2021/10/07

I got a letter from the English conversation class that our city’s international association group does. The previous time I couldn’t spend money to join so I gave up, but I want to join this chance. For me, the English conversation class means not only the place I can get the chance of learning English but the place I can connect with people who have the same ambition.

I’ve read Yoshio Kataoka’s “The Life of Language”, so I wanted to enjoy his book “Outside of Japanese” and got from my room and read it a little. Reading the part that book tells us about the Gulf War, I remember my youthful days. When the Gulf War happened, I was a high school student. I wanted to say the opinion of “anti-war” or “love and peace”, but I couldn’t find how to explain that opinion and had trouble in my mind. The text by Yoshio Kataoka tells us easily the reason for that war and the words that the politicians said at that time.

I often write “I think” or, “I thought” in English. But a book tells me that too many using “I think” seems wishy-washy by the native speakers. If I want to say my opinion, then I should use the words “in my opinion”, or not using that excuse and just say my opinion. That’s important… it tells me. Yes, it’s logical but I use “I think” as “as the opinion I have (within my point of view)” and “a relatively private opinion”. I should change that usage of “I think”?… I’m thinking.

Everything has been changed when they come into Japanese society. If the hamburgers come into our culture, they become “teriyaki” burgers. Or “collaboration” becomes a shortened word “Korabo” in Japanese. The magic of Japanese is very strong like that, so I want to think deeply about, keeping the goodness the Japanese language has like that. Not staying inside the narrow Japanese culture… I think I have got such chances to think about that magic of the Japanese language. Yoshio Kataoka also has the worth he can get a big prize like the Nobel Prize?

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