On March 11th, most public transport stopped running even in Tokyo, and many people could not go home after work. Some people walked many kilometers in the darkness to get home. Did I have a hard time too? Not really. I was in my office at work, and kept working until late. As always, I sent some emails to my colleagues and clients before leaving the office. Then I was lucky enough to catch one of a few subways that resumed service.
A couple of days after the quake, the city where I live, Urayasu, was reported by the media as the "disaster area nearest Tokyo." As around 70% of the city is on land reclaimed from the sea, many roads, roadside trees, bridges and buildings were severely damaged by liquefaction of soil caused by the intense shaking of the quake. Tokyo Disney Resort, which is my wonderful neighbor, was one of the many areas affected. What about my apartment? Well, it is on the inland edge of the old coastline, and there was no damage except that some of the water in my aquarium was spilled. The roads and sidewalks in front of my place are as flat and smooth as a skating rink.
The water supply in most areas in Urayasu city was disrupted after the quake. That was the case even in those areas which are not on a landfill. The block where I live was a fortunate exception. I missed the notification from the city authorities that the water supply was stopped in the entire city while I was taking a shower. Also, a few days later, I realized that the gas supply was suspended in many areas of the city. At my apartment, of course, the gas supply has never stopped since the quake.
To cope with electricity shortage caused by the mega earthquake, Tokyo Electric Power Company started to carry out area-by-area power rationing with rolling blackouts in the Kanto region surrounding Tokyo. Urayasu city, however, was at first exempted from the blackouts in consideration of the above disruption to gas and water supplies. As a result, my family and I have had the perfect services of basic utilities. I have no trouble at work either.
My good luck did not end there. Since the earthquake, many shelves have been half-empty in convenience stores and supermarkets as people stock up. Even now, some people are still frantically buying excess food and supplies. When I went to a supermarket last Sunday, I could not help laughing at the sight. While rice was sold out completely, there were so many bags of flour left unsold. Nothing seems to hold me back from living my normal life. I baked good bread that night.
As time goes by, people's interest shifted from the earthquake itself to the nuclear reactor in Fukushima. Even from the greater Tokyo area, some people started to flee to the western regions of Japan. Interestingly enough, most of the evacuees from Tokyo I know are people who have always been unreasonable and demanding. All the ones whose wisdom and abilities I have always admired have stayed in or around Tokyo. The M 9.0 earthquake blew a lot of interpersonal stress away from me.
I believe there are tens of millions of people who are perfectly safe and fine just as I am in the eastern Japan. It is our responsibility to stay calm and suppress any panic. Don't pass on chain emails. Use your wisdom to quiet groundless rumors. Help everyone to access correct and unbiased information. We are the lucky ones, and Japan will never be destroyed as long as we are here.
I know my English is far from perfect, but many people ask me how I learned English. Maybe I fare modestly well for an ESL speaker whose native language is from an entirely different language family. I understand most of what native English speakers say. I can enjoy books written in English without much trouble. I've been using English in business for several years and have not faced any major difficulty so far. In this entry, I'd like to share with you what I have been doing to learn English.
Suppose you're reading something in a foreign language. They often say that the goal you should strive for is to understand the foreign language directly without having to translate it to your native language. That sounds quite reasonable because that's what most bilingual or multilingual people do. However, I think that's still insufficient. When I read something in English for study purposes, I always try to put myself into the writer's position. As I read word by word and sentence by sentence, I constantly keep asking myself if I can produce the same quality of writing by myself.
Don't be satisfied with just grasping the meanings of written text. You can learn a lot more even from just one paragraph. Try to imagine how many different ways the same thing can be expressed. You can come up with a lot of questions, such as, "Why did the author choose this word out of many synonyms?", "What made him/her use a figurative expression here?", "Why are so many rhetorical questions used in this paragraph?" and so forth. Actually, all those questions have the same root: Why did the author feel right about his/her writing?
The most valuable learning is not about memorizing words and phrases. Many people who study languages seem to try to learn and memorize how native speakers would say things. Unfortunately, I don't have such a good memory. What I do instead is to imagine what native speakers would "think" and "feel" when they describe something. What you say is a reflection of what you think and feel. You'd rather buy an espresso machine than order 100 cups of espresso every morning. Likewise, it is more fruitful to examine just one aspect of the mindset of the native speakers than to try to learn 100 words and phrases. It's not that I underestimate the power of vocabulary. I just want something more enjoyable than rote learning. It is ideal if one day you can say, "Wow, I didn't realize I increased my vocabulary so much."
The same thing can be said when you refer to a grammar book. Grammar rules in textbooks do not exist a priori, but rather, they are a result of researchers' attempts to organize the structures of discourse in the real world. The important thing is not to memorize each rule, but to think why the linguists organized the information the way they did. When a word or phrase has many different usages, think about what is the core and common concept of them. You don't have to reach a definitive answer. Just give it a try until you feel satisfied. Then, modify your understanding every time you come across an unexpected usage.
Lastly, let me try to illustrate my attitude toward improving my listening and speaking skills. It's not fun for me to go headlong into listening a lot without thinking. I know many people enjoy watching movies and TV programs in foreign languages, but that's not something I want to do for daily practice because it seems to me that there are a lot more boring movies and programs than interesting ones. My preference is to download and listen to educational podcasts whose contents themselves are designed to be helpful for improving your English. What I mean here is not materials for ESL students. You can find a number of podcasts for native English speakers to improve their language skills even more. Such podcasts as "Grammar Girl", "A Way with Words" and "Grammar Grater" are interesting and helpful to ESL speakers like me as well. Thus, I only listen to what interests me, but still, there are times when I get tired of just listening. When that happens, I try "shadowing", which is listening to and simultaneously echoing a recording of English speech. Have you ever tried shadowing in a foreign language? Shadowing is a good way to drive your sleepiness away. It helps you improve your fluency too, as a side effect.
I think I covered almost everything. Of course, the best way to learn a language is different for everyone, as we are all different. Also, I have a feeling that what works well for learning one language may not necessarily work for another. Even so, I thought it might be interesting for those of you who study foreign languages to read an article like this. I hope you enjoyed it.
The Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) now seems to be the de facto standard to measure the proficiency of students of Japanese as a foreign language. But as a native Japanese speaker who is frequently exposed to Japanese written and spoken by people from foreign countries, I do not place much trust in this test. Too often, the results of JLPT do not seem to reflect the actual Japanese skills of the examinees. This is particularly noticeable in students at the level of JLPT level 2 or 3 (New JLPT N2-4).
My wife is a JLPT level 2 holder. She hasn't passed the level 1 (N1) yet, and I don't know whether she wants to try taking it or not. Nevertheless, she sometimes works as a part-time translator and interpreter from/to Japanese and her native language, Russian. I once asked her how she can get those jobs without a certificate of a higher level of Japanese. She answered, "I just say 'I passed the level 2 over five years ago.' Then everyone assumes that my Japanese skills must be far beyond the level 1."
Honestly, even among people who are able to pass the level 1, the actual skill level can vary considerably. I have a non-native friend who has lived in Japan for a long time. She passed the level 1 with a good score many years ago, but when I proof read her Japanese writing, more often than not, I have to ask her to explain what she wants to say in English. Also, her spoken Japanese sounds quite foreign even though it's difficult to find any technical mistakes in it. On the other hand, another friend of mine, who is from Korea, has achieved amazing fluency in Japanese. I first met him at my graduate school, only four years after he came to Japan as a foreign student, but I thought he was a native speaker of Japanese until I noticed one day that some kanji characters he wrote looked a bit distorted. I was very much surprised when I learned that he had never studied Japanese before his coming to Japan. But anyway, the system of the JLPT classified both of those friends of mine as "level 1." After all, JLPT evaluates primarily listening and reading comprehension skills. Speaking and writing are tested only indirectly.
Fortunately, Japanese people who study English have more options. There are at least three major English-proficiency tests that you can take in Japan: the Eiken Test in Practical English Proficiency (STEP Eiken), Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC). The latter two are given around the world. STEP Eiken includes a speaking test and handwritten composition component in addition to reading and listening. TOEFL, which is designed to test the language proficiency of non-natives who intend to study in the American university system, also consists of reading, listening, speaking and writing. However, the current standard test in the business environment in Japan is TOEIC, which usually has no speaking and writing sections. (There is a separate test called TOEIC SW, but that is not very popular yet.)
I have taken TOEIC only twice. The first time was when I was a university student, and my score was 830 out of 990. Not excellent, but not bad either. The second time was about three years ago, and at that point, I lost my trust in TOEIC. I got 970 and beat the scores of most people I know who can communicate in English far better than I can. My feeling may have been a little bit similar to the famous old complaint: "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."
Statistically, it must be true that those who show better performance in tests have greater proficiency in reality. I have no doubt about that. But it is extremely difficult to evaluate the language skills of each individual.