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Precipitation24

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"Please Kill Urself"?! | English Is Not So Easy 23

Posted by Precipitation24 - May 24th, 2024

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. But that was in the past, and since then my English skills have been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to post some simple questions and comments about the English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) on Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may make elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.


"Please Kill Urself"?! | English Is Not So Easy 23


I recently found an interesting post about English on X (Twitter). It was a post by Eshtarwind (江市コム), a professional translator of English and Japanese from Indonesia, on January 7, 2024, advising native English speakers not to use these expressions to praise artwork:


“Please kill urself aren't u ashamed ugh”

“I am mentally ill”

“Ugh go die plzzzz”

“Delete this”

 

Fortunately or unfortunately,... sorry, whether it's good or bad, I didn't get those comments, but if I did, I would first check what it actually means, and I would probably think that my post caused a backlash for some reason and delete it immediately as they said (but this is basically a situation on other platforms than Newgrounds, because on Newgrounds comments were usually displayed with ratings, and I think there's much less possibility for such misunderstandings to occur).


As shown in the "Fortunately or unfortunately" example, I unconsciously assume that expressions that exist in Japanese (幸か不幸か) also exist in English, and I spend most of my time learning English trying to remove this bias from my mind. On the other hand, I thought that this was a general problem of languages, and that there must be some expressions that native English speakers assume are conveyed correctly even to non-native English speakers, but in fact are not.


However, in this article I will not tell you not to use them. That is not my interest. Instead, I want to ask you what they really mean. I would love to know what feelings were in the minds of the people who wrote those comments, and how they were trying to convey them. I am really interested in that.


About the "Please kill yourself" comments, there is an interesting hypothesis from the non-native speaker side. The Japanese thought that the comment writer was trying to say something like, "I love this work so much that it hurts me now. I don't want my heart to hurt anymore, so please stop showing your work. So delete it and kill yourself."

(This is off topic, but this kind of sentiment reminds me of the lyrics to "Something Comforting" by Porter Robinson)

How accurate is this interpretation for native English speakers? If this interpretation is not correct, what do these comments actually mean? I would like to know your opinion.

 

On the other hand, there is a similar expression in Japanese that means "I love this work so much!":

 

尊すぎて死ぬ

 

It could be literally translated as "They are so noble that I am dying," but in this context, 尊い (noble) just means "cool" or "adorable." It actually means "Their coolness/cuteness chokes me," but I think a similar phenomenon would occur if non-native Japanese speakers read it.


This is a linguistic-cultural issue (I wish there were such a science), but about the difference between the expressions "please kill yourself" and "尊すぎて死ぬ", some Japanese people interpreted that the difference is that English speakers tend to express their strong emotion as an aggression against the art or artist, and Japanese speakers tend to express it as an aggression against themselves.

 

Incidentally, in my case, I always want to express my intense emotions, but I only come up with weird words

iu_1209858_5502418.png

Also, when I thought an artist's character was deadly cute, I once tried to comment "She's killing me (from her cuteness)," but before I posted the comment, I found some articles that said it didn't really mean what I intended (according to the article, it means "she makes me laugh a lot"), so I gave up posting it. So lately I just comment "cute!" or "adorable!", but I would really like to use more English phrases to admire other people's art.

 

[For Japanese learners]

I came up with another interesting Japanese word that would frighten non-native speakers, 黙殺. It is composed of 黙って (silently) and 殺す (kill), which literally means "to kill silently," but actually means "to ignore." Even as a native Japanese speaker, I am not sure why such a simple word is made up of such scary characters.

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Louket

“Please kill urself aren't u ashamed ugh”
“I am mentally ill”
“Ugh go die plzzzz”
“Delete this”

If you're seeing this on TwitterX, the meaning is probably straightforward. For some reason everyone has decided that it's okay to threaten if they don't like something or someone.

Precipitation24

Really? While writing this article, I never doubted that what the original poster said was correct, but as you said, it certainly seems possible that what he or she said might not be accurate.
Incidentally, the OP said that this phenomenon was first observed on TikTok.

FetidFursonaC0rp53

The first commenter is absolutely correct; if I saw a comment on a post that read “Please kill urself aren't u ashamed ugh” I would read that as strictly insulting. Tone is something even native speakers of English, and I'd assume speakers of practically all other languages as well, sometimes have trouble with. The exception would be if there was some sort of emote or contextualization added that made it seem tongue-in-cheek, like your example sentence with the parentheses (which would read as you intended to a native English speaker).

We rely on tone, micro-expressions, and all kinds of verbal and non-verbal signals to subtly convey meaning when we speak – many of which we're not even conscious of – and it's important to remember when we write online that none of those signals will come across. Your reader can only read the text on the screen. We also don't have the goodwill of our partner(s) in conversation like we typically do when face-to-face, which can make misunderstandings come easily. I'd err on the side of caution – if you want to act clever in a comment section, you should include something other than the face of your comment that makes it clear. For example, you could use a quick clarification by parentheses or a dependent clause, or by just adding a short post-script sentence to let people know you're not serious. You can also use emojis, but they can also be misread if you're not careful – a laughing face could read as callousness instead of good humor, for instance.

Once you feel confident enough in your English-language skills, you can begin to rely on your understanding of the subtext of your word choices and phrasing. One of the great aspects of English that makes it so expressive (and so hard to learn) is how many word choices you have from different language and literary origins. With practice, you'll learn that many words and phrases are the same or similar on their face, but will read slightly differently to a native-speaking audience.

Then again, you can't ever go wrong with saying exactly what you mean.

Precipitation24

Thank you for your valuable opinion! It is very helpful!

There have also been comments from several accounts that appear to be native English speakers claiming that "if such expressions were actually being used, they should stop". However, none of them claimed to have actually seen such examples, so I now believe that Eshtarwind's statement that "Please kill yourself" was used as praise may have been incorrect.

Also, as you mentioned, I understand that my attempts at humor in the text usually do not come across at all to native English speakers. As I wrote in my previous article "Is 'very good' offensive?",
https://precipitation24.newgrounds.com/news/post/1422229
I realized that it is nearly impossible for non-native English speakers to infer the impression a phrase makes on certain people based on the words alone, especially when it depends on the cultural context in which it is used. For this reason, for example, when I create art that includes humorous English colloquialisms, I make it a point to consult with native speakers as much as possible.
https://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/precipitation24/todd-phillips
I am lucky to have friends I can have conversations with about these things.

FetidFursonaC0rp53

This has nothing to do with your question, but did you have colleagues at your school that were foreigners? If so, how were they treated by the locals that knew they were English teachers? I've got a friend that's a weeb, and he's dead-set on being an English teacher in Japan. Not to be indelicate, but I've heard that gaijin English teachers have a well-established bad reputation in Japan, specifically that they're seen as sleazes with Japan fetishes. I've also heard that there's a ton of wage competition among foreigners for teaching jobs, since teaching is the only thing otherwise unskilled weebs from the West can do for a living if they want to live in Japan. I'm kinda worried for him, and I don't think he knows what he would be signing up for.

Precipitation24

Also, what your friend is probably referring to is the role of an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT). They are employed by the Japanese Ministry of Education to primarily assist Japanese English teachers in teaching students English listening and speaking, while the Japanese teachers primarily teach English grammar and reading/writing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistant_Language_Teacher

I was taught by about ten ALTs during my school years. They were basically treated the same as other Japanese teachers and were responsible for teaching about 50 minutes per class per week. Therefore, a student would have about 50 minutes of interaction with an ALT, and in that limited amount of communication time, there were no teachers who developed a bad reputation among the students.

There are several reasons why those who visit Japan tend to mistakenly believe that they are "perceived negatively by the Japanese," but in short, it is generally believed that Japan still has almost no immigrants, and there are few opportunities to interact with non-Japanese people in daily life. However, as long as ALTs successfully fulfill their role of teaching English to Japanese children, I believe that their personalities rarely become a significant issue for Japanese children (although outside of school, ALTs probably face the same daily life and challenges as other non-Japanese residents in Japan, with which I am not very familiar).

From my perspective as a former Japanese student, what all ALTs had in common was a high level of English proficiency (whereas Japanese proficiency is not as important because ALTs usually do their work in English only). The definition of "high English proficiency" depends on the age group of the Japanese children they are teaching. For example, when teaching elementary school students, it is important to understand that they know almost no English beyond basic words like "cat" or "dog." On the other hand, when teaching high school students, it is necessary to understand the tendencies of academic English used in Japanese university entrance exams, which is different from everyday conversation.

Finally, I should mention that ALT salaries are almost the same as those of general government employees in Japan. If someone wants a higher salary, one option is to use their Japanese language skills, which I mentioned are not essential to becoming an ALT, and look for a job with companies such as cram schools. The reason many cram schools require Japanese language skills is that the teachers have to teach English to Japanese students independently.

This is based on what I learned when I received a similar question on Newgrounds PM. I hope the information is helpful.

Gdgdgdgdgdgd

Louket is right, western media probably gets so much more hate comments than eastern. Instagram for example

Precipitation24

Wow, that is an interesting point of view! However, please let me at least say this, Japanese comment sections on news sites are terrible. It is a common thing that many global game site close their comment section only on Japanese LOL

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