/vr/ - Retro Games

>>3809759
Up to the beginning of the 20th century, the Japanese language used in writing could have its roots traced back to the language used in the peak of Heian period (around the year 1000), so called 文語 - bungo. Compared to this, the spoken Japanese language was much different - its evolution was much faster than the one of written Japanese.

You can observe this in literary works.

Compare for example

遠野物語 (Toono Monogatari) by Yanagida Kunio, originally released in 1910, which is written in bungo
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001566/files/52504_49667.html

to

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke's 鼻 (Hana) released in 1916, which is written in "colloquial" language. "Colloquial" here refers to the language people actually spoke at the beginning of 20th century, that is, not the bungo mentioned above, but Japanese similar to then one spoken and written nowadays.
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000879/files/42_15228.html

This switch occured with the generational change of writers at the time (Yanagida was born in 1875, Akutagawa was a generation younger, born in 1892) and was based on movements like genbun icchi undou. Search for "言文一致" on this wiki page to see details of that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system

So yeah, there was period in history when written and spoken Japanese were wildly different.

But I doubt this is what you teacher had in mind, it probably was something like this >>3809763 instead. Was the teacher a native Japanese? Since she couldn't read a Japanese speech I presume not, but then again, if you can't read a speech, should you be teaching Japanese? Then again, I dunno what kind of speech it was and how difficult it was.

Also it's worth nothing than even nowadays there are different styles inside the same modern Japanese. Some words and grammar are more formal and as such more fit to be used in writing, some things are better used in speech, but the same is true for all languages, I'd say.