"Jamie Jones" <hentai_yagi@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message [🔎] 1148358650.13174.12.camel@doomguy">news:[🔎] 1148358650.13174.12.camel@doomguy...
Only if an adequate English version was available [1], pruning the Japanese docs would be an option IMO (and only because ~99.9% of Japanese people have good command of English).You must have a very different experience of Japanese people then I do. If we talk percentages using my immediate family as an example, only 33% of them speak any English, and of that, only 16% would speak what is considered good English. Far less then the ~99.9% you quote. In short dropping the Japanese docs should not be an option even if an English version is available.
Well, remember that there are four distinct parts to language comprehension. Reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Reading is easier than writing, and listening is easier than speaking.When reading or listening a complete understanding of the language's syntax is not necessary. Also understanding subtle nuances of the language are usually far more important
for writing and speaking than for reading and listening.I suspect that some of your family can understand English far better than they can produce it.
Japanese's relationship with English is complicated. There is regular English, transliterated English, and several transliterated English words have been adopted by the Japanese language.
I have heard of some Japanese product manuals written entirely in transliterated English! (Using kana. This is a bit annoying to US importers of the product, who would prefer real English, or at the very least, transliterated English written in romaji. [Normal English speakers could probably guess the original English word often enough to understand the sentences.])