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Thanks for all your comments. I talked about this with the students in my Wednesday discussion class, and they all agreed that it is a really difficult topic. I’ll try and think of something easier for next week.
One of my students said something that made me laugh. He said that the biggest proponent of legalising casinos is Governor Hashimoto, so it must be a bad idea.
As I said in the entry, as I understand it, Japan already has plenty of legal gambling, so I can’t see how casinos would be any different. I think if the locations were chosen carefully, casinos could be used to breathe life back into some dying towns and communities. As well as bringing in lots of money, they would also create a lot of jobs.
Anyway, here is some feedback on your comments.
So, the proposal itself is like a gambling, isn’t it?
Basically, Abenomics is one huge gamble, and I don’t think this proposal would be any more dangerous than that!
It is also said that the gambling industry has quite a few 天下りex-policemen.
Ah, our old friend amakudari again. I don’t think Japan will have any kind of future until this practice is banned.
Casinos gave a huge boost in Macao’s economy
Casinos gave a huge boost to Macao’s economy.
I myself rarely gamble.
This is a good structure to learn if you don’t know it. It’s one way of translating 私は.
I don’t think casino itself is not so bad if people are not addicted to it.
I don’t think casinos themselves are so bad as long as people do not become addicted to them.
I wonder if you have similar experiences
I wonder if any of you have had a similar experience.
Are there any good ideas to ride a bike against the wind?
Does anyone know a good way to ride a bike against the wind? (Yes, lean forward, and get stronger legs!)
I might have got run over if I had just stayed on the bike being unable to go forward in the middle of the street.
The first bit of that sentence is really nice. The second bit could be “… if I had just stayed on the bike and been stuck in the middle of the street.”
That’s all for today. Have a great weekend.
Hi David,
Thank you for the feedback.
Yes, “be stuck”! That is the word I was looking for! Why couldn’t I think of it!
>(Yes, lean forward, and get stronger legs!)
I know! But I was expecting an easier way, like magic. lol!
>I wonder if any of you have had a similar experience.
And this one is very helpful, too. I was thinking that “experience” can be used as words like “history” as in “The temple has a long history.” I see!
Have a nice weekend, everyone!
Hi David,
Thank you for your feedback.
I find this proposal very weird（突飛な）and suspicious because some politicians including Mr.Hashimoto are “unusually” eager to realize it. The government explains that its primary purpose is to get foreign currency, though. In fact, Japan might get a lot of foreign money from wealthiest people in the world by realizing casinos, but personaly I don’t really like the idea in the first place. I simply don’t think it’s a wholesome way for a nation(Japan) to make money. Do you think I’m just covering up?
> Basically, Abenomics is one huge gamble, and I don’t think this proposal would be any more dangerous than that!
I agree with you,
Besides Abenomics, I feel that Mr.Abe is gradually revealing his real character these days.
Have a nice weekend, all !
Hi David and everyone,
Thank you so much for your feedback! It was a very cold day today and tomorrow will be cold too. Be careful not to catch a cold.
This is nothing to do with this week’s topic. Actually it’s related to the previous topic: pronunciation. I wrote about pronunciation on my facebook and I want to share with you, too.
There are several students whose English is high level in my classes. There is one girl who speaks very good and naturally and I was especially amazed by her pronunciation. The other day she came to me after class and she said that she went to the German Christmas Market in Osaka with her family excitedly in beautiful American English!! Coincidentally, I’m going to go to the same event this Sunday so we talked about it for a while. I asked her teacher the reason of her good English and he said she has been learning English and traveled to foreign countries several times. But I thought she speaks like English native and she must be living in English speaking country for certain years but the teacher said I don’ think she did. Well, I should ask her about it. One thing I noticed is that how hard I try to be able to speak correct pronunciation, it’s impossible because I started learning English when I got old. There is a theory that there is a critical period in learning foreign languages: after you become 9 years old, it’s impossible to achieve correct sounds of foreign languages. You see there are some foreign residents whose Japanese is so good like Pakun but still we can’t distinguish they are not Japanese. Somewhat their Japanese are different from ours.
My point is whether this girl has experience of living in English country or not, she started learning English early and she gained native pronunciation!!
I was quite impressed with her and motivated me to study English harder to be good enough to teach her!!
Hi Fumie,
Thank you for sharing your idea.
I agree with you that young children can copy foreign languages’ pronunciation, but to be honest, I wonder why many Japanese people are interested in native-like pronunciation so much.
I guess your student just experienced a lot of “input” and “output” of English language than other Japanese children. Generally speaking, I think it costs a lot of money, time and parents’ efforts if you want your children to get it without moving from our country.
My son and I went to the Christmas party of my son’s English class this evening. In his class there’s a mother who values pronunciation the highest in English learning and forgets about all other things. She’s a mother of two children(3,5) and now she wants her younger one to start taking English classes, too. I told her that your daughter wouldn’t get native-like pronunciation by only taking a 45 minute English class once a week. She told me that her English pronunciation was bad and she didn’t want her children to be like her. Actually, I don’t think the problem is not only her pronunciation, though! Anyway, I felt “Is this a deja vu?” She is exactly the same as the mothers who send their children to Biwa’s classes.
If you ask me, it’s of course better if you gain native-like pronunciation, but even if you couldn’t, there would be still a lot of things to learn in English language. I like English and I want my son to be able to speak some English, but I try not to expect too much because English is not everything.
Another friend of mine from my English club told me that she read in somewhere that the reason why Japanese people’s English level was still very low, although we’ve been talking about its importance since long. The answer was that English was not really necessary to live in Japanese society after all and it would not change so much in the future, either. I thought that was right to the point. I never mean to say you don’t need to study English hard, though!
It is said that the more your language is developed, the less other languages are accepted in your country. I have a feeling that English, French and Japanese might be ones of those languages.
Hi YU,
Thank you for answering my comment!
> If you ask me, it’s of course better if you gain native-like pronunciation, but even if you couldn’t, there would be still a lot of things to learn in English language. I like English and I want my son to be able to speak some English, but I try not to expect too much because English is not everything.
– I agree with you.
In a conversation between someone, content is more important than pronunciation or level of languages whether we speak English or Japanese or other languages. Suppose there were two people and one person spoke very good English but he said only meaningless things and another one spoke poor English but he spoke very important, intriguing things (try to convey his message with gestures and facial expressions), which person do you want to carry on a conversation?
When I went to an English cafe and there were several native staff and I talked one of them and he always end up changing the topic to dirty talks. I thought it is better to talk with Japanese guest who visited there even though their English isn’t perfect when other native staff wasn’t available.
> The answer was that English was not really necessary to live in Japanese society after all and it would not change so much in the future, either.
– As you may know, the Minister of Monbukagakusyo announced the new English education renovation plan and its aim is to raise people who can communicate and be succeessful in global society.
Although I think it’s a tall order because how they find enough teachers who have enough ability to be able to teach what they expect.
Hi Fumie and YU,
>The answer was that English was not really necessary to live in Japanese society after all and it would not change so much in the future, either.
>Although I think it’s a tall order because how they find enough teachers who have enough ability to be able to teach what they expect.
I read in the newspaper a few days ago that the Ministry of education is planning this time to have junior-high schools to teach English classes in English. I wonder why they keep proposing unrealistic plans every time. If they really want to do it, they should change the universities(faculty of education) first. Anyway, one thing for sure is that many Japanese people are simply dissatisfied with what they have acquired despite all the time and effort of learning. I really hope they don’t end up in a chaos again!
Hi Fumie,
– As you may know, the Minister of Monbukagakusyo announced the new English education renovation plan and its aim is to raise people who can communicate and be succeessful in global society.
I know what you mean very well, but still I think there’s a huge gap between what the government or most parents dream of and what Japanese society actually needs. In my opinion, everyone including our government misunderstands that our children would become international-minded and succcessful in the world, only if they were able to speak English, but it’s totally the wrong idea. It is often said that one of the reasons why Japan is declining is that Japanese people are bad at English, but it’s nonsense because that’s nothing new. I even feel our government tries to brainwash us to believe everything is because of our poor English abilities, although they actually know that is not the main reason. I don’t mean Japan doesn’t need to change their school English education, though.
Hi Biwa,
> I wonder why they keep proposing unrealistic plans every time.
> Anyway, one thing for sure is that many Japanese people are simply dissatisfied with what they have acquired despite all the time and effort of learning. I really hope they don’t end up in a chaos again!
Indeed!!
The more Japan fails in school English education, the more English schools in Japan will be flourish because the number of parents who suffer from the gaps between what the governments and parents expect our children to get from school English education and what they actually can learn from it just will go on increasing. As the government carries out their work at randam, parents’ suffering deepens.
Hi David,
Thank you for your feedback. I had a situation at work this week and that gave me a headache. I am not sure but I might lose one of my staff. Because this problem gives her a good reason to resign her job!! She works as a temp but she has worked here for several years. She is very capable worker so if she quits, we will be damaged. Hope she won’t quit and stick with us!
Good night and sleep tight.
amo
Hi Biwa and YU,
Thanks for sharing your ideas about English education in Japan. I hope the government will have a plan to boost Japanese people’s English abilities and make them international minded. I think only English education at schools isn’t enough if we needed to use English in our daily life, our English would be better.
Hi YU,
>As the government carries out their work at randam, parents’ suffering deepens.
I really think so.
By the way, there was an article on this issue in Japantoday. The comments are more interesting than the article itself. Most of the comments are similar to what we discussed the other week. It’s really funny because the Ministry of Education always tries to do what most people say will not work.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/education-ministry-proposes-radical-english-education-reform
Hi amo,
>Hope she won’t quit and stick with us!
I hope so, too! And I hope you don’t get any busier than you are now.