The Asian Paradox

[Nick Young]

This is a paradox, found mainly amongst Asian university students. No I am not talking about Asian Americans, I'm talking about FOB Asians accepted into American and European universities.

I am speaking mainly of Asians originating from the countries Japan, China and South Korea.

Many students from these countries grow up pushed by their parents to study insanely hard in school, and to take extra classes and get the very top grades.

HERE IS THE PARADOX:
Many Asian students learn English in class starting from a very young age. So how come when they come to Europe or America, they often times suck hard at English? Surely English is a class that their parents would force them to work extra hard at and dominate-and yet, I know many an Asian student who has been in America or Europe for years and still sucks at English.


I bring to you-the Asian paradox.

[nathanjizzle]

This is a paradox, found mainly amongst Asian university students. No I am not talking about Asian Americans, I'm talking about FOB Asians accepted into American and European universities.

I am speaking mainly of Asians originating from the countries Japan, China and South Korea.

Many students from these countries grow up pushed by their parents to study insanely hard in school, and to take extra classes and get the very top grades.

HERE IS THE PARADOX:
Many Asian students learn English in class starting from a very young age. So how come when they come to Europe or America, they often times suck hard at English? Surely English is a class that their parents would force them to work extra hard at and dominate-and yet, I know many an Asian student who has been in America or Europe for years and still sucks at English.


I bring to you-the Asian paradox.

its really the asian american students or "americanized" asian students that succeed the most in school, the immigrant kids usually are substandard. lack of english teachers in these countries contribute to it and money from where they come from. no money = no education, if they have no money how can they get proper english education. so when they fill out their student visas and come over here they are pretty much thrown in the lions den. i know because i know a few students personally

[flipogb]

not enough art, they are taught to memorize things. schools teach people there like you would teach a robot.

[Nick Young]

its really the asian american students or "americanized" asian students that succeed the most in school, the immigrant kids usually are substandard. lack of english teachers in these countries contribute to it and money from where they come from. no money = no education, if they have no money how can they get proper english education. so when they fill out their student visas and come over here they are pretty much thrown in the lions den. i know because i know a few students personally

Not all are in America and Europe on scholarships. Many come from wealthy families. Also, if these students had no money, their parents wouldnt have been able to afford to send them to extra after school classes in math and SAT test taking skills.

[Nick Young]

Start learning Cantonese and tell me how long it takes you to sound like a native Chinese citizen.

I don't think I'd ever sound like a native citizen but if I studied it for 5+years with my parents sending me to extra classes and pressuring me to study it all the time growing up I'd definately atleast be able to make myself understandable and grammatically correct.

Foreign languages aren't ass difficult to learn as many people make them out to be. It's just that most people don't have the dedication.

[niko]

This is a paradox, found mainly amongst Asian university students. No I am not talking about Asian Americans, I'm talking about FOB Asians accepted into American and European universities.

I am speaking mainly of Asians originating from the countries Japan, China and South Korea.

Many students from these countries grow up pushed by their parents to study insanely hard in school, and to take extra classes and get the very top grades.

HERE IS THE PARADOX:
Many Asian students learn English in class starting from a very young age. So how come when they come to Europe or America, they often times suck hard at English? Surely English is a class that their parents would force them to work extra hard at and dominate-and yet, I know many an Asian student who has been in America or Europe for years and still sucks at English.


I bring to you-the Asian paradox.

I'm thinking you don't understand the word paradox.

[gigantes]

i've read a little about this when it comes to english classes in japan.

japanese schools basically stick to a weird hybrid of dated english and their own grammar rules (which they somewhat arbitrarily add), consider it 'perfect', and then drill the hell out of it until the students are running complex programs in their head to spit out their own crazy version of engrish.

IIRC both azrael the famous african-american english teacher in japan and the ivy-league guy who runs the awesome blog "this japanese life"... have both commented that when they dared to gently correct the 'perfect' japanese over there, they were met with incomprehension, then cold stares and hostility.

in other words, the japanese in particular are purposely trained to use awkward, flawed english.

[Nick Young]

i've read a little about this when it comes to english classes in japan.

japanese schools basically stick to a weird hybrid of dated english and their own grammar rules (which they somewhat arbitrarily add), consider it 'perfect', and then drill the hell out of it until the students are running complex programs in their head to spit out their own crazy version of engrish.

IIRC both azrael the famous african-american english teacher in japan and the ivy-league guy who runs the awesome blog "this japanese life"... have both commented that when they dared to gently correct the 'perfect' japanese over there, they were met with incomprehension, then cold stares and hostility.

in other words, the japanese in particular are purposely trained to use awkward, flawed english.

sheeeit someone's gotta go there and fix the english education system.

[LJJ]

It's for a variety of reasons, but to point out the more obvious ones.

1. In Chinese and Japanese the spoken and the written language are two entirely separate entities. They don't relate phonetically like most languages do, hence learning to read and write these languages and to speak these languages are entirely different concepts.
This is the way they learn English too, most of them can probably read and write much better than they can speak the language.

2. The sounds used in Chinese (not so sure about Japanese) are complex in an entirely different way. Blending consonants is a very difficult skill to learn if you don't pick it up from an early age and it doesn't really exist in Chinese. Just like the vast majority of westerners who can speak Chinese will always struggle with the tonal qualities in that language.

[Nick Young]

I'm thinking you don't understand the word paradox.

It is a paradox. They study so hard and are good at everything, but for some reason many are still bad at English, despite studying it so hard. Even though the other things they study so hard they become really good at, or at least competent.

[ThatCoolKid]

This is probably related http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period_hypothesis.

Also, taking a class is very different than immersing yourself in a second language and only using the second language like what study abroad students do.

[gigantes]

sheeeit someone's gotta go there and fix the english education system.

thing is, it's just an extension of the whole culture-- 'this is the way things are done. nothing to discuss, nothing to fix.'


the koreans and chinese seem a lot more easy-going about this stuff to me. then again, the modern chinese method seems to involve more slackness and indifference whenever possible. so... choose your poison, i guess.

[Bandito]

This is a paradox, found mainly amongst Asian university students. No I am not talking about Asian Americans, I'm talking about FOB Asians accepted into American and European universities.

I am speaking mainly of Asians originating from the countries Japan, China and South Korea.

Many students from these countries grow up pushed by their parents to study insanely hard in school, and to take extra classes and get the very top grades.

HERE IS THE PARADOX:
Many Asian students learn English in class starting from a very young age. So how come when they come to Europe or America, they often times suck hard at English? Surely English is a class that their parents would force them to work extra hard at and dominate-and yet, I know many an Asian student who has been in America or Europe for years and still sucks at English.


I bring to you-the Asian paradox.

that is because the dont speak english in daily life. So they dont really practice it. In PR the same thing happens. In order to learn a language you have to speak it for practice. I learned by watching tv and school , but not everybody is like that.

[ace23]

It is a paradox. They study so hard and are good at everything, but for some reason many are still bad at English, despite studying it so hard. Even though the other things they study so hard they become really good at, or at least competent.

Dude this is not a paradox.

[tmacattack33]

This is a paradox, found mainly amongst Asian university students. No I am not talking about Asian Americans, I'm talking about FOB Asians accepted into American and European universities.

I am speaking mainly of Asians originating from the countries Japan, China and South Korea.

Many students from these countries grow up pushed by their parents to study insanely hard in school, and to take extra classes and get the very top grades.

HERE IS THE PARADOX:
Many Asian students learn English in class starting from a very young age. So how come when they come to Europe or America, they often times suck hard at English? Surely English is a class that their parents would force them to work extra hard at and dominate-and yet, I know many an Asian student who has been in America or Europe for years and still sucks at English.


I bring to you-the Asian paradox.

It's pretty hard to learn a language just by taking classes of it in school.

I got all A's and B's in Spanish at my high school but i could never actually speak it very well and neither could any of my class mates.