I’ve talked at length before about some of my experiences living in Japan, but I think one of the more interesting things that comes to my mind is the weather in Japan during the summer. This is something that honestly surprised me a great deal when I first arrived in Tokyo. Because I’m originally from a place that does not typically get very hot at all and where there is typically snow on the ground in significant quantities by the middle or end of October, I am not typically fond of hot temperatures. It’s now mid-August, so it has been quite hot recently in Tokyo. I wasn’t really aware of it at the time, but Tokyo is located approximately 35 degrees north. This places it somewhere around Georgia in the United States, so I should have perhaps expected the weather to somewhat resemble Georgia’s, and some research shows that Atlanta’s and Tokyo’s average temperatures are generally somewhat similar. I have found that Tokyo’s summers are quite hot. They are also very humid, as well. This is something that I find to be rather different from many other places that I have lived in. In Alaska, it doesn’t really get too terribly hot at all, of course, and that’s still my preferred type of weather in general. Florida is much closer to Tokyo’s weather but lacks an actual winter season. Basically, Florida has two seasons: hot and extremely hot, both with relatively high degrees of humidity. One of the other places [→続きを読む]

While I have typically written about learning and education up until this point, I think I’d like to take the time to discuss some of my experiences living in a foreign country. As some of my students are interested in study abroad programs at various Japanese universities, I think it might be interesting to discuss some of my own experiences with living abroad. I had just turned 19 not long before I arrived in Japan for the first time. I was in the United States Marines at that point and had been for slightly less than a year. Near the end of my training, I was given several options for where I would like to serve. My choices were the United States (West), United States (East), and overseas. Knowing that Marines with my job that served overseas were basically only located in Japan, I realized that this was essentially a way to visit a foreign country for free, so I selected the overseas option with the hope of going to Okinawa. Fortunately for me, Okinawa was in fact the location that was selected for me, so after a month of leave, I went to Okinawa. When I got to Okinawa, it was night and I couldn’t see very much, but one of the first things I noticed after leaving the airport was that the Marine that was driving the car that I was in was driving on the left side of the road. In the United States, we drive on [→続きを読む]

One of the most effective ways to study a foreign language is to fully immerse yourself in that language. This generally involves entering an environment in which the chosen language is the only language used. One of the reasons that total immersion is very effective is because it forces the student to learn. Because the student is now in a situation in which they have no choice but to interact with the language, they will learn through constant exposure. While this may seem intimidating, and it can be at first, I myself have found that it most definitely is an effective way to learn. When I arrived in Okinawa and began living on one of the military bases there, I had already learned small amounts of Japanese and my small degree of fluency was good enough for my friends to use me as a somewhat convenient translator, but my knowledge was still limited. After I moved to Tokyo, I began to study Japanese at my university. The Japanese classes, of course, were no longer the only time I encountered the Japanese language; as I no longer lived on an American military base, there were not a lot of foreigners to talk to outside of my school, and as a result, my level of immersion in the language was much greater than it was when I lived on Okinawa. Although I was mostly comfortable with the language before, I found that this sort of total immersion helped me to greatly increase [→続きを読む]

When I came to Japan for the first time, I found that there were many things that the United States and Japan have in common, but I also found that there are also a large amount of differences. I moved back to the United States for a short time, but then I returned to Japan in order to study here. I would like to talk about my time studying in a foreign country. One of the major differences between the United States and Japan that I encountered when I first arrived was that banking and money seemed to be done slightly differently. Although it has changed since I arrived here, when I first came to Japan in 2009, I found that many stores, particularly restaurants, did not accept payment by card, so I often found myself carrying cash. This was mostly when I was living in Okinawa, but I did encounter similar experiences when I later moved to Tokyo. This has mostly changed since my arrival, however, as I have increasingly found that the number of restaurants that do not accept credit cards or debit cards seems to have decreased. This was something of a change for me, as in the United States, most places accept cards, and it reminded me that I was not living in my own country and that I must adapt to the local environment. I did not attend a Japanese school during my time studying in Japan; I went to an American university instead. While [→続きを読む]

Sometimes students may get an opportunity to study abroad. There are several reasons why studying abroad can be beneficial for a student. The first reason that studying abroad might be beneficial is that it allows students to improve their proficiency in a foreign language if the student studies in a country where the primary language is not their own native language. This sort of experience will allow them to increase their proficiency in that language, and students could benefit greatly from doing so. One of the best ways to improve proficiency in a language is to totally immerse yourself in it; by living in an environment in which the student would have constant exposure to the language, the student’s level of proficiency will likely increase. Another reason that study abroad might be beneficial is that the student will get to experience interacting with people from a different culture. This can lead to the student being exposed to different ways of thinking than what they might be used to. This, in turn, could lead the student to developing a more international mindset. A third reason that students may want to consider is that studying internationally may allow them to attend schools that are highly regarded internationally or offer education programs that will allow them the student to study subjects that the schools in their own countries perhaps might not offer. As I studied in Japan instead of in my own country, I found it to be most interesting to live in [→続きを読む]

Translating between different languages can be one of the most difficult tasks that a student of foreign languages may be required to do. While some instances may be relatively simple, there are other instances in which the process is considerably more difficult. While there are many different situations in which someone may wish to translate between languages, I’ll be focusing on general academic work here. If a student is studying a foreign language, they may have an idea that they wish to express, either verbally or in writing, but they may not know the proper words to use because they have not learned the words that they need yet. In this case, it is possible that the student will do research and attempt to find the word or words that they need in order to be able to express their ideas or thoughts. While there are many ways to go about translating effectively, let’s look at machine translations and how they can be both beneficial and harmful, depending on the situation. In general, machine translation tools, like Google Translate, tend to translate things literally. Because of this, some expressions that may sound just fine in some languages may not turn out well when put through a machine translation process. One such example is the Japanese term 切れ者, a sharp (as in intelligent/capable) person. Put 切れ者 into Google Translate and it will result in “cut person”, which is definitely not what the writer would be looking for in that situation. In [→続きを読む]

I have found that, in general, Japanese students tend to make the same mistakes when they are writing in English. Of these mistakes, the majority of them are grammatical in nature, but there are other types of mistakes, as well. One of the more common types of mistakes is that Japanese students will attempt to write in English in the same way that they would write the same sentence in Japanese; this can sometimes be acceptable, but there are often times when using such an approach results in the English sentence sounding quite strange or unnatural. Another major difficulty that Japanese students face is that many of them struggle with format and structure in their essays. Although students can write simple sentences without much effort, some students generally have difficulty writing longer, more complex sentences, and they also struggle to format their essays in ways that make them easy to read. This can result in the student writing many short, simple sentences when combining those sentences together to make something more complex would be a much better choice. Writing short, simple sentences is fine when appropriate, but students should attempt to write more complex sentences. For essay structure, I have seen many students have difficulty with proper formatting. Rather than write proper paragraphs, students tend to write perhaps one sentence and then immediately start a new paragraph instead of continuing with their current paragraph. In such a case, the student will generally tend to not write any additional information related [→続きを読む]

In a previous entry, I discussed how my experiences with learning Japanese have led to a way that I have personally found is an effective study tool while also having a great deal of fun simultaneously. Let’s talk about this method again and then take a look at some other effective and entertaining methods of study. I mentioned previously that I found that there is an overlap between one of my favourite hobbies, playing video games, and improving my ability to understand Japanese. As I mentioned before, I spend a lot of time in Akiba talking to the staff about rare video games, attempting to find and buy those games, and then hopefully buying them and playing them. As also mentioned previously, I do live in Japan, and most of the video games here in Japan are entirely in Japanese, although there are a few exceptions. Aside from rare cases like this, most games are in Japanese with no other language options. Although you might be wondering how this helps me study, the answer is that it literally forces me to learn to be able to understand. This, in turn, also has another very important effect; it increases confidence. Confidence is important, I feel, as if you don’t feel confident, you may not enjoy what you are doing. In the summer of 2009, I bought a Japanese PS2 and a certain Japanese PS2 game not long after I had moved to Okinawa. I tried to play it but failed, as [→続きを読む]

Previously, I discussed how to not be afraid of making mistakes when learning foreign languages. I also briefly discussed how to use your mistakes to learn and become more proficient. This time, I want to discuss how I personally feel that learning Japanese has helped me, both professionally and recreationally. I learned Japanese at a university level while also living in Japan. As I spent some time in the United States Marine Corps, I was 23 years old when I started university and studying Japanese at this level. Since I had been stationed in Okinawa for just a week short of three years, however, I had been exposed to the language for several years prior to beginning my formal study, so I already knew a small amount. This, actually, is where the story really begins, even before my professional education in Japanese. I no longer remember how, but I somehow learned a small amount of Japanese when I was living in Okinawa. It was not very much, but I still ended up using it quite often; none of my friends knew any Japanese at all, although two of them did later begin to study. Naturally, as the only person around who had anything resembling fluency in the language, I was often brought along when my friends went into town, and I was often used as a convenient translator. I was occasionally not able to say very much, and sometimes I would end up realizing that I had the ability to [→続きを読む]

In my previous entry, I discussed what I experienced when I learned German in high school. I do want to discuss one of the most important aspects of learning a new language, however, and I feel that this single point is so important that I have decided to devote an entire entry just to this one point. Long after I stopped studying German, I made a new friend who lives here in Tokyo. He is from Switzerland, and German is his native language. Although his English is quite excellent, I did try to speak to him in German once. When I attempted this, however, I found that I had forgotten almost everything that I had ever learned and my pronunciation was quite poor, as I had not spoken the language in well over a decade. He laughed and told me that my German, particularly my pronunciation, was terrible, but I did something that might surprise quite a few Japanese students of English: I also laughed, told him in English that I had not practiced in over a decade, and proceeded to speak in German anyway. The important thing to note here is that I did something that I think many Japanese students of English may have difficulty with, which is that I did not let the opinion of the person that I was talking to affect me or my feelings despite how bluntly he phrased it, and I continued in my attempt to speak in German. Now, since we are [→続きを読む]