I speak pretty decent Japanese. I am not fluent, but I would say confidently that I am bilingual. Reading (and writing) it, of-course, is another matter. I struggle in these departments, but hopefully after a few more years of living here I can really get my Japanese skills up to par.
I live here so I need to use Japanese in my daily business (work, kendo, buying beer, etc), but for those of you that live outside Japan and practise kendo, what’s your take on whether learning Japanese for budo (kendo et al): is it a good or a bad thing? Actually, lets go one step further: is it a necessity or or is not?
Are there any benefits to your study, either physically or mentally, by learning Japanese? Can you learn kendo (for example) without Japanese and still “get” kendo? If you don’t fully understand the more intricate nuances of budo terminology does it even matter? etc etc.
If you have a look at the (very modern) definitions of both BUDO (1987) and
KENDO (1975), it would suggest that the study of things like kendo go above and beyond mere “Japaneseness” and are separate from – not only Japanese culture (including language) – but any culture (historical references withstanding).
My personal viewpoint is this: by not understanding – or much more importantly: by not making an effort to understand – the Japanese terminology that is used within our everyday practise, then I suggest that you will be forever underexposed to the full breadth of the thing that we call “kendo” (and “budo”).
I believe that kendo (and perhaps “budo” in general) cannot be separated from its “Japaneseness” without making it something else (for better or worse). This includes, of-course, our day-to-day in-the-dojo vocabulary set.
This might sound like me saying “learn Japanese and understand the truth” but please don’t misconstrue what I mean. I think there is a new definition shaping outside of Japan as to what KENDO/BUDO means and what its aims are. This is a natural thing and something that comes from people having a long exposure to the art. Surely a localisation of meaning is not only natural, but something to be celebrated? Hand in hand with this localisation you have – of course – less emphasis on Japanese language as a core transmission vehicle for the art(s), and new definitions of words being written (if Japanese is even being used).
However, there is a danger: I was taught many Japanese words throughout the years of my training only to find out much later that many of the words/concepts explained to me were in fact conveyed inaccurately. This was not deliberate of-course, just a by product of studying something as Japanese as kendo, but without Japanese language proficiency on the side of the teacher (and the student). Food for thought.
At any rate, I don’t think anyone would deny that knowledge of Japanese won’t help you to understand some of the more physical and (more pointedly) metaphysical concepts that underpin everyday budo practise, and that people can reach the highest levels of budo ability without speaking Japanese; I will always reserve a little bit more respect, however, for those that do go out of the way and add – to the already hard task of learning budo – the study of Japanese as part of their shugyo. If you haven’t already, why don’t you give it a go?
Good post. Most of the time, I find being taught in Japanese much easier than being taught in English. I think this is for two reasons: firstly, I was originally taught budo in Japanese and so in the dojo the most comfortable language for me is Japanese. Secondly, when Japanese terms are used, they fit more naturally into Japanese sentences and carry more weight. As I speak Japanese already, to be introduced to a Japanese word outside of a Japanese context tends to obscure the meaning a little. The more Japanese you speak, the more down-to-earth and comprehensible a concept becomes.
I also think that being able to directly understand a visiting Japanese sensei’s explanations helps immensely. At an iaido seminar I attended, the sensei leading the keiko gave a long explanation of a waza that became too complicated for the interpreter to convey in its entirety. She did a great job, but quite a bit of detail was lost. As I was following his words in Japanese, I managed to hear all of it, and not only did it really help my progress with that waza, it also became a great set of notes after the seminar.
George, great post.
The topic came up to discussion a few times with a kendo buddy who speaks both English and Japanese.
I think the efficacy of communication using both English and Japanese in budo context is determined by the combination of the following 3 factors.
(1) English proficiency
(2) Japanese proficiency (including the understanding of the culture)
(3) in depth knowledge in the martial art.
Even if you’re fairly comfortable with both languages, if you’re shodan or less and therefore lacking (3), translating is a hard task… have done that a few times, the longer I train in martial arts, the easier translating gets as well I noticed.
Richard, the translator might have been me actually, lol, I’ve had few occasions that I served as an intepreter.
p.s., beloved shin-chan… lol
Yuko
Good topic. I’ve been waiting to have a peek at what you were working on. I’m sort of in the same boat as Richard, however I began in the US after returning from Japan. In retrospect I think being able to actually understand what was being said, as opposed to other beginners who had to memorize terminology, counting, etc. on top of learning the physical aspect, helped me progress faster.
While I feel it is important to learn Japanese if you want to fully understand kendo (or whatever you do), I also think there are certain things that can and should be translated. For example people count off in Japanese, or answer by saying “hai” instead of “yes”. Why force people to remember things like that? Oh and if you ever want to see me go completely ape sh!t, join me at a shiai in N. America or Europe were there are boobs in the crowd who are yelling “faito”.
Props to Shin-chan panel!
Shinchan is a kendo god. If you get chance to read it, then please get “Shonen kenshi Shinosuke.”
@Leiv –> I was a “memoriser.” I thought KOTE meant wrist, and SEME was about stepping in, and i’d never heard of KUZUSHI.
whilst my ”survival” japanese is still precarious in many levels, i can attest japanese does come in handy on a number of occasions. especially when visiting sensei come and find out they can share some of their nihongo jokes with you haha. now really, they can correct you first hand, be closer to you and tell you what youre doing wrong on a day to day basis, without the aid of a translator or an intermediary. that’s gold.
i don’t agree partially with Leiv in the numbers and commands in japanese thing. i actually think it’s nice and coherent because it makes for a smart way to “standarise” kendo and be able to follow a class in europe, america or asia regardless of your mother tongue. if you hear “jouge suburi sanjuukai” on the warm-up you may know anywhere in the world thats 30 “big” suburi you got to do. i attend a couple international seminars per year and it gets messy when things have to be translated into 2 or 3 languages at the same time!
the “faito” thing gets on my nerves too though. if you cheer your friends cheer them in your own language(or just clap), not in bastardised english!
p.s. whoa, shinnosuke doesn’t do that 唇技 in the anime! haha.
Thanks for the long reply Pablo (aka the-yet-to-post-an-article-spaniard)! I didnt actually think that this post would get much feedback, as its mostly a private feeling I have. I was very careful to word it, as I imagine that some people will/would/might be offended by what I am trying to say… and thats not my goal.
The manga is a lot better than the anime. If you dont have a copy of it let me know.
@Pablo- Actually I think we’ve talked about this once before on KWF and I understand what you are saying but I recently went to Korea, everything was done in Korean and although I don’t speak a word I managed just fine.
@George- That’s my point exactly. So many terms even something as common as seme is often completely misunderstood. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people define zanshin as simply following through (that includes alot of instructors too!).
Here’s were I tie the two responses above into one; until these terms can be translated properly into English I don’t think just repeating Japanese terms without understanding them is a good way to standardize kendo. The only other option is everyone learns Japanese. But that’s a little unrealistic. I think a lot of parallels can be drawn with fencing and the French language. I must say though, that the kendo dictionary that the ZNKR put out does a pretty good job of defining these term. That should be a book everyone has in their collection.
Having said that, even understanding the language really isn’t enough. There are many things I didn’t come to fully understand until after living here for some time. So what? Everyone learns Japanese and then they have to spend time in Japan on top of it? There has to be a compramise. Kendo has to become a little internationalized at some point.
I’m bringing a little different perspective as the only Japanese I have is kendo terminology. So I think knowing Japanese is not necessary, but lord it would be helpful. I’m lucky to have a Japanese sensei, so at least the concepts only get garbled between his bad English and my non-existant Japanese. But I still manage to hit people on the head with a stick reasonably successfully.
Thanks for registering and the comment Neil, more please!
I guess part of what I am getting at is best phrased in a question: if you dont know Japanese, then how can you possibly gauge where your understanding level of Japanese “kendo” really is?
I went 10 years without anything but a splattering of the language… and as my language skills have increased, so to has the realisation that concepts and terminology was conveyed incorrectly to me, and that I misunderstood kendo for the majority of my kendo career. This of-course does not apply to everyone and probably doesn’t apply to you… but it does/did apply to me. There is more information available nowadays, however, so people are having a different kendo upbringing abroad today then they were even 10-15 years ago.
Hopefully – through this site – I can help to convey less well understood aspects of kendo to the world at large, and also encourage other people to talk about their understanding and share their knowledge. This way the knowledge pool of kendo will hopefully be enriched for everyone.
As an interesting aside to this discussion, I commenced an experiment in teaching at my school today. The year 8 cohort (about half of whom did kendo last year) will be taught entirely in Japanese. Kind of dumb in a school that doesn’t actually teach Japanese you might think. Well it was really interesting (in the 1st and so far only class) how not knowing any of the language the students really worked hard to understand me through visual cues rather than aural ones. For those who had done kendo before I think it was impetus to make them trawl their memmory banks for what they could remember from last year. Whether I can sustain it, 90 mins at a time, with my bad Japanese, is another matter! I’ll either get better or give up. Which is also the point I suppose. b