I work in Japanese government, and came to Japan with N1 proficiency.
As a concept, yasashi Japanese (Japanese arranged in a way that it is easier for non-native speakers to understand) is wonderful in certain situations like evacuations, but I also wonder if there are any drawbacks that you may have encountered with it.
For me I have a few gripes:
•Important information can get left out because it’s too hard to simplify. I’ve seen the discrepancies of how much information native Japanese are getting vs when it’s written in Easy Japanese.
I was told in a training that you should expect to only relay 50% of the information, so make sure to prioritize what to say. But that feels like an over generalization and what if 100% is important?
•When staff are told to use yasashii nihongo with “foreigners”, it can create more of an us vs. them feeling, rather than inclusion. As a higher level speaker, being spoken to in yasashii nihongo can feel slow and unnatural, and makes communication less efficient.
•Overuse might limit opportunities for foreign residents to deal with real administrative Japanese and continue improving. Like saying びょういんに行くときのカード、should stay 保険証(ほけんしょう)
But I’m looking at it through my own lens and would like your experiences and thoughts on it.
by Professional_Risk935