[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chiangi:
[B]This is not referring to English announcements per se, but on transpacific flights to and from Japan, AA, along with CO, sometimes give announcements in Japanese that I can hardly understand. I am a native speaker of Japanese.

NW and UA are excellent in terms of announcements in English and Japanese (and other Asian languages on intra-Asia flights), because they are done by native speakers. (I've had two flights this year where UA sort of experimented with non-natives in making announcements in Japanese.)

AA and CO do not seem to hire Japanese nationals for FA, perhaps a union problem?
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Yes, Chiangi, I, too, feel CO's Japanese announcements are sometimes worse than English announcements made on domestic JL/NH flights, which is quite appalling! Whereas, once on UA transpacific flight, I was tuned on to the pre-departure flight deck conversation and a senior Japanese FA made a remarkable and impeccable Japanese translation out of it that was so much filled with technical jargons. So impressed I was, I made a comment to the chief purser and she must have passed it on the the captain; when I woke up, there was a nice handwritten message from the captain thanking my comments and loyalty to UA Voila, there was also a Dom Perigon wrapped up in a white linen as a gift! This is truly a 'once in blue moon' flight experience. Bet I will never experience this for another century on CO's transpacific flights.

[This message has been edited by Kaoru Kanetaka (edited 11-26-2000).]