Karate Kid - Miyagi Lied About His English

 Ephraim Belnap 

The evidence for this is pretty self-explanatory. I'm like, drawing a nerd puzzle like some people do, but this isn't so much a post-film analysis so much as humorously extrapolating from what's already fact onscreen. 

The take? 

Mr. Miyagi speaks perfectly fine English and is just faking it around Daniel. 

The first time Daniel met him, he was doing something else and clearly didn't want to be disturbed, so he played the "no speak English good" card to get the kid out faster. Then the next time he saw him, he was on the clock and didn't want to have to talk to this kid longer than he had to. But then at their next meeting, after he saved him from the bullies on Halloween, he kept it up because he was just expecting to give the kid some water and send him off, not commit to teaching him karate. 

And THEN he kept it up when he started teaching Daniel because he thought it was a good tool to prevent the kid from asking too many questions and keep him on task. Which it did fantastically. And for the rest of the film he only talks when he's with Daniel, so it all tracks. 

Then, in the sequel, it gets more complicated, but also gives us definitive proof. 

There's some scenes where Miyagi is with other Okinawans and yet is speaking English. 

A little confusing just in general, but we can excuse that as:

A) Cinematic convention so the audience can understand

 B) Miyagi trying to play along with the expectations of who he's talking to. 

The first scene, he's talking with his ex-girlfriend after decades of her knowing he's been in America. Maybe she's been expecting him to speak English and started the convo speaking it, so he's going along with it. 

The second scene, he's talking with his old friend and international businessman Sato, who seems to speak English for all his dealings and - considering his bullying demeanor - probably enjoys using it as a power move to demonstrate his education. Miyagi goes along with that too. 

That Miyagi speaks in his simple manner alone with Sato is once again, a social tool. Sato is caught up in a useless honor dispute, where Miyagi has to fight him so Sato can uphold his rep as a great leader who honors his grudges, even if they were forty years ago. Miyagi is trying to defuse the situation, convince him that they're just two people at the end of the day, and their reps aren't worth it. His language is part of his expressions of humility. I'm not some great enemy from far away. I'm just a dude. My English isn't even better than yours, despite living among it so much longer than you. Am I really a worthy opponent, worth your time to challenge? No. It all tracks with Miyagi's motivations at this point. 

But the real proof for all of this is also in the same film. 

In this film, and this film only, we see Miyagi's English improve in two situations.  This improvement is simply saying "I" instead of "Miyagi", but considering how simple a convention that is and how often he doesn't do it, that's big enough to count. 

When he's talking with his girlfriend in private, he says, "I should have taken you with me." 

And when Sato finally provokes him enough to fight, he says, "You win, Sato. I will fight you." 

The only thing these two scenes have in common is that Miyagi is very emotional when he's saying them, on the verge of tears in the second one. And in moments of great emotion, you don't reach a breakthrough in your language skills, you regress to speaking in whatever manner you're most used to. Miyagi is so emotional and sincere that he's letting the mask slip in front of his peers, and showing them who he truly is. Miyagi speaks great English, he just hides it most of the time as a power move. 

But what else supports this claim? Oh, just that he served in World War II on the American side! Do you think he could've gotten through basic training and the service if he didn't speak any English!? Well, maybe. He was serving with a lot of other Japanese guys, so it's a little conceivable. But it doesn't seem certain. We know he was social enough that he got married to a girl in Hawai'i, so that's there. 

But more than that, we know that after that, he lived in the United States for almost forty years! He was listening to American radio and watching American TV and serving American clients and working on American cars! There are people who don't learn the language of their second country, but they don't act like this! Dude was out and about in the culture all the time, and you're telling me he hadn't even mastered personal pronouns!? No way. 

Miyagi was doing it on purpose. To get out of talking to people. To make people underestimate him. And most of all, because Miyagi was freaking funny and probably relished the pay-off of revealing that he could talk normally this whole time and just didn't feel like it. 

This, alongside all the other evidence, is the final proof. Miyagi was hilarious. Dude couldn't find a question he couldn't turn into a joke. "You got a black belt?" "Oh, yes. From JC Penney." Number one defense tip? Punch 'em in the nuts. Look at the real life Pat Morita. Dude was born and raised in the Bay Area. Sounded like a used car dealer. I'll bet you dollars to donuts Miyagi sounded like that all the time and at some point a few years after the third film either revealed he could talk normally or - fearing the bit had gone on too long- started gradually improving his patterns around Daniel so he could think his own influence had helped his mentor improve. But it didn't. 'Cause Miyagi was trolling us the whole damn time. And that's just one of many reasons for why he's a legend. RIP Pat Morita.