The Japanese should postpone English and other foreign language training until their children reach

Dear Fellow Earthlings, Ultimately, it should be the people of any country to determine what course their nation will take in all its manifestations. Regarding their language, it should reflect their heritage, their attitudes, their aspirations, and the identity they have of themselves. While Japan cannot go back to the days before United States ships arrived at Uraga Harbor in Japan's Kanagawa Prefecture back in 1853, the Japanese people do have a responsibility to themselves and to posterity for preserving the uniqueness that stands them apart from all of the other families of nations and, indeed among all of mankind. Similar to the suggestions I made in Installment 88 regarding how the Falkland Islanders can preserve their language and culture, I suggest that the Japanese should insist that people moving into Japan from other countries should be required to master all aspects of the Japanese language and to show respect for Japan's traditions, including its religions and philosophies. English should not be presented as a subject in school until middle school. "The Jingles" are firmly established as a means for providing non-native speakers of any language to master the phonology and listening comprehension skills of a new target language even after they have reached puberty. Therefore, there is absolutely no need to divert Japanese children from the primary task of mastering their mother tongue and experiencing 12 years of mainly Japanese language experiences before going on to learn other languages -- and with beautiful, nativelike results. The media in Japan need to play a part in promoting the use of Japanese that uses as few loan words from English as possible. Since Japanese people are making tangible gains in mastering nativelike English phonology to a certain extent, there is the danger that loan words could begin affecting the pronunciations of indigenous words, since humans tend to meld the phonologies of languages they speak into their phonomes. To allow the present situation to continue will lead to the ultimate end of the Japanese language. In short, a nation should allow its children to learn the national language of that nation -- and in a manner unimpeded by the need to learn other languages. Steve Walker Earthsaver and Jingles Creator

© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.