Japanese Actor Speaking Chinese https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMJ1ZmYzYL4 (Youtube) http://tv.sohu.com/20130829/n385340362.shtml (捜狐) In that video, the Japanese man 矢野浩二 was interviewed and spoke in Chinese. What do you think of his Chinese conversation skills? Does he sound like a native speaker?

About Te Form in Japanese As far as I know, even some of adcanced Japanese learners are often confused about conjugation and uses of the te-form in Japanese. When I was in school, I learned the Japanese grammar rules indluding that as a first language mostly for writing. I already forgot how I worked on them back then, so I looked it up on the internet and found some educational videos about a song called "the te-form song (て形の歌)". You can see some clips about it on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BEnw7J6hiw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW1YcozsWh4 Here is some examples regarding conjugating to the te-form. The endings う(u), つ(tsu) and る(ru) become って(tte). The endings む(mu), ぶ(bu) and ぬ(nu) become んで(nde). The ending く(ku) becomes いて(ite). The ending ぐ(gu) becomes いで(ide). The verb する(suru) which means "to do" in English becomes して(shite). etc... When you conjugate the verb suru(する) to the te-form, you need to pay attention to what that means. If that is written only in Hiragana, that means "to do" and the te-form becomes "shite". However, that has some homophones such as 擦る which means "to scrape, to scrub or to rub", 刷る which means "to print" and so on. In those cases, you could focus on the ending "ru" and the te-form becomes "su(tt)te".

My Nephew Burned His Face Last Friday my sister took her four-year-old son to my house in the afternoon, and then I hung out with the nephew here for several hours. He told me that he was looking forward to going to a festival that night. Afterwards, they left to the site of festival located at the park. Five hours later, she sent me a shocking message on LINE. According to her, when his father and brother were bringing four bowls of ramen to the table there, the nephew ran up from her to the father and hit him. At that time, the bowls tipped over and spilled the 80℃ soup of ramen on his face. As a matter of course, they got panicked. The relief team provided proper emergency aid to him soon after that. My sister and her husband took him to a public hospital, and he spent two nights there. Now he is out of hospital, but he still has some burned scars on his face. Now all we can do is pray to be removed them.

How have you learned your target language/languages? I'm now curious about how other people have worked on their language studies. I've been studying English for approximately four years now. When I decided to study it in April, 2014, I had no idea how to say, how to pronounce, or what to say in English. Back then, natural English sounded like some kind of noise to me. I understand my English has improved a lot since then, but I'm still struggling with a real conversation. To leave your comment would be much appreciated.

A 78-year-old Japanese Man Called "Super Volunteer" Last week, the two-year old boy Yoshiki became lost when his grandfather was taking a walk with him and his three-year old brother to a beach near his great-grandfather's house, which is located in a small island, Yamaguchi. Afterwards, the police throughly searched areas around where he was last seen, involving about 380 officers and rescues as well as drones. In spite of that, they couldn't find the toddier for approximately three days. In the meantime, the 78-year-old man Haruo Obata living in Oita, Kyushu knew it on TV news. He immediately decided to leave to the site to participate as a search party volunteer. Obata has already had more than 10 years volunteering experience since he retired as the owner of fish shop at the age of 65. In the early morning on the day after he arrived there, he followed a mountain trail and called out "Yoshiki-chan" again and again in the mountain. When it took about 20 minutes, he heard a kid said "Pops, I'm here" and he finally found the boy Yoshiki sitting on the stone. As a matter of fact, he has originally known small children tend to climb up in those situations. According to a residence who knows the area, even locals don't enter there, and that's why others thought "There is no way a small boy can go there." Reporters interviewed Obata afterwards. Then, he said "Human life outweighs anything. I came here because I wanted to help people with something. I was really happy when I heard 'Pops, I'm here.' " shedding tears. According to a person who volunteered to recover from tsumami disaster in Tohoku in 2011, Obata was called "Super Volunteer" among the people involved. As his motto, he always pays for anything regarding his work out of his own pocket, and he never gets anything from any victim not to bother all of that. When I saw the following picture, I've figured out a hero exists among everyday people.

How Can I Help an Absolute Beginner Learner of English A young man who was my driving student told me that he wanted to learn conversational English after I talked about my English studies. He is a nineteen-year-old collage student. As far as I know, he would have little knowledge about English except for the alphabet. Just like most Japanese people, he has no idea how he should pronounce any sound of English. Honestly I'd like to recommend him taking italki sessions, but it's impossible for him to speak English with any tutor at the moment. What should he do to communicate with someone in basic English? And then, how can I help him with his studies?

My Former Driving Student I used to be a driving instructor working part-time for a privately run driving school. I left there after I got into strong argument about money with the boss at the end of March. It's because he was so sloppy that I didn't get paid enough for my lessons. In addition to that, he often deceived students regarding the lesson package when I was working there. In other words, he never paid back the rest to them even if all classes in the package weren't completed despite the fact that other schools dealt with it. Nevertheless, I still care about students that I was teaching, who don't get a driving license. Yesterday one of them contacted me to ask for my help. Of course, I accepted his request. He also complained about the boss. He is trying to take the driving test with a manual transmission next week. However, I currently have only an automatic car although we need a manual car. Therefore, I suggested a plan to him. First, I explain some tips to pass the test including clutch control while I drive my car with him in the front passenger seat along courses on the road. Second, he takes a driving lesson from an instructor at another school. This way, I'd assume he can pass the test within second times.

How I Have Learned English Please correct my mistakes in this post. When I started learning English four years ago, I tried to take an online school's session almost every day while looking for a patient tutor. In that online school, all tutors were non-natives of English. Back then, I had no idea how to say and what to say in English just like most Japanese learners of English. In other words, my spoken English didn't make any sense to fluent English speakers as well as the natives except for people understanding the Japanese language. I even felt like some tutors made fun of me even though it wasn't true. Once I found the tutor, I tried to speak basic English with her for 30 mins regularly. As a result, I pretty much got accustomed to it in six months. However, when I talked to an American man online afterwards, I couldn't catch up with his English at all. It sounded like some kind of noises to me. That's why I looked for a native teacher providing a private lesson in person for a reasonable fee on the internet. Eventually, I found my current teacher. He is an elderly American whose wife is Japanese. He doesn't speak Japanese, but it doesn't matter because I don't learn Japanese from him. I asked him some questions every class. He always gave me helpful advice and I did what he told me. In addition, I have worked hard on my accent reduction while taking sessions on italki, and I tried to talk to Japanese learners in English to help them with Japanese. When I visited the U.S. a year ago, many locals said to me "Your English is very good." or "How did you study English?" as soon as they knew I was Japanese. Nevertheless, my English still sounds awkward. Not to mention, I need to practice more English to get fairly fluent. I would say practice makes perfect once you find how to learn a foreign language the proper way.

Someone Tweeted about English Studies I found that an older man said on twitter, "中途半端な英語にかける労力で、高度な韓国語と中級レベルの中国語が学べます。". It means "If you study English the half-baked way, you can pass the skills of advanced Korean or intermediate Chinese with the same effort." I would say that it's true. For me, it's much harder to learn English than I thought. By the way, I asked my friend, who studied abroad and taught Japanese in South Korea for a total of eight years, about it. He agreed with me, but he told me that it wasn't practical for us to get fluent in Korean. According to him, it's because many Koreans are fluent in Japanese and the Korean language is spoken only in the Korean Peninsula. What do you think of it?