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Why cant I make friends with Japanese people, why do 99% of them not want to help me?

The Japanese are a very strange bunch. Very strange. With all but a few exceptions, they are socially inadequate on the international stage. Sad but true.

In fact what I'm gonna say here should not be called an answer. Since it's easier to type here than in the comment box...
I think it's very difficult to get a language partner, especially for people who are idealists, and unfortunetely many Japanese are(in fact, I'm more or less)so. Maybe that's why I don't have a so-called partner yet. In fact I tried a few times, but you know, some people just choose friends very very cautiously, they probably have some clear outlines for their language learning and friends(maybe girl or boy friends :-) ). So I just got declined. Actually most times I just wanted to say hello to people and offer a little help for their Chinese or English, because I felt interested in them. I didn't want to earn money by teaching for sure. I even didn't want to learn Japanese or English from them. Not only Japanese, but also some British guys, they simply declined me, haha. But I'm not frustrated at all, really. I think I'm good at educating myself, including both my English and Japanese.
Actually, I do think many Japanese natives here once have become someone's language partner, they will be very reliable and serious at helping each other to improve. So the only thing I could say is, please be patient until you find a few real Japanese language partners. And don't forget such a fact: some Japanese people, even they might be of advanced level in English, but when it comes to listening and speaking, I guess you really have to be patient and work a good way out to help them, otherwise it would be more and more difficult to make them talk with you.

From my own experience, Japanese are very friendly people, but most of them never speak English in their country. If you speak Japanese with them, they don't care about your grammar or accent. Here, the Japanese are not true Japanese, they are the great pretenders, they are Asians from Singapore, Taiwan, China, and/or Korea. Since, these countries had been ruled by the Japanese before, some people might had worked for the Japanese, in which they claimed themself Japanese. However, they don't have the Japanese attitudes.

I was always discriminated by the Chinese, but the Japanese always friendly to me. However, the Japanese here are not friendly at all because they are not Japanese by definition. If you are familiar with the Japanese culture, you will find out who is Japanese and who is not.

I think, I know what you meant by that and I am totally agree with you.

I think you should not give up...positive thinking is the key.

I can think of many reasons why people are inactive... I think the biggest one is to have enough time to actually be a useful language partner. Also there are people who are generally curious about a language but wont follow through in learning it until the end. To find a lasting language partner is not easy but likely. To be honest my current japanese-language partner is chinese.. but sadly I cant really afford to have multiple partners right now because of time constraints.

I think its strange that they told you that their japanese is better than yours... but maybe you are only at a beginner level in japanese? I am not sure but I think it is not as helpful to have a language partner if you are not at least at JLPT Level 3... or N4.

>I dont want to believe the Japanese are an unhelpful race but i look at say my Chinese questions, i >always get so many answers, when I ask Japanese questions, maybe one or two answers, always from the same people ( bless them esp as two of them are not native Japanese themselves) and I wonder why more Japanese do not answer questions make notebook corrections on here, it seems no one really wants to help.

Think about the population. Chinese population is almost over 10 times larger than Japanese one. Its easy to tell there are more questions and answers from those who speaks Chinese. I have over 100 friends from italki, but people I speak regularly are very few. I agree with that many people are not even studying Japanese but they are still looking for firends on this site. Well.. it`s too bad to hear you are quiting to learn Japanese. But if you are still serious about learining it, you can still knock my door. =) I would love to exchage language if one is serious about it. All you need to do is lead my profile then ask me. )) However, as you can tell, my English is still not perfect though..

unhelpful race? not cruel race!?

Don't give up! It's a wonderful language, although very difficult... (I've been learning it for 5 years, and 4 1/2 of it was totally by myself, without the help of iTalki, etc.)

As somebody already pointed out, there are tons more people who speak Chinese than there are who speak Japanese....


My suggestion is to join Interpals penpals, and make a few good friends.. http://www.interpals.net/
For learning Japanese, I have been talking with *one* guy since March.... (Of course, I also talk to a few random people just because, not to learn Japanese...)
We help each other out with the language (he's learning English), and ask each other questions about cultural things, etc.

It's a little more work, but, these people *want* to be friends. Just make sure their profile has "Language Exchange" in the "Looking For" section.

My suggestion, though.... Actually read their profile, and look for something in common, or something that interests you..... don't just send everyone a cut-and-paste message.


But, whatever you decide to do, don't give up!
There are tons of forums, etc., for people trying to learn Japanese....
Just because this one isn't working for you doesn't mean that they all are the same.


~Megumi

Elizabeth-san! I was wondering what's going on with your Japanese study because I didn't hear from you nor see you make questions about Japanese for a while after we met in the lesson in August.

I'm sorry to hear that some people say " dont want to help you with Japanese" or such. I understand how it should be discouraging to hear such comments. However, please don't make such a hasty and sad generalization about Japanese people. Everyone has different style, and it's just it didn't fit with yours. Maybe they were too busy to spend time chatting, maybe they might have thought it was better for you to take Japanese class than having random chat with them. Or maybe they were not ready to teach in deed. (You know, serious teaching requires quite a lot of knowledge, preparation, patience and experience etc...,which I need more!)

From my experience(on or off line), having really meaningful, which means win-win, language exchange experience is very difficult. But once you get a perfect match, it's really helpful. I would prefer to have a few reliable friends than having hundreds of "friends," whom I cannot even keep track of them. You could give up Japanese section on italki if you think you really can't get help here, but please do not give up studying Japanese!

It is the question about the culture, I don't know why Mr. alucky is so up sad about it. 99% is a very high percentage, if I were Ms. Elizabeth, I would ask the same question too. Fortunately, I have never deal with any non-English speaking people.

It looks like that the Japanese can not read English. You may notice that the English speaking people such as Mr. James 1, Mr. Brianhabla, and Mr. Wozitoya, their answers are corresponding to the question which is related to the culture.

The question is written in English, I am trying to interprete Ms. Elizabeth's intent in her question. In response to Ms. Elizabeth's question, the problem is appearing on misunderstanding, the language barrier.

sorry for my misunderstanding !

I have wanted to answer your questions before, so many times, but I couldn't, because even I, as a Japanese, didn't know the answer (it's sad, but there are many things I don't understand why they are the way they are). I try to answer questions, but it's only when I know the answer, because to teach wrong Japanese or give wrong information is the last thing I want to do. I hope this makes sense and I am really sorry that there were people who said things like that to you. But please know that not everyone is like that (there are many people that are really nice, I like people here in Japan). :) And of course I'd love to help you if you'd like me to, I'll try my best.

RTHK has some nice essential Japanese e-learning course (與香港日本文化協會合辨) here, you may take a look (only if you can read Traditional Chinese):

http://www.rthk.org.hk/elearning/gogojapan/

First of all, please kindly bear with me, should I have said something that makes anyone not pleasant. In particular, I have no interest to perform unnecessary arguments with the original question poster, because I already knew her personality.

Well, in my personally point of view, this question was somehow considered as "racially biased", should it not be deemed as offensive. My arguments are as follows:

1) The original question poster wanted to express her unpleasant (or frustrated) feeling through the learning of Japanese language. Nevertheless, all of us need to bear in mind that this (italki) is a free platform for language exchanges. Nobody owes responsibility to help the others. Everyone offers help solely under their own will. We surely may appreciate any kind of help, but to blame on someone (or on some particular race/nationality, as stated in this question) who does not offer help is simply not appropriate.

2) Albeit a frustration in learning a particular language, there is no necessity to states any negative comments against solely the people native in that particular language (in this case, the Japanese people, or the ones with Japanese nationalities, as I presume). I believe that there are always some foreigners who are very good in Japanese, or people that have a Japanese ancestry, who can as well help the others with the Japanese language. In other words, alternative options are already available, but the original question poster did not carefully consider them, and rather put blames onto the Japanese natives once she did not receive sufficient help. I honestly cannot agree this kind of act. In my point of view, as long as the concept is correct, one should learn it enthusiastically, regardless from whom such concept was given.

3) From where does this 99% of Japanese people (who are described as not willing to help the original question poster) come? Did the original question poster do an intensive survey to obtain such result, or did she only state it recklessly (as a sort of expressing her personal frustration through the language learning process)? Unless such figure was found by systematic and reliable studies, solely stating it recklessly would give not only a misleading concept to the general audience, but also a hard or even an irritating feeling to the group of people being blamed. Therefore, although I am not a Japanese, I understand how a typical Japanese may feel through reading the question, which resulted in some fierce or overreacted arguments.


Unfortunately, once the question was posed, it was not editable. Therefore, my personal suggestion is, everyone needs to think twice before posting any disputable questions. Hopefully, any fierce or overreacted arguments may be terminated, once it is understood that the original question was simply not appropriately posted. Ciao.