英語はストレートな言語？

120330.mp3　(3分21秒) イギリス出身のリチャード先生(聖蹟桜ヶ丘)にお話しをお聞きしました。英語を話すときにはストレートな表現を使わなければならない、と考えているとしたら、そのこ　とが英語の上達を妨げてるのかもしれません。

それは、日本人の子供たちのこんな受け答えにも感じられるようです。リチャード先生のお話です。リチャード先生のお話です。

I think in the Japanese culture there is less tendency to use direct questions, which require you to make a decision.

It can’t be very simple thing like “do you like coffee?” or “do you like tea?”.

Now maybe a young high school student, elementary school student, if you ask them a question, they tend to take a long time, because they think about “what does my teacher want to me to say?”.

Right?.

So therefore it takes long time.

And you can see clear examples of this, when you watch, for example English television program, and an interviewer asks an elementary school student, “what do you think about some particular topic?”.

And almost immediately the student will say something.

“Oh, I like it.”

“Oh, I don’t like it”.

“Oh, yes, it is really good.”

They tend to do it not thinking so much.

And then if we had a Japanese student, and ask the same kind of thing, there is usually quite long pause while they think about it.

And quite often they will just give a kind of standard answer, “Oh it is very nice” or “it is something”.

But they won’t go, they won’t say more, a kind of thing.

I think that culturally expressing an opinion is always difficult in Japan especially with the teacher, because of the control aspect.

■出演
・ETCマンツーマン英会話のリチャード先生
■聞き手
・青樹洋文

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