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This month, it is the time of the month for us to share our 科学系ポッドキャストのゆる合同企画のエピソードになります。
科学系ポッドキャストの企画では、もういくつかの20ぐらいかなの番組が、同じ共通のテーマで、それぞれの番組らしい解釈をしながら話を広げていって、
毎月10日ぐらいに科学ポッドキャストの日にシェアするっていうアクティビティーなんですけど。
I think it's been a year. No, I don't think so.
But this企画, it's been a year.
It's hosted this month by the person who came up with this plan, this party at all.
サイエントークのレンさんとエマさんからの企画になっています。
過去には発明とか論文とかいろんなテーマがあったんですけれども、
今回のテーマは未解決っていう壮大な、very grand theme for one year anniversary.
Almost too big, don't you think?
Too big.
It's like our entire career is 未解決.
Our life is full 未解決。
Yeah, like we get paid.
Yeah, every step we walk, it's 未解決。
That sounds a little existential, Masako. That sounds a little philosophical.
But I mean, it's true.
We as researchers get paid.
We get paid because we are involved with some kind of 未解決 in some way, shape or form.
And even if we understand some parts, but still, it's 未解決。
Exactly.
Because we get closer, we feel like we get closer to something, but still it's far away.
We will never know.
Every time we think, like when we publish, of course we're going to pretend that we have a grand conclusion.
But it just means it's a conclusion for that time.
And that's never a final, final answer.
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We just don't know.
It's there until it's proven otherwise, but it doesn't mean that it's a final, final answer.
So that is all to say, this is a big topic.
But I think as we are good researchers, I think we should approach this problem in small chunks.
So let's reduce the scale of the problem and focus on some specific type of 未解決.
And we thought some about it.
I mean, there are so many, but we try to come up with an appropriate sized 未解決.
And let's see where we go.
So we just have a topic now, but we don't really know where it's going to go.
So here's another thing that I came across recently.
So I'm reading the book currently, right now, written by Andy Weir.
Or Andy Weir, I'm not sure.
He's the person who wrote Martians.
Do you know this sci-fi TV series or novel?
Or maybe it's a movie.
Anyway, so he's a sci-fi author.
And Martians, his previous work, was a self-published blog post.
So it wasn't even a book.
But it caught so much attention to the point that I'm pretty sure somebody made a movie out of it.
So he has another book called Project Hail Mary.
And so I'm reading that now.
One of my friends was like, oh, I heard this is an interesting book.
And I asked her what I should read on my e-reader, now that I'm testing it out.
I quite like it, actually.
But that's aside.
So I got this recommendation, and I started reading it.
I'm hooked.
I don't think I'm a fast reader.
But I started yesterday, and I'm already 30% of the way in.
So it's a very fast page-turner book.
Anyway, so I don't want to spoil too much in case people want to read this.
If it comes out in Japanese translation or something.
But even reading this in English, I would recommend this to a lot of people.
Because it's written very simply.
Like a very simple English language.
It's mostly a stream of thoughts.
It's mostly the thoughts of the main character.
Who is almost alone most of the time in that whole book.
He's the only person around.
So he's thinking to himself.
The entire thing is like, oh, look at this.
Let me try this.
Oh, that doesn't work.
It's like the whole story is like that.
Anyway.
So there's a section where he's recalling a memory of international sort of board meeting.
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Important people from all over the world are on the same table discussing some Earth-wide emergency.
So he's describing the scenes.
Like, okay, I see a Russian guy sitting.
He looks like this and that.
There are some guys with a turban on his head.
He's describing it all.
He's describing a Japanese guy in one of those sentences.
And the Japanese guy says a translator.
And they converse for two words.
I think the translator says, Mr. So-and-so would like to request your blah-blah.
So there's all the room full of important people in the world.
This Japanese guy and his translator gets like two seconds airtime.
So somewhat important.
Maybe.
I don't know.
Maybe it doesn't matter at all.
Maybe it will matter later down the road in a book.
I don't know.
But there's an explicit mention of a Japanese important guy.
Important political figure in Japanese.
Representing Japan.
Has a translator.
And no other.
I mean, I think he mentions that there are some people with translators in the room.
But, like, Japanese guy specifically is explicitly mentioned to have a translator.
And I'm like, when is this going to be done?
Like, when is this going to be over?
Why are Japanese people always portrayed as someone who needs assistance in English?
You know?
It's 2023.
When are we going to be done with this?
We're so behind still.
And I don't know who to blame.
Like, do I blame the Japanese education system?
Or Western portrayal of Japanese people?
Or, like, I don't even know.
But I just was reading that.
And I had to stop reading and be like, why are we still doing this?
And so the Mikaigetsu I want to propose is, like, is it really that difficult?
Why is it so difficult for Japanese?
Or it's perceived as, collectively, as a nation, we seem to have difficulties learning English.
Like, why is that a thing?
Because, I don't know, because the language is, like, how we...
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The pronunciation is completely different.
The way we use our mouths is completely different.
And I know it's a fictional story.
We might be shy in general, Japanese people.
No?
Impossible.
And maybe we care a lot more because...
Yeah, how we are perceived by others.
We're self-conscious.
Self-consciousness is definitely one.
Maybe I also, I'm trying to think now and put it into words.
But maybe we care.
Maybe Japanese people care about exactly how they sound.
Or, like, the word choices.
And, like, they care more about their idea being transmitted accurately.
Over just making a point or just communicating.
And maybe that, for whatever reason, either culturally, historically, there's a lot more emphasis on that.
In our consciousness, collective consciousness.
And that's why we tend to become shy.
When we need to sound perhaps a little less intelligent at an expense of talking by yourself.
Yeah, and I might be wrong, but I think culturally, Japanese are more...
Are less self-centered.
So our values are based on how people judge about you.
More than what you want to do.
Are you talking about, like, collectivist culture versus individualist culture?
Yeah, and that might affect in learning new languages.
I don't know. I might be totally wrong.
Yeah, I don't know. It's...
I mean, we don't know and that's why it's unresolved.
But I feel like...
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I don't think other countries who have this much resources in standardized education have similar problems.
Right.
Like, Japan's 義務教育 is amazing, you know?
You know...
It's pretty impressive how far you can go.
Impressive, but the English teachers...
Yeah, but to be honest, the level of English classes wasn't that good when I was in middle school or high school.
Yeah, like, maybe not quite English education, English 義務教育, but like...
Maths, 国語, and 社会, and all these other subjects are good.
It's amazing how much...
This is a standardized public school education that the quality is somewhat...
It's guaranteed, right?
It's not like American school system where which school you go to based on where you live is going to affect the quality of public school education you're going to get.
And there's some quality assurance to the 義務教育.
It should get you up to the similar speed, whether you are in Hokkaido or in Okinawa, right?
You are...
Supposedly.
And I think they do a relatively good job, right?
Like, decently well.
I mean, 義務教育 is only up until middle school, so that's still not enough, but that's a bare minimum.
But the fact that you can expect kids who come in only barely knowing how to write hiragana to write hiragana, katakana, and like 2000 characters in kanji.
And do basic and sometimes advanced math and learn something about Japanese history, which is long and complicated.
And learn basic sciences and all of that.
That's pretty impressive.
And clearly the government has resources to do this.
It's not like we started recognizing that learning English is important last year.
Like, we've known this for decades.
And why do we still suck?
Early education might be important, right?
So, when you're small, like even before...
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So because, you know, I think we start learning or speaking English too late in Japan.
Because my friends' kids, they went to international school.
And they can speak English quite well.
Even, you know, they were brought up in Japan.
So I think early education might be the key.
How's their Japanese, though?
Well, it wasn't introduced properly in Japan.
Versus in many other countries, I don't know.
I'm asking how are these kids' Japanese skills.
Oh, good, good, of course.
International school, but now they're in a Japanese school.
Oh, okay, okay.
So they sort of had like a best of both worlds.
Where they can speak English fairly confidently, fluently.
But their Japanese is good enough to get fit into Japanese education system.
Terrific.
So, maybe early education, early exposure to English environments.
I mean, I guess that's one, yeah.
I mean, I don't know.
I feel like I was a relatively...
I mean, I wouldn't say I was not exposed to English when I was young.
Like, I was, right?
But at least to my conscious memory,
my English was no better than any other 中学生 before I came to Singapore for the second time.
Like, okay, my pronunciation might have been a little bit better than most people.
Just because I had that early exposure, even though it was a very primitive level of English.
Like, I didn't do anything in advance.
No grammar.
Like, just singing songs, playing games in English or something.
That might have worked.
That might have worked.
And maybe my knowledge that my pronunciation isn't terrible
already gave me the baseline confidence to go on.
Like, maybe that made a difference.
But, like, going from there, that level in middle school, you know, I just knew.
So, I went there.
I went to Singapore in 中二.
So, like, I think I did, like, 過去形と現在形とquestionの仕方とかと
and, like, maybe 過去分詞とか.
Like, that sounds familiar to me.
Like, have done, have had done type stuff.
But, like, I really remember not knowing that much before coming to international school at age 14
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and suddenly had to do all English.
And it's still, like, you know, 14 is, like, big enough, right?
Like, you know, to not...
Like, that's not fully grown, but, like, it's not a toddler level.
You are a human.
You're not quite an adult.
You're still, like, your brain is still growing, but still...
Well, still growing, yeah.
Yeah.
But, like, I wouldn't say that's an early exposure either, right?
I think it's early enough for your brain to stabilize your experience.
Because I also know there are, like, different cases where some kids went to English environment
between, like, ages, let's say, like, 7 to 10.
And they were completely in English environment during those three years.
Their Japanese got shaky.
Like, maybe they struggled with kanji and stuff like that.
And then they came back to Japan, and within, like, three years,
their English is about the same level as any other kids around them.
Sure, like, you know, they might know some slangs.
They might be more confident because they're not afraid
or they're not inherently scared of speaking English.
But that didn't make their English better.
So, like, I don't know.
Like, I have, like, a conflicting theory where I do agree with you
that early exposures can only help, right?
Like, if you have a chance to do that, great.
It's also not that when you're exposed too young.
When you, yeah, so the age matters, right?
So if you were exposed to English when you were too young,
then it may go away when you, yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
So, like, there's one, like, the Camp A will start as early as possible.
And Camp B, which I think I am more in Camp B than Camp A.
My situation is do English once your Shikokairo is developed in Japanese
or whatever your native language is,
and then go expose yourself to second languages
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because that gap between what I'm capable of expressing
in my native language and my second language
helped me, like, that frustration helped me close the gap between the two.
Interesting.
And now I realized this when I went to talk at Len-san's podcast about Mikaigetsu.
Like, I had a little guest episode with Sayamania,
and I was asked to speak about science in Japanese,
which I've never done.
I've never even given a conference talk or seminar talk in Japanese.
It's so difficult, right?
It was so hard.
I mean, like, one, I had very little time to prepare for it.
But two, I sound all over the place.
I am constantly looking for words.
I can see that I'm, like, thinking in English because my grammar,
like, the way I say things are very English grammar.
And that was hard.
And so now I feel like my gap might maybe,
like, just specifically for a science topic,
my English science fluency is better than my Japanese science fluency.
So I have the opposite kind of gap to close,
where I need to become better at speaking about science in Japanese,
at least to the level of what I'm capable of doing in English.
And I don't know how to train for that.
But I'm sure if I were asked to give a very important conference talk
or something, I will prepare for weeks and try and, you know,
make it sound like I know what I'm talking about, because I do.
But it was really difficult in Japanese.
And, yeah, like, I sound like I'm repeating myself a lot.
I sound like, yeah,
I sound mainly like I don't really know what I'm talking about.
Which is embarrassing.
So what is your proposal to encourage Japanese people?
Why not confidence?
So that we can stop the situation where Japanese fictional characters
are portrayed as a stereotype of not being good at Japanese.
The road to get there, I feel, is to, like, I mean...
Well, it's Mikaikesu, so it's okay.
I mean, ideally, everyone, and not just, like, kids who live in Roppongi, right?
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Like, everyone would have an opportunity in their daily lives
to interact with foreigners.
Doesn't have to be native speakers.
Just, like, anyone.
Anyone who they are forced to interact in English,
because that's your only common language.
And hopefully that happens with maybe your...
I feel like a lot of these people end up becoming really good at Japanese
that Japanese people don't really have to adjust for it, right?
I mean, that would be the most sort of organic way.
Okay, so how about we force to have once a month of No Japanese Day
where we are not supposed to use any Japanese but only English?
Or any other languages?
I mean, as a trial, right?
Like, to do that at school, I feel like it doesn't hurt, you know?
It could happen, and it could be useful if people actually follow through with it.
I'm thinking more in, like, long-term, like, sustainably implementable way.
I feel like there should be more...
Like, when they're introducing middle schoolers
or even, I guess, elementary school kids nowadays to English,
I feel like they start so boring.
They, you know, usually once you've done the alphabets,
which doesn't take long, you know, kids are smart.
Like, Katakana and Hiragana and Kanji is so much more complicated
than 26 alphabets.
After doing that, I feel like you go straight to, like,
some boring-ass nursery rhymes or really boring books
that are, like, for kids who are, like, five years younger than you.
Instead of that, like, expose them to movies, books,
anything that they're interested in.
More relevant and interesting.
Relevant, something that's interesting to them.
I think me being obsessed with Harry Potter
made me read Harry Potter in English,
even when I didn't understand, like, 50% of the book.
I just read enough so that I can figure out
who's going to die, basically.
But, like, that's still...
When I finished the, you know, like, a five-centimeter-thick Harry Potter book,
it felt like I accomplished something,
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even if I didn't understand most of it.
And I feel like that kind of, like, small seiko taiken is important.
And schools and the school education system should encourage it
rather than giving them some mind-numbingly boring things to study.
And so expose them to reading early on
and then expose them to writing more often.
I think it's very important.
By middle school,
that was one of the biggest transitions of me
going from Japanese school to international school.
I had to write a lot in every subject.
Not just in English.
I had to suddenly write in history classes,
in science classes, in math classes, even.
Like, I had to write a lot for some reason
in this Western education system.
And I don't know if that was good or not,
but it definitely made my improvement in English
sort of the acceleration in that faster.
Because I don't think I was required to write essays that much.
At least not in middle school, not in high school.
Like, you would have a shoronbun,
and that was, like, one big thing in a semester or something, right?
We would have shoronbun, like, every week as homework.
Whether it's about the books you read,
whether it's about the topic they decided in the class.
I remember in our exams,
like, our end-of-the-program exams,
for some subjects, it would be three hours of manual writing.
Just, like, you have one question,
and write an essay about it in three hours.
You know?
I don't think that was the kind of exams that I got in Japan.
So, like, there was a lot of, like,
what is the author's intention in the line A?
You know, or what does sore wa in line B
implied in the previous sentences?
Something like that.
And, like, I mean, those are important, yes.
Those are, like, basic reading comprehension skills.
But I feel like reading and really writing,
like, the output action
is ultimately what you need to build the confidence
and, like, sort of...
You make a ton of...
Like, we talked about this before.
If you make, like, hundreds of mini-mistakes every day,
you're not going to remember every single one of them.
But if you remember one mistake in, like, one mistake a day,
then you're going to remember about that one mistake for a few days.
So, like, especially when you're a learning phase,
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So, like, especially when you're a learning phase,
which all of the kids are, right?
I mean, I'm still learning every day.
I'm still learning new things every day. I'm 30.
But, like, I feel like when you're in the school system,
like, everyone is expected to be in a learning phase.
Everyone is expected to make a ton of mistakes.
But maybe the grading system
or the education evaluation system
doesn't allow them to make a lot of mistakes
or errors along the way.
Maybe it impacts too negatively to their grades
and have larger consequences.
Maybe if that can be reduced
and if the environment is more just trial-and-error-encouraging
kind of environment,
maybe that's one way to sort of build confidence over time.
And because, really, what you need is confidence, I feel like.
It doesn't really matter how intelligent or how smart
or how eloquent you sound when you speak or write.
It's just about the confidence and the will to, like,
I want to communicate this piece of information to you.
And how can I do this to the best of my ability?
Yeah, I wish I had an English teacher like you in my high school.
I mean, like, sometimes I think about this, right?
Like, I love being a scientist and I love being a researcher.
But also I feel like maybe my skill set is better used
if I go into the English education system
because I'm truly frustrated and truly think that
I do have something to offer.
I don't have much more to offer, though.
Like, this is all I have.
All of the opinions and experience I have for my English.
That's enough, actually, to change people.
Yeah, yeah.
And maybe this goes for, like, everything, you know?
Not just, like, English, but just, like, be in an environment
where you are allowed to make a bunch of mistakes
is helpful for many things, I feel.
I mean, that's sort of why I like doing research
because if you're doing anything new, anything that is 未解決, right?
You're bound to make a stupid error.
Yeah, we make lots of stupid errors.
Expensive errors, right?
Like, sometimes those mistakes are very painful.
Maybe you ruined the sample that you developed for half a year
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by doing something stupid.
And you, like, but still, like, by default,
by being in the field of research, it gives us,
like, the expectation is that we will make a mistake along the way.
You know?
So I think that that environment helps me be creative,
helps me be sort of resourceful in problem-solving situation.
Whereas if I was told that I cannot make any mistake
in order to achieve this in the project,
I think I would be a lot less productive and a lot more depressed.
Yeah.
Yeah, we need to be allowed to make mistakes.
Yeah.
I mean, like, I feel like it's not always possible for everyone, though,
because, like, I don't want my doctors to be making mistakes.
You know?
During your surgery.
Yeah, like, I don't want them to be like,
oops, I cut off a wrong organ.
Like, no, I don't want you to do that.
But, you know, learning,
I feel like English mistakes are relatively small mistakes
from most people, you know?
Not all of us.
There's only few of us who are, like, spokesperson for the president, you know?
Or very few people who's, like,
very few of us have that important of a role speaking English.
You know, most of us just want to communicate with your neighbors
and with your colleagues.
Yeah.
The conclusion for this 未解決 topic is make lots of mistakes, right?
I guess so.
Or, like, create an environment where mistakes are tolerated.
Yeah, acceptable.
I don't want to read another book, another movie,
where a Japanese person, the only fictional Japanese person in that film,
is portrayed with some elements of struggling with English.
Like, I don't want to see that.
Like, no, we've seen plenty of that.
We don't need more of that.
Okay, let's change this country.
Single-handedly.
Double-handedly, if it's too difficult, I guess.
All right, I think that's good enough.
That's it for the show today.
Thanks for listening and find us at EigoDeScience on Twitter.
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That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C-E.
See you next time.
