「善は急げ」
「思い立ったが吉日」
理由はなんでもいいのですが、
今日からこつこつを読むことにしました。
その名も「どうしても英語で伝えたい・日本の事情100」

長いこと気になっていたこと。
そもそも日本人であるワタシ。
でも日本のこと的確に説明できないワタシ。
''今年こそ、それを解消しよう''と思ったのです。
ということで手始めにこの本。
2010年1月1日出版、っていうのも購入の決め手。
思い返せば、数ヶ月前のシドニー滞在中に、
日本の政治や教育の事を聞かれて
何度困ったり、意見の相違から討論になったことか・・・。
一番時間を割いたのが
「なぜ日本人は幼少期から英語を学ばないのか?」というテーマ。
聞いてる本人は「母国語+英語環境」で生きてきたので、
以下の私の言い分はいまいち理解しがたい模様。
日本では、
・英会話の必要性が実生活の中にほとんどないのです。
(→依然として試験科目としての位置づけ高し。)
・日本語と英語は違いすぎて同じように扱うのは厳しいのです。
(→日本語こそ、かなり難解な言語。)
・母国語が成立してこその外国語習得
(→これは私の超個人的な意見。親が外国語を話す人なら別の話です。)
などなど、思いつく限りのことを挙げてみたりして・・・。
幼少期からの外国語教育は今でも賛否両論なので
何が正しくて、何が間違っているかということは一概には言えないけど
日本には日本の事情があるのだと、改めて考えた一件でした。
今年は「日本についての知識」をもう少し増やして
自分なりに説明できるようになることが1つの目標!
ここに宣言しておきます、念のため。
◆I bought this book today and this title is ''100 things on Japan''.Even though I'm Japanese, I don't know about Japan and our culture and so on that much.I've known that I should learn and put more things, but I never tried to do seriously.Therefore, now I will start to get more knowledge about my mother country Japan as one of Japanese.
When I looked back on days in Sydney which is few monthes ago, I clearly remember that I had a talk about Japanese education of English.Alvin asked me why Japanese are not educated in English since they were young.It's really hard to understand what I explained for him as he grown with mother language Tagalog and English.
My opinion is following,
*We rarely have an opportubuty to speak English in general life.(English is still one of subjects of exams.)
*English and Japanese are totally different language and I believe that it's extremely hard to learn for purely Japanese kids.(Before talking English, Japanese is very difficuly and tricky language.)
*This is totally my personal opinion though.Kids should take mother language in first of all.Otherwise they will be disable to express themselves in their words prorperly.However,it'll be different story if they have parents who speak foreign language.
I just picked some ideas which I could get in my current brain.There is no right answer about it.Everyone has each ides and opinion!As he asked me and suggested me, I just realised how I didn't know about Japan and didn't have rich knowledge to let him understand.Recently our Japanese government has a disscuss how we can give English education for kids who are between 7 and 12.We used to begin to study English when we were 13years old though, it's getting early and it will be an official subject in all public primary school from 2011.
In any cases, I hope kids will love to speak English and make friends with colourful nationalities.About myself,I want to get more information and backgroud of Japan and Japanese and then I want to be rich in ourselves this year 2010.This is one of my new year resolutions.