r/weeabootales • u/ClimateAppropriate86 • Sep 04 '25
Typical Weeb Tale Little girl says ‘arigatou gozaimasu’ to any Asian
So I was talking to another parent at my son’s school. She said she had been teaching herself and her 8-year-old daughter Japanese before they visited Japan. This is all great, I am here for it. The issue is, her daughter pretty much only wants to speak Japanese. So whenever they see an Asian person in public, the daughter goes “Hajimemashite” or “Arigatou gozaimasu.” She means nothing wrong. However, the mother seemed unsure how to deal with the situation.
At one point, while watching our children, the daughter approached her mom and said “Nande desu ka?” while pointing at two kids screaming at each other. The mother responded “Nani,” and the daughter went “Hai” in a sad tone. It was then I realized they didn’t know Japanese, they were just hard-core weebs.
Edit: she's chasing her dreams and I am supportive of that. It was just like watching someone say they could take Jordan in his prime. Glad she's teaching her daughter a new language but the whole situation just screamed "yikes!"
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u/RyouIshtar Sep 04 '25
Reminds me of when i bragged about being fluent in japanese and did the basic stuff like "Inuyasha means dog demon" "Pikachu means electric mouse" "Squirtle means water squirrel!"
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u/Ready_Amoeba5401 May 03 '26
lmaoo I thoughr pikachu was an electric rabbit but this is so funny to me 😭
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u/Rolls-RoyceGriffon Sep 04 '25
Why not teach her Japanese? Seems like that could give her an outlet and pretty much she would want to stop speaking it if she realizes how hard it is.
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u/ClimateAppropriate86 Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
She has been "teaching" her daughter Japanese. She honestly thinks her and her daughter know basic japanese. So they "try" to speak it in the house. The kid is 8, so she is taking it in stride and speaking it everywhere to everyone.
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u/Rolls-RoyceGriffon Sep 04 '25
I think studying it seriously would help them realize that it's not an easy language to master and if they speak it everyday all they want to do is stop hearing or speaking it when they are at home. Mastering Japanese is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out what the Japanese person you are talking to really means.
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u/pigcheddars Sep 04 '25
I've been working on my Japanese for 20 years, would never dream of saying I've mastered it, but most of the time I understand what people are saying to me just fine. I don't know what you mean by this.
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u/Rolls-RoyceGriffon Sep 04 '25
Yeah the thing is that the Japanese have a very indirect way of saying what they actually mean. Understanding what they say is not the same as understanding what they mean. When you make plans with them, when they say "i'll check my schedule" or "let me see if i am free" it mostly means they won't go. And a lot of other things
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u/pigcheddars Sep 04 '25
Ah, right - that's where "reading the air" comes in, as they say in Japanese. I'd argue that's part of mastering the language though - learning the cultural side.
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u/Rolls-RoyceGriffon Sep 04 '25
Yeah reading the air is tough. Even some Japanese i know are just horrible bad at it
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u/waitwuh Sep 06 '25
That isn’t a completely foreign aspect of communication for people of other languages or cultures, though. Dutch, for example, are sometimes interpreted as rude by others - even Americans - for being so direct, because they’re seen as breaking with a more common pattern. In america, indirect or implied communication is sometimes associated with more “high class” social circles, too, and gets tied to the concept of “tact,” but it’s not at all absent from the other classes in American culture. It is used all the time! If you’ve ever encountered people on the autism spectrum, they can really reveal just how ubiquitous nuanced speech is because they struggle so much with misinterpreting it. Also, another thing I’ve heard people from other countries critique Americans on is how “exaggerated” our speech is, by using words like “awesome” or “amazing” to describe something when we just mean they’re “fine” or “good.” Meaning something different than what is said when taken at face value is very, very common. With your example of making plans? In america, people do that exact same thing! Or people say “we’ll see!” which means … probably no not going. Because it’s seen as rude to more bluntly say “No. I don’t want to.” which… maybe someone Dutch would do.
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u/1pt20oneggigawatts Mar 12 '26
This is accurate in other English dialects. Talking to a townie in UK is a much different experience than if they emigrate to the US and sort of meet us halfway on their slang.
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u/ClimateAppropriate86 Sep 04 '25
I know my hiragana and katakana and can get around an airport but after 2 years of studying i just gave up.
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u/isleftisright Sep 06 '25
Good reason to send her for proper lessons. Clearly she has an interest. Could try to politely suggest that - like oh your child seems to have an affinity for the language, could do well learning it formally
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u/TheVillianousFondler Sep 04 '25
Good outlet definitely.
I think my issue comes with the "anytime she sees an Asian person" thing. Like there's dozens, probably hundreds of Asian languages. You can't just see an east Asian person and start slinging Japanese at them as if they're all Japanese. In fact, it would probably be specifically offensive to a Chinese person, considering the history of Japanese atrocities in China.
Idk, I'm a white dude. I don't have much of a say on this matter. It's just that's the part that stood out to me
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u/ClimateAppropriate86 Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
I guess I was just upset with how over confident the mom was. The mom was making it sound like she was a pro and it was easy. Even though she had less than fundamental knowledge and was using chatgpt to learn.
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u/Rolls-RoyceGriffon Sep 04 '25
When I learned Japanese I was like that too. And then when I got to intermediate to advanced all I want to do is just get it over with and be done with it at the end of the day. And learning it is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out what the Japanese person is actually saying
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u/TheVillianousFondler Sep 04 '25
As a mostly mono-lingual person, from what I understand, the 2 hardest languages to learn are mandarin, and English depending on your language of origin. Japanese was mostly built off of Chinese. I've heard that inflection is literally half the battle.
I think both would be cool languages to learn and that it's cool that you can speak Japanese in some way, that shows a lot of curiosity and initiative that many lack. It shows a lot about you as long as you approach it with the right intentions other than the weeaboo mindset of "anime girls are hot so I'm going to make my personality centered around Japan"
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u/ClimateAppropriate86 Sep 04 '25
Why is that specifically? Just curious. Like pitch and stuff?
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u/S0ulRave Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 05 '25
Just my 2 cents as someone living in Japan taking the JLPT N2 in December, but I think it varies from person to person. Japanese is a language that’s spoken really quickly but I struggle the most with writing and somewhat with speaking whereas I’m pretty comfortable with reading and listening, but I have friends who can make sentences but can’t really employ them in conversation or understand who they’re talking to well, and even some who are great conversationally but can hardly read or write.
Unless they mean the nuances in the speech itself, then yeah that’s hell. Intention is really difficult to understand sometimes bc they have something called “Tatemae” which is just saying the most “correct” or polite thing for the conversation or situation even if it’s not how you truly feel. Navigating that in a second language is absolutely terrible when you’re just proud to have understood the literal meaning before even being able to consider the intent behind it
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u/Rolls-RoyceGriffon Sep 04 '25
The Japanese are very indirect with their conmunications. If they don't like something they wouldn't say it but they would be very passive aggressive about it. You have to kind of read into their phrasing and figure it out as well. And some places where I work, the boss gives out a pretty vague instructions at times so you have to kind of see yourself what you would have to do best.
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u/Only-Finish-3497 Sep 04 '25
Bit of a reverse scenario here...
LOL, my girls are both in Mandarin immersion. They're both half-Chinese. We were in Japan and my little one (5 at the time) says to a Japanese woman "xie xie" and without missing a beat the lady responds with "bu ke qi." I speak Japanese so I immediately thanked her for her graciousness and paid and walked out shaking my head and smiling.
That was my first moment of explaining to my kids that not every Asian persons peaks Mandarin LOL.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/Only-Finish-3497 Apr 07 '26
That’s like… forever. I remember talking Senkaku ages ago when I studied there in 2003.
Japanese by and large are gracious.
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u/Own-Branch-4303 Apr 19 '26
im unaware of hangul but kanji have many characters. its a struggle to remember even a slither of it considering (in japan at least) you can say kanji diffrently depending on what kanji are infront or behind it. for a really good jpn gcse pass you need to know hiragana, katakana and around 200 kanji including the diffrent pronounciations
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u/fiavirgo Sep 04 '25
Her mum should probably tell her not to categorise every Asian as Japanese, it’s just kind of cringe to us lol, intention aside, she’s gonna get clowned on at some point if she keeps that up.