sent-er” not “sent-reh”, so why is it ‘centre’ and not ‘center’?

What really sticks in my craw is the Japanese education system’s insistence that the only correct way to do anything in the English language is the American way. Folks with New Zealand accents are asked to pronounce words “properly” in front of their classes. Australians are told to modify their spelling. Everywhere native English speakers are asked to avoid their own local slang words, their zokugo, in favour of the false and flat slang found in the text books.

Isn’t the point of having a native English speaker as a teacher to promote internationalization and an awareness of the diversity of cultures around the globe? Apparently not. What I leave out of my explanation to my students is that the other people who only spell things the American way are those who are trying to imitate the Americans. I think this goes back to the culturally imbedded xenophobia that Japan as a whole (if rarely Japanese people in specific) is prone to. Japan is a mono-culture, an island that has been physically and culturally cut off from the whole world for centuries. It has only been since the late 1800s that Western culture has infiltrated Japan on a wider scale than the novelty ‘Dutch Learning’ books imported from the traders in Nagasaki. The first major Western culture Japan had contact with was the United States, with its own influential culture.

And one mustn’t forget Hollywood. If ever there has been an engine for cultural exportation, it is American filmmaking. Blockbuster movies circle the globe, playing in rural towns, megacities, and film festivals in every conceivable language on Earth, plying American dreams, American ideals, and yes… American accents. If the “American Way” is the only image of the Western world, and of the English language, many Japanese are exposed to, why wouldn’t they think that it’s the “Only Way”? Even though it is frustrating, it is easy to see why Japanese English-language education is conducted solely in “American”. It’s our job, then, as Americans and non-Americans alike, as Global English Speakers, to teach that although there is one “Way”, there is also another. Many others, actually: one for each country, each dialect, and each person.

By Jessica Marie Frey
English Teacher and Frustrated Nitpicker

Pictures are copywright Shirley Waisman 2006

 

 

 

 

アメリカ出身でない英語講師なら言われたことない？「先生、Colorという単語に”u”は入らないんじゃないですか？」

こんな質問はカナダ人やオーストラリア人、つまりアメリカ人でない私たちにとっては大きなストレスよね。生徒達に英語には “アメリカ英語” と “ノットアメリカ英語” の２つのスペル方法があることを説明しなければいけないなんて。アメリカ人のみがアメリカのスペルを使い、他の英語圏では異なるスペル方法を使うのだと。

例えばカナダで、発音は普通に「センター」でも”center”のスペルは”centre”なの。イギリス英語にも言語の歴史がある。昔は、現在綴っていうように発音したと考えられているけれど、スペルの基準が定められる以前に発行された読み物でスペルを決めたのかもしれない。

アメリカの場合、メートル法の使用を拒んだような頑固さで、アメリカ独自のスペルを確立しようと必死だったんじゃないかしら。フクオカ・ナウのニック・サーズもカナダ出身だけど、誌面ではアメリカ英語を基準として使っているって気づいてた？彼は「読者からスペルが間違ってますよって指摘をされたくないし、翻訳業務に関してもきちんとした英語を使わないといけないからね。」なんて言うけれど、私はアメリカ英語だけが正しいわけではないのよって言いたいわ。もちろん、アメリカのスペル方法の方が筋が通っている場合はたくさんあると思う。イギリスのスペル方法である “colour”の”u”は発音しないのにどうしてあるのって私も確かに思うもの。

何より私が一番気になるのは、日本の英語教育がアメリカ英語のみを正しい英語として教育していることなの。日本で先生をしているニュージーランドや、オーストラリア人の友人は授業で発音を指摘されたり、スペルの違いを間違いだと言われたりするのだとか。また学校側も教科書中に書かれているアメリカ英語以外の表現をとばしたり、講師に方言を使わないよう注意したりね。

最近浸透してきた、日本の学校の英語授業でALTと呼ばれる外国人助手が指導するシステムを設ける目的は、生徒達に、国際性や世界の多種性を学ばせるためなのに。生徒達にアメリカのスペルばかりを気にするのはただアメリカ人を真似てるだけよって私は言いたい。

この傾向はきっと日本の「島国の歴史」が影響しているのね。鎖国が長かった日本にとって、西洋文化がやって来たのは1800年代と比較的新しい。しかも日本に初めて大規模な西洋文化を持ち込んだのはアメリカな上、終戦後もアメリカの文化は広く浸透したし、今日のハリウッド効果も大きい。実際、アメリカンドリームや文化を描いたヒット映画は日本を含む世界中で上映されているし。

日本人はなんだかんだいっても結局、西洋の世界 ＝ アメリカ だと思ってない？だけど言語教育において英語講師がやるべきことは、国際英語の視点からそれぞれの国の英語、発音、そして心を含めて英語という言語は一つではないのだと教えることじゃないかしら。ドォデショ？

 

 

 

 

Every non-American English teacher in Fukuoka has heard this dreaded phrase at least once: “Ano… sensei? You spelled that wrong. There’s no ‘u’ in color.” It’s enough to make a Canuck want to bang her head against the whiteboard. Or a Kiwi, or an Aussie, or a Brit, or… in fact, pretty much anyone who is not American. At least once a semester I must stop my class and explain to a room full of patiently waiting (or sleeping) ichi-nensei students that ‘no, in fact, I have not made a mistake.’ There are two commonly accepted ways of spelling words － the American way and, what I jokingly refer to as, the right way.

My students never laugh.

I tell them that it is a known fact that the only people in the world who spell everything the American way are the Americans. I go on to explain that most English-speaking countries around the world, save for the United States, use the British form of spelling, or a mixture of British and American. These ‘Queen’s English’ spellings, of course, have their roots in the historical evolution of the language. At one time words may have actually been pronounced as they are now written. Or, perhaps, it is due to the atrocious attempts at spelling made by the first printers before spelling was standardized. Anyone ever tried to read the first printings of a Shakespeare Folio? Don’t. Trust me. Perhaps American spelling, as well as the American rejection of the metric system employed by practically every other first-world nation on Earth, is a form of protest. I can well imagine a guy in a tavern in 1775 saying to his buddies: “We don’t want to be British, we’ll be Americans, thank you very much! To prove it, let’s have a revolution, gain our independence, and change our spelling and measuring systems into such a garble that no one but us will understand it. We’ll be able to spot a non-American at a hundred paces!”

Ribbing aside, it just doesn’t seem to make sense. Even our dear Fukuoka Now, despite its publisher being Canadian himself, chooses to utilize the American style of spelling over any other. Why? “We are seen by people all over Fukuoka,” Nick Szasz, the publisher and conceiving force behind this magazine, said one night over drinks. “We don’t want endless phone calls telling us, ‘Oh, there’s a spelling mistake on page seven.’ We also do translations － we can’t have a magazine that looks like it’s spelled poorly.”

Even though it’s not. Nothing against our American cousins; I actually believe that many of the edits they have made to the English language make sense. Isn’t “thru” a more accurate phonetic representation than “through”? We all say “sent-er” not “sent-reh”, so why is it ‘centre’ and not ‘center’?

What really sticks in my craw is the Japanese education system’s insistence that the only correct way to do anything in the English language is the American way. Folks with New Zealand accents are asked to pronounce words “properly” in front of their classes. Australians are told to modify their spelling. Everywhere native English speakers are asked to avoid their own local slang words, their zokugo, in favour of the false and flat slang found in the text books.

Isn’t the point of having a native English speaker as a teacher to promote internationalization and an awareness of the diversity of cultures around the globe? Apparently not. What I leave out of my explanation to my students is that the other people who only spell things the American way are those who are trying to imitate the Americans. I think this goes back to the culturally imbedded xenophobia that Japan as a whole (if rarely Japanese people in specific) is prone to. Japan is a mono-culture, an island that has been physically and culturally cut off from the whole world for centuries. It has only been since the late 1800s that Western culture has infiltrated Japan on a wider scale than the novelty ‘Dutch Learning’ books imported from the traders in Nagasaki. The first major Western culture Japan had contact with was the United States, with its own influential culture.

And one mustn’t forget Hollywood. If ever there has been an engine for cultural exportation, it is American filmmaking. Blockbuster movies circle the globe, playing in rural towns, megacities, and film festivals in every conceivable language on Earth, plying American dreams, American ideals, and yes… American accents. If the “American Way” is the only image of the Western world, and of the English language, many Japanese are exposed to, why wouldn’t they think that it’s the “Only Way”? Even though it is frustrating, it is easy to see why Japanese English-language education is conducted solely in “American”. It’s our job, then, as Americans and non-Americans alike, as Global English Speakers, to teach that although there is one “Way”, there is also another. Many others, actually: one for each country, each dialect, and each person.

By Jessica Marie Frey
English Teacher and Frustrated Nitpicker

Pictures are copywright Shirley Waisman 2006

 

 

 

 

Every non-American English teacher in Fukuoka has heard this dreaded phrase at least once: “Ano… sensei? You spelled that wrong. There’s no ‘u’ in color.” It’s enough to make a Canuck want to bang her head against the whiteboard. Or a Kiwi, or an Aussie, or a Brit, or… in fact, pretty much anyone who is not American. At least once a semester I must stop my class and explain to a room full of patiently waiting (or sleeping) ichi-nensei students that ‘no, in fact, I have not made a mistake.’ There are two commonly accepted ways of spelling words － the American way and, what I jokingly refer to as, the right way.

My students never laugh.

I tell them that it is a known fact that the only people in the world who spell everything the American way are the Americans. I go on to explain that most English-speaking countries around the world, save for the United States, use the British form of spelling, or a mixture of British and American. These ‘Queen’s English’ spellings, of course, have their roots in the historical evolution of the language. At one time words may have actually been pronounced as they are now written. Or, perhaps, it is due to the atrocious attempts at spelling made by the first printers before spelling was standardized. Anyone ever tried to read the first printings of a Shakespeare Folio? Don’t. Trust me. Perhaps American spelling, as well as the American rejection of the metric system employed by practically every other first-world nation on Earth, is a form of protest. I can well imagine a guy in a tavern in 1775 saying to his buddies: “We don’t want to be British, we’ll be Americans, thank you very much! To prove it, let’s have a revolution, gain our independence, and change our spelling and measuring systems into such a garble that no one but us will understand it. We’ll be able to spot a non-American at a hundred paces!”

Ribbing aside, it just doesn’t seem to make sense. Even our dear Fukuoka Now, despite its publisher being Canadian himself, chooses to utilize the American style of spelling over any other. Why? “We are seen by people all over Fukuoka,” Nick Szasz, the publisher and conceiving force behind this magazine, said one night over drinks. “We don’t want endless phone calls telling us, ‘Oh, there’s a spelling mistake on page seven.’ We also do translations － we can’t have a magazine that looks like it’s spelled poorly.”

Even though it’s not. Nothing against our American cousins; I actually believe that many of the edits they have made to the English language make sense. Isn’t “thru” a more accurate phonetic representation than “through”? We all say “sent-er” not “sent-reh”, so why is it ‘centre’ and not ‘center’?

What really sticks in my craw is the Japanese education system’s insistence that the only correct way to do anything in the English language is the American way. Folks with New Zealand accents are asked to pronounce words “properly” in front of their classes. Australians are told to modify their spelling. Everywhere native English speakers are asked to avoid their own local slang words, their zokugo, in favour of the false and flat slang found in the text books.

Isn’t the point of having a native English speaker as a teacher to promote internationalization and an awareness of the diversity of cultures around the globe? Apparently not. What I leave out of my explanation to my students is that the other people who only spell things the American way are those who are trying to imitate the Americans. I think this goes back to the culturally imbedded xenophobia that Japan as a whole (if rarely Japanese people in specific) is prone to. Japan is a mono-culture, an island that has been physically and culturally cut off from the whole world for centuries. It has only been since the late 1800s that Western culture has infiltrated Japan on a wider scale than the novelty ‘Dutch Learning’ books imported from the traders in Nagasaki. The first major Western culture Japan had contact with was the United States, with its own influential culture.

And one mustn’t forget Hollywood. If ever there has been an engine for cultural exportation, it is American filmmaking. Blockbuster movies circle the globe, playing in rural towns, megacities, and film festivals in every conceivable language on Earth, plying American dreams, American ideals, and yes… American accents. If the “American Way” is the only image of the Western world, and of the English language, many Japanese are exposed to, why wouldn’t they think that it’s the “Only Way”? Even though it is frustrating, it is easy to see why Japanese English-language education is conducted solely in “American”. It’s our job, then, as Americans and non-Americans alike, as Global English Speakers, to teach that although there is one “Way”, there is also another. Many others, actually: one for each country, each dialect, and each person.

By Jessica Marie Frey
English Teacher and Frustrated Nitpicker

Pictures are copywright Shirley Waisman 2006

 

 

 

 

Every non-American English teacher in Fukuoka has heard this dreaded phrase at least once: “Ano… sensei? You spelled that wrong. There’s no ‘u’ in color.” It’s enough to make a Canuck want to bang her head against the whiteboard. Or a Kiwi, or an Aussie, or a Brit, or… in fact, pretty much anyone who is not American. At least once a semester I must stop my class and explain to a room full of patiently waiting (or sleeping) ichi-nensei students that ‘no, in fact, I have not made a mistake.’ There are two commonly accepted ways of spelling words － the American way and, what I jokingly refer to as, the right way.

My students never laugh.

I tell them that it is a known fact that the only people in the world who spell everything the American way are the Americans. I go on to explain that most English-speaking countries around the world, save for the United States, use the British form of spelling, or a mixture of British and American. These ‘Queen’s English’ spellings, of course, have their roots in the historical evolution of the language. At one time words may have actually been pronounced as they are now written. Or, perhaps, it is due to the atrocious attempts at spelling made by the first printers before spelling was standardized. Anyone ever tried to read the first printings of a Shakespeare Folio? Don’t. Trust me. Perhaps American spelling, as well as the American rejection of the metric system employed by practically every other first-world nation on Earth, is a form of protest. I can well imagine a guy in a tavern in 1775 saying to his buddies: “We don’t want to be British, we’ll be Americans, thank you very much! To prove it, let’s have a revolution, gain our independence, and change our spelling and measuring systems into such a garble that no one but us will understand it. We’ll be able to spot a non-American at a hundred paces!”

Ribbing aside, it just doesn’t seem to make sense. Even our dear Fukuoka Now, despite its publisher being Canadian himself, chooses to utilize the American style of spelling over any other. Why? “We are seen by people all over Fukuoka,” Nick Szasz, the publisher and conceiving force behind this magazine, said one night over drinks. “We don’t want endless phone calls telling us, ‘Oh, there’s a spelling mistake on page seven.’ We also do translations － we can’t have a magazine that looks like it’s spelled poorly.”

Even though it’s not. Nothing against our American cousins; I actually believe that many of the edits they have made to the English language make sense. Isn’t “thru” a more accurate phonetic representation than “through”? We all say “sent-er” not “sent-reh”, so why is it ‘centre’ and not ‘center’?

What really sticks in my craw is the Japanese education system’s insistence that the only correct way to do anything in the English language is the American way. Folks with New Zealand accents are asked to pronounce words “properly” in front of their classes. Australians are told to modify their spelling. Everywhere native English speakers are asked to avoid their own local slang words, their zokugo, in favour of the false and flat slang found in the text books.

Isn’t the point of having a native English speaker as a teacher to promote internationalization and an awareness of the diversity of cultures around the globe? Apparently not. What I leave out of my explanation to my students is that the other people who only spell things the American way are those who are trying to imitate the Americans. I think this goes back to the culturally imbedded xenophobia that Japan as a whole (if rarely Japanese people in specific) is prone to. Japan is a mono-culture, an island that has been physically and culturally cut off from the whole world for centuries. It has only been since the late 1800s that Western culture has infiltrated Japan on a wider scale than the novelty ‘Dutch Learning’ books imported from the traders in Nagasaki. The first major Western culture Japan had contact with was the United States, with its own influential culture.

And one mustn’t forget Hollywood. If ever there has been an engine for cultural exportation, it is American filmmaking. Blockbuster movies circle the globe, playing in rural towns, megacities, and film festivals in every conceivable language on Earth, plying American dreams, American ideals, and yes… American accents. If the “American Way” is the only image of the Western world, and of the English language, many Japanese are exposed to, why wouldn’t they think that it’s the “Only Way”? Even though it is frustrating, it is easy to see why Japanese English-language education is conducted solely in “American”. It’s our job, then, as Americans and non-Americans alike, as Global English Speakers, to teach that although there is one “Way”, there is also another. Many others, actually: one for each country, each dialect, and each person.

By Jessica Marie Frey
English Teacher and Frustrated Nitpicker

Pictures are copywright Shirley Waisman 2006

 

 

 

 

アメリカ出身でない英語講師なら言われたことない？「先生、Colorという単語に”u”は入らないんじゃないですか？」

こんな質問はカナダ人やオーストラリア人、つまりアメリカ人でない私たちにとっては大きなストレスよね。生徒達に英語には “アメリカ英語” と “ノットアメリカ英語” の２つのスペル方法があることを説明しなければいけないなんて。アメリカ人のみがアメリカのスペルを使い、他の英語圏では異なるスペル方法を使うのだと。

例えばカナダで、発音は普通に「センター」でも”center”のスペルは”centre”なの。イギリス英語にも言語の歴史がある。昔は、現在綴っていうように発音したと考えられているけれど、スペルの基準が定められる以前に発行された読み物でスペルを決めたのかもしれない。

アメリカの場合、メートル法の使用を拒んだような頑固さで、アメリカ独自のスペルを確立しようと必死だったんじゃないかしら。フクオカ・ナウのニック・サーズもカナダ出身だけど、誌面ではアメリカ英語を基準として使っているって気づいてた？彼は「読者からスペルが間違ってますよって指摘をされたくないし、翻訳業務に関してもきちんとした英語を使わないといけないからね。」なんて言うけれど、私はアメリカ英語だけが正しいわけではないのよって言いたいわ。もちろん、アメリカのスペル方法の方が筋が通っている場合はたくさんあると思う。イギリスのスペル方法である “colour”の”u”は発音しないのにどうしてあるのって私も確かに思うもの。

何より私が一番気になるのは、日本の英語教育がアメリカ英語のみを正しい英語として教育していることなの。日本で先生をしているニュージーランドや、オーストラリア人の友人は授業で発音を指摘されたり、スペルの違いを間違いだと言われたりするのだとか。また学校側も教科書中に書かれているアメリカ英語以外の表現をとばしたり、講師に方言を使わないよう注意したりね。

最近浸透してきた、日本の学校の英語授業でALTと呼ばれる外国人助手が指導するシステムを設ける目的は、生徒達に、国際性や世界の多種性を学ばせるためなのに。生徒達にアメリカのスペルばかりを気にするのはただアメリカ人を真似てるだけよって私は言いたい。

この傾向はきっと日本の「島国の歴史」が影響しているのね。鎖国が長かった日本にとって、西洋文化がやって来たのは1800年代と比較的新しい。しかも日本に初めて大規模な西洋文化を持ち込んだのはアメリカな上、終戦後もアメリカの文化は広く浸透したし、今日のハリウッド効果も大きい。実際、アメリカンドリームや文化を描いたヒット映画は日本を含む世界中で上映されているし。

日本人はなんだかんだいっても結局、西洋の世界 ＝ アメリカ だと思ってない？だけど言語教育において英語講師がやるべきことは、国際英語の視点からそれぞれの国の英語、発音、そして心を含めて英語という言語は一つではないのだと教えることじゃないかしら。ドォデショ？

 

 

 

 

Every non-American English teacher in Fukuoka has heard this dreaded phrase at least once: “Ano… sensei? You spelled that wrong. There’s no ‘u’ in color.” It’s enough to make a Canuck want to bang her head against the whiteboard. Or a Kiwi, or an Aussie, or a Brit, or… in fact, pretty much anyone who is not American. At least once a semester I must stop my class and explain to a room full of patiently waiting (or sleeping) ichi-nensei students that ‘no, in fact, I have not made a mistake.’ There are two commonly accepted ways of spelling words － the American way and, what I jokingly refer to as, the right way.

My students never laugh.

I tell them that it is a known fact that the only people in the world who spell everything the American way are the Americans. I go on to explain that most English-speaking countries around the world, save for the United States, use the British form of spelling, or a mixture of British and American. These ‘Queen’s English’ spellings, of course, have their roots in the historical evolution of the language. At one time words may have actually been pronounced as they are now written. Or, perhaps, it is due to the atrocious attempts at spelling made by the first printers before spelling was standardized. Anyone ever tried to read the first printings of a Shakespeare Folio? Don’t. Trust me. Perhaps American spelling, as well as the American rejection of the metric system employed by practically every other first-world nation on Earth, is a form of protest. I can well imagine a guy in a tavern in 1775 saying to his buddies: “We don’t want to be British, we’ll be Americans, thank you very much! To prove it, let’s have a revolution, gain our independence, and change our spelling and measuring systems into such a garble that no one but us will understand it. We’ll be able to spot a non-American at a hundred paces!”

Ribbing aside, it just doesn’t seem to make sense. Even our dear Fukuoka Now, despite its publisher being Canadian himself, chooses to utilize the American style of spelling over any other. Why? “We are seen by people all over Fukuoka,” Nick Szasz, the publisher and conceiving force behind this magazine, said one night over drinks. “We don’t want endless phone calls telling us, ‘Oh, there’s a spelling mistake on page seven.’ We also do translations － we can’t have a magazine that looks like it’s spelled poorly.”

Even though it’s not. Nothing against our American cousins; I actually believe that many of the edits they have made to the English language make sense. Isn’t “thru” a more accurate phonetic representation than “through”? We all say “sent-er” not “sent-reh”, so why is it ‘centre’ and not ‘center’?

What really sticks in my craw is the Japanese education system’s insistence that the only correct way to do anything in the English language is the American way. Folks with New Zealand accents are asked to pronounce words “properly” in front of their classes. Australians are told to modify their spelling. Everywhere native English speakers are asked to avoid their own local slang words, their zokugo, in favour of the false and flat slang found in the text books.

Isn’t the point of having a native English speaker as a teacher to promote internationalization and an awareness of the diversity of cultures around the globe? Apparently not. What I leave out of my explanation to my students is that the other people who only spell things the American way are those who are trying to imitate the Americans. I think this goes back to the culturally imbedded xenophobia that Japan as a whole (if rarely Japanese people in specific) is prone to. Japan is a mono-culture, an island that has been physically and culturally cut off from the whole world for centuries. It has only been since the late 1800s that Western culture has infiltrated Japan on a wider scale than the novelty ‘Dutch Learning’ books imported from the traders in Nagasaki. The first major Western culture Japan had contact with was the United States, with its own influential culture.

And one mustn’t forget Hollywood. If ever there has been an engine for cultural exportation, it is American filmmaking. Blockbuster movies circle the globe, playing in rural towns, megacities, and film festivals in every conceivable language on Earth, plying American dreams, American ideals, and yes… American accents. If the “American Way” is the only image of the Western world, and of the English language, many Japanese are exposed to, why wouldn’t they think that it’s the “Only Way”? Even though it is frustrating, it is easy to see why Japanese English-language education is conducted solely in “American”. It’s our job, then, as Americans and non-Americans alike, as Global English Speakers, to teach that although there is one “Way”, there is also another. Many others, actually: one for each country, each dialect, and each person.

By Jessica Marie Frey
English Teacher and Frustrated Nitpicker

Pictures are copywright Shirley Waisman 2006

 

 

 

 

Every non-American English teacher in Fukuoka has heard this dreaded phrase at least once: “Ano… sensei? You spelled that wrong. There’s no ‘u’ in color.” It’s enough to make a Canuck want to bang her head against the whiteboard. Or a Kiwi, or an Aussie, or a Brit, or… in fact, pretty much anyone who is not American. At least once a semester I must stop my class and explain to a room full of patiently waiting (or sleeping) ichi-nensei students that ‘no, in fact, I have not made a mistake.’ There are two commonly accepted ways of spelling words － the American way and, what I jokingly refer to as, the right way.

My students never laugh.

I tell them that it is a known fact that the only people in the world who spell everything the American way are the Americans. I go on to explain that most English-speaking countries around the world, save for the United States, use the British form of spelling, or a mixture of British and American. These ‘Queen’s English’ spellings, of course, have their roots in the historical evolution of the language. At one time words may have actually been pronounced as they are now written. Or, perhaps, it is due to the atrocious attempts at spelling made by the first printers before spelling was standardized. Anyone ever tried to read the first printings of a Shakespeare Folio? Don’t. Trust me. Perhaps American spelling, as well as the American rejection of the metric system employed by practically every other first-world nation on Earth, is a form of protest. I can well imagine a guy in a tavern in 1775 saying to his buddies: “We don’t want to be British, we’ll be Americans, thank you very much! To prove it, let’s have a revolution, gain our independence, and change our spelling and measuring systems into such a garble that no one but us will understand it. We’ll be able to spot a non-American at a hundred paces!”

Ribbing aside, it just doesn’t seem to make sense. Even our dear Fukuoka Now, despite its publisher being Canadian himself, chooses to utilize the American style of spelling over any other. Why? “We are seen by people all over Fukuoka,” Nick Szasz, the publisher and conceiving force behind this magazine, said one night over drinks. “We don’t want endless phone calls telling us, ‘Oh, there’s a spelling mistake on page seven.’ We also do translations － we can’t have a magazine that looks like it’s spelled poorly.”

Even though it’s not. Nothing against our American cousins; I actually believe that many of the edits they have made to the English language make sense. Isn’t “thru” a more accurate phonetic representation than “through”? We all say “sent-er” not “sent-reh”, so why is it ‘centre’ and not ‘center’?

What really sticks in my craw is the Japanese education system’s insistence that the only correct way to do anything in the English language is the American way. Folks with New Zealand accents are asked to pronounce words “properly” in front of their classes. Australians are told to modify their spelling. Everywhere native English speakers are asked to avoid their own local slang words, their zokugo, in favour of the false and flat slang found in the text books.

Isn’t the point of having a native English speaker as a teacher to promote internationalization and an awareness of the diversity of cultures around the globe? Apparently not. What I leave out of my explanation to my students is that the other people who only spell things the American way are those who are trying to imitate the Americans. I think this goes back to the culturally imbedded xenophobia that Japan as a whole (if rarely Japanese people in specific) is prone to. Japan is a mono-culture, an island that has been physically and culturally cut off from the whole world for centuries. It has only been since the late 1800s that Western culture has infiltrated Japan on a wider scale than the novelty ‘Dutch Learning’ books imported from the traders in Nagasaki. The first major Western culture Japan had contact with was the United States, with its own influential culture.

And one mustn’t forget Hollywood. If ever there has been an engine for cultural exportation, it is American filmmaking. Blockbuster movies circle the globe, playing in rural towns, megacities, and film festivals in every conceivable language on Earth, plying American dreams, American ideals, and yes… American accents. If the “American Way” is the only image of the Western world, and of the English language, many Japanese are exposed to, why wouldn’t they think that it’s the “Only Way”? Even though it is frustrating, it is easy to see why Japanese English-language education is conducted solely in “American”. It’s our job, then, as Americans and non-Americans alike, as Global English Speakers, to teach that although there is one “Way”, there is also another. Many others, actually: one for each country, each dialect, and each person.

By Jessica Marie Frey
English Teacher and Frustrated Nitpicker

Pictures are copywright Shirley Waisman 2006