"cc" <cpasuneadresse@spam.com> wrote in message
news:cd5kam$1b3$1@bgsv5648.tk.mesh.ad.jp...
>
> "Musashi" <Miyamoto@Hosokawa.co.jp> wrote in message
>
> > If you have been watching TV carefully you'd see that these returnees
have
> > become more and
> > more Japanese after they returned including fluency of speech,
mannerisms,
> > appearance, etc.
>
> That's precisely because I didn't notice that. I've just heard journalists
> and politicians repeating it.
> I have asked dozens of Japanese friends to re-listen the interviews to see
> "hints" of living abroad or loss of naturalness of regional accent. Well
> strangely, the 5 ones were too perfect since the second week back in
Japan.
> But well, I cannot tell how they achieve that. It's just particularly
> strange for the 2 housewives that hidded to their children that they were
> Japanese.
>
> CC
>

Well I for one did notice some "discomfort" in their use of Japanese when
they first returned
and saw more ease and fluency as time passed.
Of course they were in a country where Korean was spoken, not say England
where they would
have been buried in English for 20 years. And Korean while as we all know is
far from Japanese, still is closer
than western languages in terms of pronunciation.
Therefore I think it would be an an error to assume that we shuld have seen
the kind of "discomfort using Japanese" that one might expect from someone
who has been speaking a western language for 20 years.
Also one should not expect "loss of regional accent" as I know Japanese
Americans who haven't been
to Japan in 40 + years who still have the Kansai ben they knew as children.