A lot of Japanese people don’t have any opportunities to use English in their daily life
especially while living in Japan because Japanese people communicate with each other
in Japanese and can understand without difficulty except for dialects.
Most Japanese people of my age should have taken English lessons from junior high school
in compulsory education. I guess that now children are starting to study English earlier than
before. My memories of studying English are reading from the textbook and repeating after
the teacher or a native speaker from a CD. My teacher got us to do dialog practices with
the person next to us.But we were not willing to do it because we felt some kind of
embarrassment to speak English especially when copying the English accent.That is what
prevented us from learning good English. This embarrassment grows more and more as we
grow older. In addition, I was growing up in a rural area so I didn’t meet foreign people in
daily life. But Ilike studying English when I was a student. I was praised for my english skills
and took part in a speech competition. I hoped I would go abroad live there someday....
After graduating from junior high school, this situation changed gradually. I hated English as
soon as I enrolled at my local high school.
Could you guess why? Because we were only learning English grammar, new vocabulary, and idiom besides there
were a lot of sentences that we weren’t familiar with even if it was written in Japanese.
Basically we just studied how to pass exams not how to communicate. I couldn’t understand
the reason for studying English when I studied like this.
As time goes by, I’m starting to realize how important it is and why I have to study.
I resigned from my prior job whose HQ is in Japan and joined a new company which is based
in the US. At first, I couldn’t understand my boss's English even though he was speaking
more slowly to us because of his strong Indian accent. Besides, our team belongs to APJ
which consists of a lot of different countries; Australia, NewZealand, Greater China, India,
South Asia(some countries), Korea and Japan.
I’ve learned that English is a method of communication that helps people from different
countries to get to know each other. When we were at school, we thought the most
important thing was to sound like a native English speaker. This pressure made us hesitate
when speaking English in public spontaneously.
Recently, the situation has changed very rapidly and visibly with the development of
technology which has changed our lifestyle.The world has become a smaller place and it’s
how easier to connect with people wherever they live. Now I enjoy studying English while
having fun. I have a lot of opportunities to use English in my daily life not only for work but
also as a means of communication. I feel encouraged when I have a good conversation in
English and share my way of thinking.My aim now is to keep developing my English and
communication skills by meeting as many people as I can.
Miki