General thread for minor issues

[himitsu]

Ok, I don't think it's worth to open a new thread, but I still want some feedback on this topic, so I thought it more appropriate to have a general thread for such things.

Today a teacher asked me to correct the written self-intros of our 1st graders (JH), and 95% wrote their family names first, so the Japanese way. I corrected everything, but then the teacher told me it's now officially accepted in Japan. And when I checked the old NCrown book, even there it's that way (somehow I never noticed). So I thought: What the hell??? It's not like Japanese are learning English in order to use it when speaking with other Japanese, is it! I can't think of any good reason to make such a decision, whoever it was... What foreigner, apart from those familiar with Japan, would be able to tell the 1st from the surname...

[Otaku]

Simple answer. Your JTE is incorrect. The only officially accepted thing is the unofficial acceptance of most JTEs to allow students to write their names in this manner.

BTW, I don't know anyone outside Japan that refers to it as 'family name'. It's simply 'last name'.

IN JAPAN: Sato Takumi
IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CULTURES: Takumi Sato
ACCEPTED INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY: Takumi SATO or SATO Takumi (All the letters in the last name are capitalized to show which name is the last name.)

The textbooks try to explain the whole last name first thing in all the textbooks, but these rules were created by the Japanese, for the Japanese. I refuse to bow to Japanese-made English rules when they are simply wrong.

I would simply tell your JTE that English has nothing to do with Japan or its culture so it really doesn't matter if its officially accepted in Japan or not.

/rant

[moolooman]

Angry guy.

[pakalikaPakalika]

They do it for a reason. for what we may not know. Just let them do what they want with there English. It is going to take more then a few ALT's on a web page to change the things.

[azuhlLt.]

...are you suggesting a revolution?

[Otaku]

Wouldn't the revolution be what the Japanese are trying to do?

A.k.a. Pour it on so thick and keep the propaganda (last name, first) flowing for years to break the backbone of the natural English-speaking world. Then, enters in Janglish to mainstream English.

[jeisensei]

Even though most of this has been said it is a good summery and brings up the point that Japanese is not the only language that uses "inverted" names:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_order#Name_order

[Otaku]

West versus East.

English is West.

West wins.

Enuf said!

[Paul]

Evidently the college center test recently, as in the past few years, has allowed students to write their names either way, the Japanese way or western way. Hence JTE's believe that either are correct for here in Japan. One other thing to consider is this as well, if one is writing their name surname first and first name last, to be grammatically correct, I do believe that a comma needs to be used to separate the names. (Maybe someone can correct me on this one. Thank you)

Now then on the "family name" thing, correct me if I am wrong but isn't surname、given family name or last name acceptable, I can recall hearing all three of these used with regards to me.

[Otaku]

NAME ORDER: I would dare argue if last name is written first AND the entire name isn't written in CAPS, then a comma is needed.

'FAMILY NAME': At the point you write 'first name' wouldn't you say the least confusing for the students and easiest to understand is 'last name'?

BTW, the only place I've seen 'surname' are on official documents, which I think anyone will say are the last things to get changed in updating a society's language?

[himitsu]

Wouldn't the revolution be what the Japanese are trying to do? A.k.a. Pour it on so thick and keep the propaganda (last name, first) flowing for years to break the backbone of the natural English-speaking world. Then, enters in Janglish to mainstream English.

Haha, that`s funny, it`s exactly what I was thinking when I heard the news

Even though most of this has been said it is a good summery and brings up the point that Japanese is not the only language that uses "inverted" names:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_order#Name_order

I wonder if it`s generally an East (or is it EastERN?) European thing too, they mention Hungary there, but Romania has that (jp) order as well, and can well imagine for other countries in that area too.

West versus East. English is West.

Not for Japanese, if you look at the jp world map (and as everyone knows, English comes from America (just like all whities))

'FAMILY NAME': At the point you write 'first name' wouldn't you say the least confusing for the students and easiest to understand is 'last name'?

I just used it to explain my point, it`s not like I teach that (actually, there is no (conversation) lesson in ES and JH that includes teaching that).
But if we have to talk about it (btw, the wiki link above also uses "family name"):
- the dictionary gives 4 options: last name, family name, surname, second name.
- might be yet another AE-BE difference (is it, BE speakers?), or maybe Otaku is right, and only "last name" is used in conversations (which I don`t have any problem with)
- google hits: last name 630m (but includes e.g. "last name on a list", a.s.o.), surname 178m, family name 27m, second name 2m (again includes 2nd name in a list or so).

In the end, as English is a very flexible language, I think we can use anything, and should teach the most common way (here "last name").

[Otaku]

I live my life via http://www.googlebattle.com

'last name' wins over 'surname'.

Case Closed!

[Paul]

but surname wins over given name!

http://www.googlebattle.com/?domain=surname&domain2=given+name&submit=Go%21

[Otaku]

I thought that was a given...

[himitsu]

haha, funny website. I suppose they apply the words as in quotation marks (even if you don`t add them)!?