Month: February 2013

Japanese language lecture 1 : Introduction.

I have just started teaching Japanese in the U.S. for my friends. I am a native Japanese speaker but I realized how it is difficult to teach my own language systematically. I am actually novice as a teacher. But I promise I will do my best to explain. If you are interested in Japanese, please feel free to contact me, leave the comment. I am living in Charlottesville VA U.S. I can be your language partner.

I am going to teach Japanese on this blog for learners who can speak English.

Japanese, unlike the other foreign languages that you are likely have studied, is not a member of Indo-European family, and is not related to English. Nor is it related to Chinese, even though it has borrowed a large vocabulary from Chinese. It is pretty much a language by itself.

In some ways Japanese is simpler than English, in the other ways it is more complex. For example Japanese is extremely regular in its grammatical forms; the exceptions to the grammatical rules of formation can be counted on your fingers. On the other hand, syntax and sentence structure can become very complex, and idioms are numerous. Even native Japan speaker should keep learning. And also we should care about cultural difference, we have kind of seniority system. That is because, I think, we had a lot of natural disasters. We believe senior has better knowledge. So some times, we follow the senior’s opinion, even when we know the senior person should be wrong. We some time choose harmony of group or society rather than right decision. So, we have different form of language to senior person. But English basically does not have such form and we can discuss our opinion with freely at any age.

On this blog, I will use ‘Basic Japanese Grammar’ written by Everett F Bleiler. And also I might write about the grammatical problem that I would face during teaching.

If you are familiar with Japanese culture, it is good. Anime, Electronics including camera, Game, History, whatever, these are your strength to learn Japanese. Tell me if you are interested in something. Tell me if you have something what you want me to post. Your feedback is important!!

Like learning other languages, you need to practice speaking, but also go back to Grammar periodically.

Again, Japanese grammar, though different from your past experience, is not really difficult. I hope that understanding grammar will make your travel more pleasant when some of you come to Japan in the future.

Asian economic ranking

From the economist article : A game of leapfrog

http://www.economist.com/node/21553498

From point of GDP, it is known Japan is third largest economy in the world, but by which means Japan is the 3rd happiest country in the world? It’s hard to say. Throughout almost all my life, I have always thought that why Japanese economic hasn’t revitalized? What is point? I want to tell you later but today, I want to share the fact which is less known. This is review recent article from the Economist.

For years, Japan was Asia’s richest and most powerful economy.  It was the first Asian economy to industrialize, and the emerging Asian tigers Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and late China – merely followed in its tracks. Now, however Japan is steadily overtaken.

It is less known that Asia’s so-called newly industrialized economies (NIES) are, one by one, becoming richer than Japan. Most economist reckon that the best way to compare living standard is to take GDP per person measured at purchasing-power parity (PPP), which adjust for difference in the cost of living in each country. You know, the cost of living in Tokyo is the most expensive in the world 2012. Compare to New York City 33th and Shanghai is 16th. (See figure on source: http://www.mercer.com/press-releases/cost-of-living-rankings )

Cost of living: http://www.mercer.com/press-releases/cost-of-living-rankings

On this gauge, Japan was overtaken by Singapore in 1993, by Hong Kong in 1997 and by Taiwan in 2010. And South Korea will be richer than Japan soon. This is surprising, because in 1980, South Korea’s GDP per person was barely a quarter the level of Japan’s.

Now, Japanese prime minister is Shinzo Abe. He is famous for his policy of economics called Abenomics. Thanks for expectation for Abenomics, now stock price of Tokyo market has increased and the price of yen has decreased, which are good, will help Japanese economy later. But, the issue is Abenomics is going to introduce inflation target 2 percent. I am not sure whether or not inflation suits for Japanese economy. I said the living cost in Tokyo is the most expensive in the world already. If your salary is stable but the price of product increase, it is hard to live. And also it is important that inflation rate should be stable. Does this work?

Even it seems we have had hard time. For people in the world, Japanese economy is one of most important model. It is because Japanese economy has experienced Modern Industrialization, Bubble economy, and Aging society in advance any other country in the world.  Let’s thinks about the future of Japanese economy.

Movie Review 1 : Shawshank redemption

This movie is the story of a prison break, which is caused by a smart banker who is suspect for having killed his wife. The movie starts from the scene when the main character called Andy (Tom Hanks plays) is in a drunken state. While he was setting up the gunfire, his wife was having sex with famous professional golfer. He knew that his wife had a secret love affair with the golfer, decided to kill them both. But he couldn’t. He threw the gun away in river and drove to home.  However, wife and golfer were killed at that night with gun.

In the court, Andy was asked why he killed his wife. Because the motivation is clear and there is no alibi, he insisted he did not but no one believed him. Unfortunately, the police could not find the gun that was used for murder. The prosecutor said to him “Is it convenient for you, isn’t it?” He said with angrily “Because I am not a killer, this is not convenient for me.”

That’s why he came Shawshank prison.

He had been in the Shawshank for 20 years. In the prison, he was raped by a male prisoner, and worked for the officers and the governor of the prison to help them made papers for tax illegally, built library and dug a hole which is large enough to escape from prison.

One day, young thief came to the Shawshank. He knew the truth and the killer, so Andy asked the governor to reexamine his case. But his offer was rejected and, the young thief was killed because Andy was useful and also has many secrets of the governor and the officer of the prison.

So, he decided to escape from Shawshank using the hole.

He found the resort periphery of the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Interestingly, the money that he spent there was the money he made at Shawshank prison during serving for the offices and the governor as imaginary person, who is only existing in paper.

What I learned from this movie is the importance of enduring work throughout habits.

University Word List

If you are English learner and want to understand and use academic words, learning University Word List is definitely beneficial. So, what is University Word List?

International student who enter academic program as undergraduate or graduate students in the U.S. face considerable hurdles, not least of which is the daunting amount of and type of vocabulary they are likely to encounter in their academic fields, and be expected to use in their academic writing. Student with advanced proficiency in English may generally be expected to have acquired a minimum productive English vocabulary of 2000 head words (plus derivatives) along with a larger receptive vocabulary, while an average American undergraduate is estimated to have a vocabulary of about 20000 words. This wide gap in vocabulary knowledge would seem likely to penalize international students from the beginning by slowing down their rate of reading and compromising their comprehension of study material overall. In wiring, it has been noted that international student tend to use less academic vocabulary than their native born peers.

Studies of vocabulary reported by Paul Nation (1990) have shown that a basic 2000 words vocabulary of high frequency items actually comprise 87 percent of words in an academic text. A further 800 words academic words have been identified which comprise an additional 8 percent (95 percent of total) of textual items. Three percent (98 percent of total) of remaining words are technical items, which differ from on field to another, generally consisting of 1000 to 2000 items, which are usually taught or acquired in the academic program. The remaining 2 percent (100 percent of total) of words in any text are considered to be low frequency words, numbering up to 123000 (they may be mentioned only once in a given text).

So that, knowledge of a further 800 academic words can significantly boost the comprehension level of academic text and activities. Nation combined these word lists into 800 items University Word List (Xue & Nations, 1984), with the aim of having the lists into serve as a guide and focus for teachers and as a check list and goal for students. The University Word List consists of vocabulary that students are likely to encounter across all academic fields, concentrating on the language of research, analysis, and evaluation. Students who activate this vocabulary and use it in their academic writing will be more successful in effectively communicating their ideas as students and scholars.

You can practice these words.
http://www.englishvocabularyexercises.com/AWL/index.htm

University Word List divides into the sublist. So let’s learn with me on this blog step by step!!

Book Review 1 : Talent Code

The reason why I chose this book is clear. Recently I saw the video which Yoshimoto edited. In this video, Japanese famous veteran comedian Shin-suke Shimada explained how to become professional comedian. He clearly said “Talent is crucial, but no one can change his talent. “. This video inspired me. I was interested in talent the people have.

So the question is” What is talent? What made successful people different from the rest of us? Where does the greatness come from?”

The answer I got is also clear. The answer is “Deep practice × 10000 hours = world class skill”. What I mean is talent is the capability to be absorbed in practice deeply for 10000 hours. I agree with this equation. This equation reminds me the word I met when I was 21 years old. Japanese economist suggested that people need 10000 hours to be professional. Because I believed him, I executed what he said. Finally, I could become professional physicist. Unfortunately, he did not mention Deep practice.

Now I believe Deep practice is also essential. Next question is “how can we practice deeply?” There are three rules to practice deeply.

Rule 1. Chunk it up: Start practice from a small amount with slowly. Do not practice too difficult things, every time we should focus on is practicing little bit harder things we can do and review what we can do already.

Rule 2. Repeat it: We have to do the same practice again and again. Build the habit to practice.

Rule 3. Learn to feel it: We have to have the strategy or sense to your practice or goal. For example, if we want to be musician, first thing we have to do is getting a clear sense of tune. I mean, we had better quality ear to listen music to recognize your mistakes when we play music instruments.

I agree these rules from my experience of learning music, physics, English, marathon and so on. Now, if we understand these rules, think again your plan. Let’s do it!!

The reason why I am writing my blog.

 I am a young Scientist just turn 30 last September. I am going to study Physics throughout my life.  I have studied solid state physics using mainly neutron diffraction. What I am interesting is mutiferroic, orbital order, helimagnetism, and so on. 

On this blog, I will write about what I concern, such as Physics, English as a second language, Economics, Education, Japanese culture, recent politics, American culture, Book I read, music and so on.

I used to write Blog in Japanese. What I was trying to do is trying to think on writing. Of course this blog is including practicing English. But goal is not practice English.

1. As a Physicist (may be tagged Physics)

I want to write about recent news in my field of study and also history of physics. Sometimes, this is difficult for you to understand or maybe sometimes too easy for you. So feel free to left comment and ask question for me. I can explain what I can explain. 

2. As a English learner (ESL)

I started learning English late my 20’s by teaching myself. For learning English younger is better? Older is better?  It’s hard to say.  If you start younger, you can get used to use English faster, but if you start older you have experienced knowledge to talk to.  In my opinion, learning language is similar to playing instrument or sports. You have to practice consciously but finally use unconsciously. I will write here what I learn about English, maybe we can share. 

3. As a Japanese (Japan)

I live in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.  However I am Japanese, I am always concerned about Japan.  You can ask me anything about Japan and Japanese culture. I have responsible for answering for that. And if you need exchange the language, feel free to ask me. I am interested in English, Romanian, Korean, and Chinese. Some people know but, there are few Japanese in the U.S. compared to Chinese and Korean. Why? I have some answer but that is issue I would like to write on this blog later. 

4. As a Guitarist or Musician (Music)

I have been playing guitar for 12 years. I am not good at, but I started to teach guitar with my friends. Here, I will review about guitar theory and how to practice, play, and listen music.

5. As a reader  and writer  (Books)

 I love reading books. I am strong interested in recent development of neuroscience, behavioral economics, phycology, politics, economy, and of course Physics. I will write review of books I read.  

6. As a Runner (Runner)

I like running. I have been running for 1 year and 3 month. I just finished first half-marathon last October and marathon last March, and trying to keep running. On this blog, I would like to write about marathon, health, and food.

My writing skill need to be improved, but let’s get started. And if you have comment, feel free to write here!!

Thanks

Shinichiro at Charlottesville, VA, the U.S.