In this post, I am going to introduce you to some Japanese places where I traveled. I hope this can be a useful reference for those who would like to visit Japan someday.
Let's get started.
1. Shikoku (四国)
Shikoku is located in the southwest of Japan and consists of four prefectures. I visited Shikoku Karst and Iya Valley.
2. Toyama (富山)
I like mountains. When I was in Japan, I sometimes went to mountains and climb them.
I couldn't climb Mt.Tateyama in Toyama Prefecture because of a bad weather (And my equipment for climbing Mt. Tateyama was not enough at all. I heard that a group of mountain climbers got stranded on their way to the peak ten days before I arrived at Mt. Tateyama.)
3. Okinawa (沖縄)
Okinawa is the southernmost prefecture in Japan. Okinawa Prefecture was originally the Ryukyu Kingdom. It consists of main island of Okinawa and many smaller islands.
Ikaho Onsen is in Gunma Prefecture, not so far from Tokyo. It is known as the model for the manga "Initial D" and besides the hot springs, Ikaho Green Bokujo is also a nice place to visit.
I feel hesitant to constantly talk about foreign languages as it might give an impression that I am foreign language geek or something, but today, I'd like to introduce the app I use the most for learning French.
I had intended to provide English translations for the Japanese text I wrote, but I've become too lazy to do so. Instead, I'll write my thoughts in English separately.
1.続けやすい (easy to continue)
Duolingoのレッスンは1つあたり3~5分で終わります。また、○○ day streak、みたいな感じで「〇〇日勉強が続いてるよ」というのがアプリ内で表示されます。Duolingoに触らないでいるとアプリからも通知が来るのでこまめに学習しやすいよう設計されています。
Duolingo's characters notify you when it's time for a lesson. All of Duolingo's characters have high self-esteem. My favorite character is Junior.
2.コンテンツが充実してる (rich variety of supplementary content)
At first, I was confused when English and French were mixed together, and thought to myself, "What's this?" But now, listening to it again, I realize that the English parts were just inserted for clarity and I shouldn't have been so flustered. I suppose I've grown since then (still can't really understand what it's saying though).
I'm Japanese, so I'm not very familiar with holidays like Easter or Saint Patrick's Day. Duolingo introduces such customs in its blog or something. And the English in that blog is easy to read.
Continuing from the previous post, I used ChatGPT as well to write the English parts. I asked it for a suitable French phrase to conclude the blog, so I would like to end this blog with that.
La vie est trop courte boire du mauvais vin (Life is too short to drink bad wine.)
Long time no see, this is Imai in Toronto. I hope you're doing well.
I think Japan has become warmer, and finally Toronto has become warmer too eventually. It seems that we no longer have snow.
I am taking a business English class in my language school for which I'm working as an intern. I had complained about learning English because I studied French in Montreal and in my opinion English is less beautiful than French (especially to ears).
To be honest, English sounds beautiful if the speaker is a native English speaker, or the one who can speak like them.
Currently I'm trying to speak English like a native speaker.
I'm doing shadowing now (shadowing is a method originally for translators).
As a material for shadowing, I have watched Seinfeld on Netflix.
Since I came to Canada, I have listened to a lot of music in the gym, or from the beat 92.5 in Montreal. It was different from the music I listened to in Japan, good for dance and not so sentimental (maybe not for vulnerble people like me).
'Fishmans' is a Japan's most valuable band as far as I know. They were active in the 90's, but their music is still impressive and will continue to heal vulnerble people.
I will just introduce two songs of them in this article.
Nightcruising
The first one is 'Nightcruising.' This song is the very...nightcruising. Whenever I listen to this song, I feel like I'm looking at the light above the sea. The link below is the live version of the song.
'Long Season' is probably their best work. This is very long like a progressive rock song. This song's album version has a more trippy atmosphere. The live version is a little more humanistic and the vocal Shinji Sato passed away 3 months after the live.
日本の英語の教科書では例えば "No rush"(急がなくていいよ)のような"Don't~"じゃない"No~"の形での、禁止や~しなくていいよ的表現があまり出てこなかった気がするのですがこっちに来てからはよく聞くように思います。
2. weird
これは正直、最近はあまり耳にしてないですが人によってはけっこう使うかもです。Montrealにいた時に同居人だったSofiaはweirdをよく使っていたなあとしみじみと思い出されます。「カナダは駐車場の代わりに道路の端に皆車を停めるけどそれはweirdだ」とか言ってました。SATC(sex and the city)でよく出てくる単語ランキングだかの上位だったと思います。変とかおかしいみたいな意味。ウィアードって読みますが、この単語の綴りがウィアードというかいつまで経っても覚えられません。
3. like (~みたいな、ええと)
アホみたいによく聞きます。"~が好きです"の意味じゃなくて"It's just like ~"(それはつまりただの~) とかのlikeです。通りすがりの人が何か話すのが聞こえたりしたときにも「お前何回いうねん」ってくらい"like~, like~, like~" と聞こえたことがありました。このlikeは自分をネイティブっぽく見せるのにも使える気がしますが"likeを多く使う人は幼く見える"という認識もネイティブの中にあると聞いたことがあるし、あんまり聞いてていい気持ちは個人的にはしないので使いまくるのは良くないんじゃないか、という表現です("you know"にも同様なことが言える気がする)。
4. You too(あなたもね)
これは英語に疲れて脳死状態、みたいな時が仮にあったとするとわずかばかり役に立つかもしれません。こちらでは人との別れ際に"Have a good day", "Have a good one"