I’ve been studying Korean for a long time, but I didn’t make my first presentation in Korean until last Saturday. Now I know how difficult it is to learn a speech in a foreign language! I needed to learn a lot of special words about the environment, and I had to work on my pronunciation so that the Korean group could understand me. I talked about Fujimae Tidal Flat. AI was a big help. I used it translate information about Fujimae into Korean. Then I wrote the speech and practiced reading it aloud with my Korean teacher. Korean grammar is not so difficult if you know Japanese grammar, but Korean pronunciation is much more difficult than Japanese. In any case, I did it! Everyone understood my Korean, and my presentation was a success!   (133 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com

On the last night of the Japan-Korea exchange program, we took the Korean group to Osu, a popular shopping arcade in Nagoya. There were 12 people in our group. The junior high school students wanted to eat ramen, but the adults preferred something else, so we divided into two smaller groups. I took the adults to an “udon” noodle restaurant. The other leaders took the children to Sugakiya, a ramen chain store. They enjoyed the ramen, and they loved the spork, Sugakiya’s special spoon-fork. After dinner, the adults went shopping at a drugstore. The children found some toy vending machines and bought little stuffed animals. I was happy that we were able to satisfy both groups.  (116 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com

I belong to an environmental group, and we have an exchange program with a Korean group. We go to Korea one year, and they come to Japan the next year. This year, they came to Nagoya and did a nature walk on Fujimae Tidal Flat. In the evening, we stayed at a temple. The teenagers in my group made a “sugoroku” board game on the floor using cushions. They put cards under each cushion, and one person from each team moved around the board. Everyone wanted their team to win, so they got very excited. They really enjoyed themselves and made friends with each other that night. We slept on those cushions, the girls on the first floor and the boys on the second floor. The priest and his family were wonderful, and we thanked them and Buddha for letting us stay at the temple.   (145 words) You can send me a comment

I still remember a quiz from my first-year Japanese course at university. There was one word that I didn’t know. I knew that it came from another language because it was written in “katakana.” I spent a long time trying to figure out what it was. The first syllable was “ta,” the next one was “o,” and the last one was “ru.” I said “ta-o-ru” over and over again in my head, but I couldn’t guess the meaning. After five minutes, I finally figured out that it was “towel.” Many loanwords come from English, so they should be easy to remember for a native English speaker like me, but they aren’t. They often sound very different from the original words. Here are two examples: “mi-ne-ra-ru” versus “mineral” and “ho-to-do-gu” versus “hot dog.”  (132 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com

Japan has something that is perfect for hot, sweaty days. It is a towel that you put around your neck. It’s called “tenugui” in Japanese. The history of the towel goes back more than 1000 years to the Heian period. It used to be made of hemp or silk, but during the Edo period, people started using cotton. They also standardized the size to 35 by 95 centimeters. I use “tenugui” almost every day in summer. I like the towel because it is light and comfortable. I wipe sweat off my forehead with it, and it keeps the sun off the back of my neck so that I don’t get a sunburn. (112 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com