Speaking Japanese as a Non-Japanese person

For this site, and for my own studying, I write a lot of example sentences. They help me to make the new grammar point or the new expression my own.

I also make a lot of mistakes, and I welcome corrections. Many times, I'll show a co-worker my example, and they will say "意味わかります: I know what you mean." When that happens, I know my grammar is messed up, and I ask them to tell me how they would say what I was trying to say. I learn a lot that way.

However, I also receive a lot of corrections from the Japanese people around me, not about the way I said something, but about the content of what I'm saying. Look at my example sentence for my 2級 Grammar Post, Point 15:

Ex: 彼と結婚しているかぎりは、寝ると彼のいびきを聞く。
As long as I've been married to him, I've been listening to his snores.

This example sentence was unacceptable to a substitute teacher I work with. When I pressed her about WHY this was no good, all she could tell me was "Japanese people would not say something like this."

We went back and forth over the use of かぎり、debated changing the primary clause to 現在進行形 to make the translation a better fit, but no matter what, she didn't think it was okay. Finally, I had to ask her, "Is the GRAMMAR okay? Is this a legitimate application of かぎり?"

She said yes, but it still wasn't natural, because it wasn't something that a Japanese person would say. In this case maybe she's right; maybe there are more natural ways to communicate the same idea. But it's not the first time that the only criticism of my statement has been: "Japanese people don't talk like that" or worse, "Japanese people don't talk about that." I take a philosophical issue with this.

My general goal in learning Japanese is not to become a Japanese person. It's to learn to express whatever I want to express in grammatically appropriate Japanese. You follow the difference, right?

This is an extreme example, but even if you translate it into Japanese, the average Japanese person would not say "I think you're wrong and that your way of thinking reflects either stupidity or willfull ignorance." I can't imagine your 日本一般人 saying something so directly confrontational. However, if I'm having a conversation with a middle-aged man who's telling me, very loudly, that America is a dangerous country and he would rather that his children avoid learning English, so that they grow up Japanese, instead of learning to shoot guns, do drugs, and fornicate, then that is EXACTLY what I want to say. I want to know how to say it.

Today, when I wrote my example for 気味, I extrapolated from my book's example, 風邪気味: a slight cold, and created 日焼け気味: a mild sun-tan. I created it according to the rules in my grammar book, but when I tested it out on the nearest native speaker, I received half-an-hour of "Well, something's not right," before finally being told, "文法的に合っていますが、聞いたことがありません." (In terms of the grammar, it's fine... I've just never heard it put that way before.)

I tend to think that, unless you start learning from the time you're a small child, you will never be able to speak any language exactly like a native speaker. So why try? After all, native speech is not just a matter of mastering the grammar, but it's a matter of being a part of the culture as well. People from different cultures don't communicate in the same ways and the kinds of things we say in English aren't necessarily the kind of things that are said in Japanese.
(For the opposite example, imagine an American or Canadian or Englishman rubbing your corduroy pants or your shaved head and shouting "It feels GOOOD!" 気持ちいい!)

On top of that, who determines what a Japanese person might or might not say? There are things a woman might say that a man wouldn't. There are things that young people might say, that my ANCIENT substitute teacher co-worker has never even heard of. Languages change. Things that you would not have said become things that you say. I don't recommend placing the proverbial keys to the kingdom in my gaijin hands and shouting "Redecorate as you see fit," but take a minute to think about the influence of foreign languages on Japanese. I wouldn't be surprised if a foreigner was the first to coin the now famous "KY."

You can't predict the situations for which you might need a word or expression that you've never used before. I don't know what's gonna happen to me. But the more you know about the way the language works, the better off you will be when those situations surprise. What if one day, I need to make an apologetic explanation to a Shiatsu-masseuse? I wonder if I can use 気味 to say that I had "a bit of an erection."

I guess, part of the guiding philosophy behind the Daily Yo-ji is to provide people with the tools they need to say the things that they want to say, when the need to say them arises. When you say something unexpected in bad Japanese, you're more likely to be dismissed as not knowing what you're saying. If you get your phrasing right, people have no choice but to consider your words.

That being said, let's work to make sure our example sentences are as clear and accurate as possible without compromising the essence of what we want to say.