Teaching English to the Japanese

By: Chef Niku

I recently was able to attend a seminar for teaching English to Japanese people and I learned a lot of great ways to help Japanese people learn English and personally to understand the Japanese people better.

I learned the “Japanese” way that Japanese people learn English is through a lot of repetition of memorizing vocabulary. Japanese teachers have the students go through a textbook and read out-loud the example conversation. They are supposed to memorize the conversation. It is through these drills that they can be more familiar with the English language.

This way of learning has taught me that just as Japanese people need constant exposure to the English language, the same is for the Gospel. Hearing the Gospel once is not enough, it needs to soak in and be heard over and over for someone to understand it and be changed by it. Just by practicing and exposing oneself to English can make one more familiar, so can hearing the Gospel and thinking about what it means make one more familiar and hopefully Gospel “fluent” someday.

An interesting thing to note about the Japanese language is how they borrowed the Chinese hanzi (characters) to use for their own alphabet in the past. From that, I see that the Japanese culture tends to borrow a lot of useful elements from other cultures and make it their own style and way as you can see in Japanese music, TV shows, business, government and more. This probably comes from the Japanese religion of Shinto where nothing is absolute and other religions can co-exist and now we see the same thinking is in the culture and way of doing business too.

From this kind of thinking, I can understand why it is very difficult for Japanese to become Christians as there is no sense of what is inherently right or wrong but only relative truths and God has laid out what is right and wrong in the Bible whereas absolute truths do not exist in the Shinto religion. This “contradiction” of the perception of reality is the obstacle to embracing who Jesus is and knowing Him for many Japanese people.

Something else that grabbed my attention is how the Japanese often drop the subject in a sentence. For example, I would mention that I am going to the store and buying milk. In the next sentence, I can omit “I” and say “bought bread, meat and then checked out my groceries”. The subject “I” is understood and not necessary so this shows the high context (information is understood more through the context of the overall conversation) communicative style of the Japanese. Consider that the United States is low context and communication is more direct.

God wants us to use our time wisely and not waste it, so this principle will be easily understood by the Japanese. I can see God’s “fingerprints” in the culture in this way. Time is very valuable in our lives and God wants us to be good stewards and use it to the best that we can. Passages such as Colossians 3:23 (Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men…) and Luke 16:10 (One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much…) comes to my mind. We are to do our best in all that we do as for the Lord and be good stewards of what God has given to us. The Japanese aim to do their best in all of areas of life (even in working) so this biblical truth is not too difficult for them to understood.

What are some other things that you observe about the Japanese language and culture that can connect to the Gospel?