The Japan Times, November 22,
2005
"Television shows confront decline of Japanese language ability"
by
Mary Sisk Noguchi
Beginning this fall, four of the major commercial
networks began broadcasting variety programs aimed at rehabilitating Japanese
television viewers’ inability to correctly utilize their native language. Why
the sudden flood of kokugo (national language) programs?
Some observers trace the decline of
the Japanese language to recent government educational reforms. In 2002, the
Japanese government revamped the school system. Its pet name for the project?
“Relaxed education.” Ever since, many parents have been shocked to note that
their offspring have difficulty in writing kanji at grade level. A number of
these same moms and dads, increasingly reliant on Japanese word processing
software, admit they are hard-pressed to handwrite the same kanji they expect
their children to master.
Cries of alarm are also being raised about the
state of the spoken language. Last February, an advisory panel to the Cultural
Affairs Agency on kokugo reported that keigo (honorific, self-effacing,
and polite language) is being widely misused by the Japanese populace. Sales of
kokugo self-help books like Yasuo Kitahara’s million-seller “Mondai na nihongo"
(“Problematic Japanese”) are booming, and it was only a matter of time before
the networks jumped on the kokugo rehabilitation bandwagon.
I took a
look at four of these new offerings to see what sort of educational and/or
entertainment value they might have for Japanese learners, and, indeed, native
speakers. TBS managed to sign kokugo guru Kitahara himself to appear as a
regular on its “Quiz! Nihongo-O!” (Thursdays, 6:55 pm), hosted by popular comedy
duo Uchan-Nanchan, in which 30 celebrities compete for the title of “King of
Japanese.” Kitahara expounds on answers to questions dealing with kanji compound
words, kanji stroke order, place-name kanji, vocabulary, the meanings of
frequently misused phrases, etc. Based on the wide range of difficulty in the
questions this program dishes up, Nihongo learners at all levels, but
particularly from the intermediate level up, could find it
useful.
Another program Nihongo learners at all levels may want to check
out is TV Tokyo’s “Miyake-shiki (Miyake-style) Kokugo Drill,” hosted by veteran
emcee Yuji Miyake and his comic sidekick, Nigerian Bobby Orogon (Tuesdays, 8:00
pm). Most of the questions on this show deal with kanji, and the level (ranging
from grade one of elementary school to kanji master) is provided for each. Five
celebrity contestants play various games as they grapple with kanji compounds,
pronunciations, homonyms, and kanji radicals.
“Anata Setsumei Dekimasu
ka (Can You Explain It?”) (TBS, Wednesdays, 7:25) asks hapless celebrity
contestants to try and explain the difference between frequently confused words
or phrases in Japanese. In one recent episode, for example, viewers learned the
difference between sake (salmon, the fish itself) and shake
(salmon after it has been prepared for human consumption). As a long-term
foreign resident of Japan, I have enjoyed having many nagging questions about
the differences in easily confused words answered by this show.
“Tamori
no Japonica Rogosu,” (Fuji TV, Tuesdays, 11:00 pm) gets my vote as the most
entertaining of the lot. Dark sunglasses-adorned TV comic Tamori keeps his
legendary cool humor on track while focusing on misused honorific language,
vocabulary, and grammar. Some weeks, he scours the nation to find actual
examples of offending Japanese on signs, packaging, and advertising, and four
generally stumped celebrity contestants are required to figure out where the
error is. At the end of the program, the person responsible for one of the
misusages is telephoned by Tamori for a good-natured chastisement. So far, none
of the culprits has promised to correct their error, seemingly content to
continue using “problematic Japanese.”
One thing these programs
demonstrate is that “kokugo panic” may be well-founded. On one episode of “Quiz!
Nihongo-O!,” only 17 of 30 contestants could produce the kanji for nose, a
character learned by third-grade elementary school students, and a mere four
were able to write the second character in their national sport, sumo.
Come on, Nihongo learners! With a little effort, even we can do better
than that! Watching these new programs may be a fun way to get an edge on
our native-speaking cohorts.
Note: Times and days may vary by region,
so check your local TV guide.