It was the summer of my first grade of high school
when I realized I could speak foreign languages .
Since then I have been acquiring
and now I can speak some of foreign languages.
First I started learning English
when I was 13 in junior high school.
At the time I was not so good at speaking English.
Ranking out of 5, I was on the 4th grade.
When I was fifteen years old,
I had the opportunity to go to America.
My mon decided for me to travel to the U.S.
for a month and made some arrangements
through some homestay program.
I really did not want to go to America at first
but I went reluctantly at my parents’request.
My host family lived in Denver, Colorado
They were very nice and so kind to me
To my surprise,
they took me on a trip to the Grand Canyon for a week.
I was in awe and so impressed with the size of it.
The Grand Canyon was incredibly huge!
Until now I have never seen anything as phenomenal anywhere else.
All in all, I can honestly say that my trip to the U.S. was a great experience
and I had a wonderful time there.
After finishing my homestay in America,
very interesting things happened to me.
One of them happened
when I arrived at the Haneda Airport from America.
At that time the airport was so crowded.
I was walking along with my suit case,
and I almost bumped into someone.
At that moment,
three English words came out of my mouth.
I said, “Oops, excuse me.”
I was subconsciously speaking English.
I was very surprised at this.
But the more I think about it now,
the more I can attribute the incident
at the airport to my experience in America.
At the host family’s home where I stayed,
there were stairs leading to the basement I was staying.
And I often bumped into some of the family members
that were going up and down the stairs.
Whenever we bumped into each other
they would always say to me
“Oops, excuse me!”
I never tried to memorize this phrase,
but somehow it became part of me
When I got home from America
I gave presents to my older brother and sister.
They seemed like they were very excited
and wanted to open the gifts right away.
I meant to tell them “Iiyo” which means “Ok, go ahead”
in Japanese.
However, they were so shocked with what I told them.
The reason was because I actually said
“Go ahead” in English
and not “Iiyo” in Japanese.
I was even surprised with
my very noticeable English improvements!
When I think back to my homestay
I can remember that the host brother and I
would often come in the house after playing outside.
Because it was hot outside,
the host mom always used to make ice tea
with extra large cup and would say to us
“Hey guys, go ahead!”.
And we drank that out at one stroke.
I had never tried to memorize them
It was as if these words were stored or filed inside of me
and were available for me to use as the situation arose
Through these interesting experiences,
I felt that I acquired and spoke in English
in the same manner that I acquired Japanese.
Learning English in this way is
completely different from the way
I learned English at school
In school
I always had to memorize so many words
If I ever wanted to speak in English
I first had to make the sentence(s) in Japanese
and then translated them into English.
I was forever having to memorize
English words for exams.
Not only was this extremely boring for me
but I found out that
it is a very difficult (or maybe ineffective) way to learn English
Even though I only stayed one month in the U.S.
it was not my purpose or intention
to be a fluent English speaker.
Furthermore,
I didn’t even take any formal English lessons at all.
I just lived there for a month
and encountered my host family
and many friends whom I like so much.
They spoke to me in English
even though I could not understand the meaning well.
I was exposed to the sound of English
so much that after coming back to Japan
I realized that I sometimes could feel
I spoke in English as if I spoke in Japanese.
Learning English in this way was astonishingly easy.
It was such an amazing experience for me
that I will always treasure these precious memories.
This was the beginning of my language learning trip.
After that, I have encountered Korean, Spanish, Chinese,
French, Russian, Malaysian, Indonesian, Tagalog & Visayas etc.
and whom speak those languages.
And I had new discoveries and encounters
and had so many friends all over the world.
They surely make my family and I rich.
Lastly, I would like you to share
an interesting episode of my two daughters.
I want my two daughters to have the same opportunity that I had.
I invested much money,
and was able to send them to America
as exchange students for a year
when they were in high school.
I strongly believe that it is money well spent
because when they came back to Japan,
they told me something that was very inspiring to me
but it was unexpected and
in a sense made me so disappointed.
They said to me in English
"Dad, I thought your English was very good
before we left for America,
but now your English sounds somehow weird!"
Even now, my journey of learning languages has still been going on.
