Engrish

I stumbled across an interesting TV show in Japan the other day (yes, an interesting Japanese TV show. I was just as surprised as you) and it really opened my eyes about the English language. This show, Eigo de shabera naito, is an educational and entertaining show that tests the English ability of non native speakers. It is co-hosted by a goofy looking goober Patrick Harlan who actually seems like a decent guy. He's a gaijin talent from the US.

Native English speakers, particularly Americans, are very quick to laugh or poke fun at incorrect English but if you do the math, the ratio of native English speakers to non-native is about 1:4 ( have seen the numbers vary from about 1:3 to 1:5). This is a pretty humbling statistic. Not only does it make my own 'version' of English seem insignificant, but just knowing that such a large group of people are at least bilingual makes me feel a bit stupid and want to study Japanese harder.

So what is English really? English to me is just communication. If the listener/reader understands, isn't that enough? Isn't that the point?

Here is a youtube clip of the TV show:

Mary Kate and Ashley in Japan