Japanese Scientists Make Verbal Translation Break-Thru

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

Throughout history languages have separated human beings into exclusive groups, making communication difficult or impossible, exacerbating their cultural differences and contributing to wars and other kinds of violence.

The primary reason for this linguistic plague is the fact that languages are the reservoir, the transmitter, and the controller of cultures. People who speak different languages have problems because they think and behave in different ways.

When working as a trade journalist in Asia in the 1950s and 60s I learned that the cultures of China, Korea and Japan were bound up in hundreds of key words in each of the three languages, and that you simply could not understand their respective ways of thinking and behaving without intimate knowledge of these key words—a fact that I subsequently used in a series of “cultural code word” books on these countries.

But technology is on the verge of eliminating some of the linguistic barriers that separate human beings—and much sooner than you might think.

Most of the world is familiar with the “universal language” devices used by the fictional Capt. James T. Kirk and the intrepid crew of Star Trek to communicate with the various life-forms they encountered during their travels around the galaxies.

Now, reality is rapidly catching up with fiction. Japan’s Council for Science and Technology Policy [CSTP] has challenged the country’s automated speech translation researchers to improve the present technology in the next five years to the point that automated translators will be a reality for Japanese who want to communicate with English and Mandarin speakers.

Prototypes of these translators have already been field-tested in China, and the word is that they worked perfectly as long as the conversations were simple. The process is based on storing hundreds of thousands of sentences and speech patterns into the devices that have exact equivalents in the target languages.

The goal of the CSTP is to have universal translators on the market for all of the world’s major languages within ten years!

The impact that this will have on the world is so potentially profound and broad that over a period of a few generations it will surely change the nature of human cultures.

This revolutionary change in the ability of human beings to communicate with each other across language barriers will inevitably increase the volume of conversations, since every word that is pregnant with cultural nuances and uses will have to be explained in detail to make the communication complete.

To fully explain the cultural content and role of the Spanish term macho (mah-choh), for example, requires several hundred words. To fully explain the Japanese term kaizen (kigh-zen), or “continuous improvement,” requires as many as a thousand words or more (there is a whole book on the subject).

If you think there is too much babble in today’s world, consider what it will be like when this is multiplied many times over by universal translation technology embedded in your cell phone!
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Boyé Lafayette De Mente is the author of more than 50 business, cultural and language books on Japan, China, Korea, Mexico, Hopi Land and Navajo Land. See his website: http://www.business-cultural-language-books-on-china-japan-korea-mexico.info/

Which Side of Your Brain Am I Talking To?

Why Men & Women Talk
Past Each Other!

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

It has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that the two sides of the human brain perform different functions, ranging from speech, emotional reactions, sexual pleasure, fear, and analytical thinking to the appreciation of beauty.

There is also growing evidence that one side of the brain is dominant in most people. This is of vital importance because left-brain oriented people think and behave differently from right-brain oriented people.

One noted authority on the function of the brain, Japan’s Dr. Tadanobu Tsunoda (author of The Japanese Brain and numerous other works), asserts that the language one first learns as a child is the deciding factor in which side of the brain is dominant for the rest of the person’s life.

Dr. Tsunoda has spent several decades studying the influence of languages on brain function, using electronic devices he developed to test thousands of people in his Tokyo laboratory—both Japanese and non-Japanese [I was one of his subjects]—with some amazing results.

He found that people whose native tongue is Japanese (or Polynesian!) are primarily right-brain oriented, while all other people are primarily left-brain oriented. (It’s the preponderance of vowels in these two languages!)

It seems that right-brain oriented people are primarily motivated by their emotions and a holistic approach to life, while left-brain oriented people are programmed to be logical and practical-minded, and to take a short-term approach to things.

I used Dr. Tsunoda’s theory as the basis for evaluating the differences between the mind-set and behavior of the right-brained oriented Japanese and the left-brain oriented rest of the world in a book entitled Which Side of Your Brain Am I Talking To?—The Advantages of Using Both Sides of Your Brain.

I believe that the right-brain orientation of the Japanese was one of the primary factors that made it possible for them to recover from the destruction of World War II and turn tiny Japan into the world’s second largest economy in less than thirty years.

All women in left-brain oriented cultures are forced to use right-brain thinking and behavior to survive in their male-dominated societies, while Japanese women, whose culture is primarily right-brain oriented, are forced to use left-brain thinking to cope with their male-dominated society—making them superior in many ways to the male side of the population...

The French and Italians and all Spanish and Portuguese speaking people are more right-brain oriented than Americans, Chinese, Germans, British and other people around the globe--making their cultures significantly more emotion-oriented.

Many of the problems that plague Western countries are caused by too much left-brain thinking and not enough right-brain thinking, and in Which Side of Your Brain Am I Talking To? I pinpoint many areas where business managers and people in general could benefit greatly from learning how and when to use the right side of their brains.

The book attributes the “irrational behavior” of both men and women to which side of their brain they use at a particular time, and provides insights for coping with the built-in gender programming of the brain.
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Copyright © 2007 by Boyé Lafayette De Mente.
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WHICH SIDE OF YOUR BRAIN AM I TALKING TO?—The Advantages of Using Both Sides of Your Brain (and Why Women Must Use the Less Dominant Side of Their Brains in Order to Survive!), by Boyé Lafayette De Mente. Phoenix Books/Publishers. 6x9 trade paperback. 108 pages. $9.95. ISBN: 0914778-95-1. Distributors to the trade: Ingram Book Company; Baker & Taylor. Consumer distribution: Amazon.com, Borders, Barns and Noble, etc.
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A full list of De Mente's books on China, Japan, Korea and Mexico can be seen on his personal website: http://www.phoenixbookspublishers.com/.

How to Psyche Out the Japanese! (Chinese, Koreans & Other Foreigners!)

Using Key Words
As Windows to the Mindset of People!

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

It has become painfully obvious that defining people by their race while virtually ignoring their ethnicity is both dumb and dangerous and the importance of understanding cultures is a new mantra for business leaders as well as diplomats and politicians.

For most people, however, understanding the cultures of others is a process that requires long periods of living in and personally experiencing the cultures, often preceded or combined with extensive studies of research by anthropologists and sociologists.

But there is an easier and faster way of getting into and understanding the mindset of people—a way that I use in my “cultural insight” books on Japan, Korea, China and Mexico.

While working in Asia as a trade journalist in the 1950s and 60s I learned that the attitudes and behavior of the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans were summed up in a relatively small number of key words in their languages—words that explained why they thought and behaved the way they did.

I first became aware of the role that these key words played in the mindset and behavior of the Japanese in my attempts to explain their way of thinking and doing things to American importers who began flocking to Japan in the early 1950s.

I made use of this approach in my first book, Japanese Etiquette & Ethics in Business, published in 1959 [and still in print by McGraw-Hill], introducing such terms as wa/wah (harmony), nemawashi/nay-mah-wah-she (behind the scenes consensus-building), tatemae/tah-tay-my (a facade or front) and honne/hone-nay (real intentions, real meaning) to the international business community.

As a result of my trade reporting experience in early post-World War II Japan I was also the first to introduce the now popular Japanese words kaizen (kie-zen), meaning continuous improvement, and kanban (kahn-bahn), just in time parts delivery, to the international business community.

The more I got into the Japanese, Korean and Chinese way of thinking and doing things the more obvious it became that they were culturally programmed and controlled by key words in their languages, and that these words provided a short-cut to understanding them.

I then went on to write a series of “cultural and business code word” books on China, Korea and Japan, and eventually added Mexico as well.

People in all societies, especially older societies, are in fact primarily programmed by their languages—and learning the meaning and everyday use of key words in their languages is far more effective than any psychological testing.

My books that are based on this “cultural code word” concept include Japan’s Cultural Code Words, China’s Cultural Code Words, Korea’s Business and Cultural Code Words, and Mexican Cultural Code Words.

All of these titles, except for the Korean book, are also available in paperback editions under different titles, including The Japanese Have a Word for It, There’s a Word for It in Mexico, and The Chinese Have a Word for It.

My latest book using the "cultural code word" approach is Elements of Japanese Design--Guidelines for Understanding & Using Japan’s Classic Sabi-Wabi-Shibui Concepts. In it I identify and explain the concepts and principles that are the foundation of the design of Japan’s arts, crafts and modern-day products, and are having a profound influence on designers around the world.

These ancient Japanese concepts and principles, all expressed in key words, are rapidly becoming the universal standard for well-designed products.

The point is, to truly know and understand a people you must identify and learn the key words in their languages...a point that so far has generally been ignored.

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Copyright © 2007 by Boyé Lafayette De Mente.
[A list of the author's books, with descriptions of each title, is available on his personal website: http://www.phoenixbookspublishers.com/.]