Monday, February 29, 2016
62 Translations of Okonomi Yaki
Fritters as you like them. Fritters to taste. Free fritters. Fritters freed. Japanese pan fried pizza. Savory pancakes. DIY fry-up. Griddled Goo. Individualistic johnnycakes. Selfish savories. Preference, predilection, prepossession, propensity, personalised or pet pancakes or paste. Pet preparation. Wished or whimsy waffles. What you will waffles. (Free)Will waffles. Flavour Flapjacks. Groove griddle cakes. Number one gunge, My cup of tea cakes. Croquette my way. Darling, dearest, desired, or druthers doughboys or dumplings. Liberty cakes. The cook is on holiday cakes. Be my batter cakes. Beloved batter cakes, Coagulated stir fry. Callous cutlets. Choice cabbage cakes. Liking or Love lump cakes. Main mush. Choice Concoction. My mix. Pan fried partiality. Pan-fried perfection. Caprice cakes. Hobby hotplate. Free-style fries. Fried fantasy. Freedom fries. My fry. Favourite fries. Hashed heaven. Hashed happiness.
My students always 'translate' the name for Japanese foods such as that pictured above (お好み焼き) using their phonetization, "okonomi yaki," which might just as well be kowwash firdight for all the meaning it would impart to the average anglophone. This is I think because people hate meaninglessness (Heine, Proulx, & Vohs, 2006) so if at least one word in Japanese is included in any sentence the sender knows that at least that one word will be meaningful in a Japanese context, and that their conversation partner will have some idea of what they are talking about. The reasons for this is anatta or no self. The self is just a representation (story or image): something with a meaning. The lack of meaning is self-annihilation, and English conversation practice almost deadly. I need to be nicer to my students, investigate Japanese hospice praxis, while insisting that students use non-phonetic translations.
Heine, S. J., Proulx, T., & Vohs, K. D. (2006). The meaning maintenance model: On the coherence of social motivations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(2), 88-110.
www.google.co.jp/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&...
Addendum Good Paper on Japanese hospice praxis emphasises the use of image-based measure (PAC analysis) rather than scales. Recommends, in addition to palliative care and listen: smiles and improved personal hygiene and health on the part of the carer. I try to always attend conversation class wearing a business shirt and tie.
對馬明美, Tsushima, A., 三上佳澄, Mikami, K., 西沢義子, & Nishizawa, Y. (2010). 死を意識している患者との対話場面における看護者の態度構造に関する研究. 日本看護研究学会雑誌, 33(5), 33-44. http://www.jsnr.jp/test/search/docs/103305003.pdf
内藤哲雄1997／2002PAC 分析実施法入門［改訂版］「個」を科学する新技法への招待ナカニシヤ出版 amazon link a student gave a presentation about this. I thought it came from outside of Japan.
内藤哲雄. (1997). PAC 分析の適用範囲と実施法. 信州大学人文学部人文科学論集< 人間情報学科編>, 31, 51-87.
https://soar-ir.repo.nii.ac.jp/index.php?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=707&item_no=1&attribute_id=65&file_no=1&page_id=13&block_id=45
Labels: els, english, englishconversation, nacalianism, nihobunka, self, 日本文化
Thursday, March 19, 2015
41.6% of high School Students Enjoy Studying English: Too Kind
Japan Today reports with its usual tone of anti-Japanese mirth, that "58.4% of high school seniors say they don't like studying English." This implies that 41.6% of Japanese high school students like studying English! Japanese language education is doing something right.
But then, personally I think that that percentage is far too high for success. English lessons are, especially if communicative, seen to be a time for having fun. Students come to my classes expecting something like tea-time-with-Timothy, and are painfully surprised. If the Japanese want to learn to communicate in English, before they graduate from university, lessons need to be a lot more harsh than tea-time, and mine are which is why they are so unpopular ;-; If I could persuade 41.6% of students to like my lessons I would be very happy.
Foreign languages are pools of non-meaning into which learners must jump, even though humans fear the absence of meaning almost as as much as death (Heine & Proulx, 2006). People, even the Japanese to an extent, narrate themselves into existence, so the absence of a response - which happens often when one is attempting to speak a foreign language - is a sort of death, or hell (Bakhtin, 1986).
The Japanese are a very polite bunch of people, who do not wish to cause others distress, so Japanese teachers teach vocabulary and grammar forever rather than demand that their students jump into a Bakhtinian hell. But jump they must. Japanese kindness (yasashisa) is thus perhaps the biggest block to English improvement. Teachers and students need to realise that in order to gain communicative competence they will have to learn to put each other on the block.
I teach my English classes upon the model of martial arts classes where the idea is to attack ones opponent. While the Japanese are very kind to each other in most social situations, they are aware that the objective is to knock their opponents brains out (figuratively) in kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) and Karate classes, and change their behaviour accordingly. Ordinarily gentle high-school girls transform into killer swords women in the kendo dojo. Since my classes also contain a lot of role playing, I am thinking of calling this martial role-playing English teaching technique Ninja English (忍者英語).
私の英語の授業を履修してください。多少つらいですが、英語が話せるようになりますよ。 Image: School boy 2 by Romeas ロメアス Thomas トマ, on Flick Bakhtin, M. (1986). The Problem of the Text in Linguistics, Philology, and the Human Sciences: An Experiment in Philosophical Analysis. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, 103-31. Heine, S. J., Proulx, T., & Vohs, K. D. (2006). The meaning maintenance model: On the coherence of social motivations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(2), 88-110. http://flic.kr/p/rFGA1n
But then, personally I think that that percentage is far too high for success. English lessons are, especially if communicative, seen to be a time for having fun. Students come to my classes expecting something like tea-time-with-Timothy, and are painfully surprised. If the Japanese want to learn to communicate in English, before they graduate from university, lessons need to be a lot more harsh than tea-time, and mine are which is why they are so unpopular ;-; If I could persuade 41.6% of students to like my lessons I would be very happy.
Foreign languages are pools of non-meaning into which learners must jump, even though humans fear the absence of meaning almost as as much as death (Heine & Proulx, 2006). People, even the Japanese to an extent, narrate themselves into existence, so the absence of a response - which happens often when one is attempting to speak a foreign language - is a sort of death, or hell (Bakhtin, 1986).
The Japanese are a very polite bunch of people, who do not wish to cause others distress, so Japanese teachers teach vocabulary and grammar forever rather than demand that their students jump into a Bakhtinian hell. But jump they must. Japanese kindness (yasashisa) is thus perhaps the biggest block to English improvement. Teachers and students need to realise that in order to gain communicative competence they will have to learn to put each other on the block.
I teach my English classes upon the model of martial arts classes where the idea is to attack ones opponent. While the Japanese are very kind to each other in most social situations, they are aware that the objective is to knock their opponents brains out (figuratively) in kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) and Karate classes, and change their behaviour accordingly. Ordinarily gentle high-school girls transform into killer swords women in the kendo dojo. Since my classes also contain a lot of role playing, I am thinking of calling this martial role-playing English teaching technique Ninja English (忍者英語).
私の英語の授業を履修してください。多少つらいですが、英語が話せるようになりますよ。 Image: School boy 2 by Romeas ロメアス Thomas トマ, on Flick Bakhtin, M. (1986). The Problem of the Text in Linguistics, Philology, and the Human Sciences: An Experiment in Philosophical Analysis. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, 103-31. Heine, S. J., Proulx, T., & Vohs, K. D. (2006). The meaning maintenance model: On the coherence of social motivations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(2), 88-110. http://flic.kr/p/rFGA1n
Labels: blogger, english, Flickr, japanese culture, nihonbunka, 日本文化
This blog represents the opinions of the author, Timothy Takemoto, and not the opinions of his employer.