語学勉強

生きてます。すごく久しぶりにブログをアップします。もう残す事半年になりました。

色々おおやけに書けない事もあって、ブログを書こうと思う度に色々な気持ちが沸き上がってブレーキがかかっていました。せっかくブログを見ていてくれた人、ごめんなさい。

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今回は同期の青年海外協力隊が語学勉強についてブログやフェースブックにアップしているのを見て触発されたので語学勉強について書きます。これをきっかけにまたブログ再開できると良いな。きっかけをくれたピュアけん、あらちゃんありがとう！

最近９月１３日に受けたトイックの結果が返ってきました。わー惜しい！もうちょいで900！家で模試をやった時何回か９００超えていたから本番でもいけるかなと思ったけど…

忘れ物した事に気がついて前日よく眠れなかったり、本番で問題2問、あるの気がつかなかったり（え）で、それがこの１５点マイナスとして出たのかなー。

アンチトイックの私だけど、今回分かった事…トイックってなかなかよく出来たテストだ！

英語圏に住んだ事の無い私には簡単に９００点いけないようにできてる。

今年の２月くらいから始めたトイックの勉強は、本当ゲームみたいで心から楽しんで取り組んだ。今までスピーキング（エクスプレッション、イディオム、発音、語彙、瞬発力のようなもの）ばかり取り組んでいたから文法の事を考えるのは頭の違う部分使うみたいで毎日のように新しい発見をしていた。でもトイックおたくにはなりたくないので、多分もう受けないかなと思う。私は日本の会社に勤める予定も海外の大学に行く予定もないから、実際テストのスコアは不要なんです。

最近はほぼ毎日自分の音読を録音して聞いて修正しています。（記事、音声はTEDトークから。）でもまだまだなめらかに、文章全体の意味を把握してトーンやスペースを与えて分かり易く読み上げするのは苦手。最近は新聞も読もうという気になって、ぼちぼちつまみ読みしている。（大進歩！）前は新聞読もうとしても辞書ひいてばかり、それでも文全体の意味が掴めなかったりでくじけてた。

あと、発音というか、喉の使い方の違いも研究中。発音記号にそって発音できてもネイティブの「音」にならないのは、使っている部分というか喉の形の作り方が日本語と違うから。私は単純に、分かり易い英語を話したい。

初心に戻ってゆっくり、はっきり が大切だなと思う。ネイティブスピーカー（英語が第一言語の国いずれも）は私がどんなに早く喋っても１００パーセント理解してくれるけど、ノンネイティブには聞き返される事がある。自分に何か問題がある証拠。私は、世界中で理解される英語を話したい。

最近の勉強…CNNスチューデント（月〜金）は長い事（１年くらいになるかな）きいているのと、それからよく見るのはテレビドラマの王道、フレンズ。あとは映画、インタビュー。

読み上げに使う記事は上質な文章、自分の興味のあるものを題材にするように心がけている。あとネットでの調べものは必ず英語で検索している。最近はパソコンのスクリーンに日本語が見えると心地悪いくらい。

英語で日記を書くのも再開しようかな。

あと６ヶ月。日本に帰るまでにどれだけ上達するか？今はとにかく量を読んで聞いて口に出して、触れた事のある文章を増やそうと思う。目標は、一週間に一曲歌える歌を増やす事！ミュージカルの歌に取り組もうかなって考えてる。合計２３曲！お勧めあったら教えてね！

英語でネイティブの友達に話した事と同じ事を日本人の友達に話そうとしたら、日本語でそれにあたいする表現がなくて、１０のうち３くらいしか伝えられないっていう事がある。英語無しで今までどうやって生きていたんだろうなって思う。

本当に英語は、私に羽どころか命を与えたように思う。

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活動に関しては大きな変化がありそう。その事はまた今度書きます。書けたら、ですが…。

January 2014, monthly journal

I had my new years' countdown with my host family. After that I had to go Manila for 1 night. By the way, I was planning about my future. Then I stumbled upon on a great song, it made me concentrate more on thinking how to make this moment happy instead of worrying about the future. Sometimes people get stuck in their past, that makes you feel negative. Staying on the positive side requires a lot of strength. How can you turn those tough experiences and incidents that stressed you so much into something positive, valuable. The key thing is that you have to have not only the passion, but also support from your precious family and friends/friend.

I used to had fast palpitations, it was so bad that I wasn’t able to sleep since the last October. Regardless, I could talk to people about my problems. I want to believe that I’ve became smarter than before, since I couldn’t talk about myself easily before.

Concerning my volunteer work- I’m happy that it goes well. We’re going to sell products at the Mango festival.

Above all, I appreciate the excellent work performance of my partner. Because of her I can fully immerse myself into design. I’m working on T-shirt print design and Bag design(and making). We’ll let islander make them.

Making a bag isn’t easy, it requires a lot of effort per bag, and a lot of time. You’ve got to have patience, strong will, and vision to see your pretty bag in reality. Even after completing just one bag, you have to revise it various points and it might need improving, so you will need to go out and get some additional materials needed. I feel a little nervous whether I can finish all of the samples before mid-February. All I have to do is to go to the office daily and work on my project step-by-step.

2013 Christmas in Tacloban (The area where has hit the super typhoon)

Is this Hell? Hell where angels live…
This time the purpose of my visit to Leyte was to conduct a project involving Christmas parties for the kids who are victims of Typhoon Yolanda. We hoped that we could provide them with a good time, especially the kids who have been physically or mentally damaged. We hadn't really considered it until we held this project, but the event made smiles not just for the kids, but also their mothers. The event was a hit among both the kids and their mothers. We had around 890 participants. Through this experience I learned that mental care is really important, as well as material care. Especially for those in harsh situations.
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"WELCOME TO Yolanda village". On a hand-made billboard. It's impossible to see those jokes in Japan. Japanese don't have this kind of sense of humor. In Japan, to make jokes about an incident in which many people have died is not allowed.
Even concrete buildings are missing their top half. What kind of thing can grab away a reinforced concrete building? No wonder everything flew, like roofs, humans, cars, and coconut trees, if the wind had such strong power… The sight reminded me of scenes right after a war. Apparently many dead bodies were scattered all around, then they were gathered. But some of them, which hadn’t been found by relatives, were just kept along the streets. Fortunately, I didn't see any this time.
Even now, they don't have electricity yet. The nights are deeply dark, creepy and scary. All you can see is just debris, sometimes the lights of cars. Something is going wrong. It's totally different to the case of the earthquake in the northeast of Japan in 2011.
First of all, the difference is the governments. There is little help from them here. The local residents gather the debris with literally their own hands, and carry it somewhere. I can't believe it. How many years will it take?
But even in this situation, there is no dark atmosphere here like after the earthquake in Japan. Nowhere in the Philippines. In Japan, we have a tacit understanding that we cannot mention about a disaster in a funny way. But here, even this calamity is used as a joke among people all over the Philippines. Even victims are making billboards like "WELCOME TO Yolanda village", as I mentioned before.
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I asked myself what can I do using the power of art and design in this situation? Is there any way of helping with art those who primary concerns are about basic needs? Is there any way of helping with art those who are craving clean water, and cover from the rain? But come to think of it, there are a lot of ways to help them. We can focus on good preventative design, and also on good design of facilities for use after disasters occur. For example, good house design to prevent major damage from disasters.