International
Oops, it's already June!
9th graders yesterday:
"Now we're studying English, a foreign language. Do you think there are people in other countries who study Japanese?""No, I don't think so. A great number of people study English because it's used all over the world. But, hey, who uses Japanese?"
Mmm....I have to try to open my students' eyes to the world around them.
Comments
Haha, I like how certain the second student is of his (or her) opinion. hehehe, even if it was wrong, at least it was said with conviction.
Ok, next time I manage to get over to Japan, I'll let you know beforehand, and not appear in a sneak attack, and i can try out my terrible Japanese on your students hahaha. I think their english will be much better.
Posted by: Clive | June 2, 2006 10:21 AM
This could be a fairly easy one to disprove. Simply show them some cosplay pics and anime released in North America/UK and tell them there are many who want to speak Japanese so they can be like the characters that they watch and love.
Posted by: TheRich | June 2, 2006 10:52 PM
Oh man, what have I been doing?!
Posted by: ジョナサン | June 6, 2006 9:57 PM
I was listening to the radio this morning (QFM96 in Columbus, Ohio ... www.qfm96.com) and the DJs had a guy on from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
During the course of the conversation it came out that the guy had majored in Computer Science and had a minor in Japanese. He went on to say that Japanese is more popular than people would think.
So, it would seem that there are some here studying the Japanese language.
Posted by: delmer | August 24, 2006 3:56 AM
I am from Singapore, currently studying Japanese in a local community centre. My sensei is a native Japanese from Kobe, which had stayed in Singapore for about 30 years. I am very much interested in learning Japanese, is mainly because of interest in the language itself and Japan's cultures.
Posted by: Phyllis | October 3, 2006 3:01 PM
I'm from the philippines but I'm currently studying japanese on my own...I've been studying english since I'm in kindergarden! So yeah...I'd rather study japanese than english.
Posted by: nicole | January 19, 2007 10:08 PM
I'm from Hungary, and a lot of people here are also interested in Japanese language. Anime otakus usually drop the language after the 10th kanji, so only the real warriors stay on course...:-) Hungarian language differs very much from English or German, but have a lot of similarities to Japanese language.
Posted by: karatedog | March 31, 2008 5:48 AM