(continuing from my previous post) achievement in my work outweighed the joy to study English that doesn't always pay off as immediately. One of the biggest reasons I started to see less meaning in immersing myself in studying English is the fact that about 70-80% of the population can speak English as it is their second language, and most of them speak English that is easy to understand even when I go to the bank, dentist, insurance company, and so on. Of course, I still loved to study English, but my motivation had surely dwindled. Now, I'm back in Japan. The opportunity to speak English is almost nonexistent in my current life, and I think that became a huge reality check for me. I hate myself just resting in my laurels from studying hard in the past and not having as much fluency as I had back then. I have to face the reality and accept that I AM doing nothing but just slacking off. Dwelling in the past is just doing more harm than good. The other day, I was taking a stroll outside and pondered, "What am I doing? Am I ok with this?" I came to the conclusion that I want to go back in time when I was burning with passion, motivation, and curiosity about learning English. I just don't want to let all my efforts go to waste. And here I am on Italki.com to ask for your help. I will, to the best of my ability, do my best to help you learn Japanese!

I re-started to study English I lived in the U.S. for almost 8 years and also in the Philippines for 4 and half years. The 8-year period of my life in the U.S. was the culmination of my English study and I can even be proud of myself for staying laser-focused for such a long time. First of all, please allow me to explain how I spent the 8 years. (please note that I might sprinkle some vocab or expressions across the entire post that I want to use for my practice, so please feel free to ignore any minor mistakes even if you find it a bit out of context. I just want to use, recall, and cement them in my brain ^^) I studied English for at least 8-10 hours every day no matter how busy I was. I even studied 13 hours a day at least 3 days a week, and my favorite time was to reward myself for studying for a long time with an hour of online lesson that was usually a bit out of my budget or with something like an English dictionary or book on phrasal verbs/idiomatic expressions. I would listen to podcast or radio whenever I walk, eat, drive, or take a public transportation, or I would just think to myself or talk to myself all in English whenever I had nothing to listen to. I would wake up in the morning opening up a notebook to review what I learned the day before, and I would go to sleep (or fall asleep) while studying English. I would always make sure that I will not waste even a second doing anything that is irrelevant to my study. Then, I moved to the Philippines. When I was in the U.S., I was working with my boss and a few of my colleagues, so we were able to share the burden of our workload we had to accomplish. But in the Philippines, I was all by myself and had to fend for myself with everything from work to cooking meals three times a day for the entire period. So I stopped studying English due to the scarcity of my free time. My priority has shifted from improving my English to excelling in my work. The joy to earn a tangible (continue to my next post)

What does “diminishing” mean in this context? 「It's understandable to be cautious about terminology that might sound hierarchical or potentially offensive. While "subordinates" is technically correct, it can sometimes be perceived as diminishing. A more neutral term like "team members" or "direct reports" might be better received. For instance, you could say, "I aim to set an example for my team members" or "for my direct reports." This conveys the same meaning without emphasizing the hierarchy as strongly.」

Last night, I had a pleasant dinner with my family for Mother's Day. My mom is diagnosed as an alcoholic and has been trying her best to abstain from drinking alcohol (but I know she can't help but to take a sip of alcohol from time to time, and I've been turning a blind eye to it). But since yesterday was a special day when the rest of our family wanted to express our acknowledgment that she deserved to have whatever food and drink she wants. After the dinner, we headed to a grocery store to stock up some food for tomorrow's breakfast along with some more alcohol and snacks lol. We reached home and had a small drinking party. That was around 9pm. I remember that I ordered some pizza through UberEats, and that was around 9:30pm. Then I woke up at 6am. ??? Yes, I have no recollection about what happened after I got the pizza. According to the wrist watch I was wearing, I went to sleep around 2am. So, what happened between 9:30pm to 2am the next morning..?? I know drinking too much to the extent of being unconscious is not a healthy thing, and this experience was an undeniable testament to the fact that I need to change my drinking habit for the sake of maintaining good health and living a long life. It seems like I'm in no position to find fault with my mom's alcoholism (-_-;)

Hi! What is the word you can use when you try to remember in the form of like a mental list? (E.g. someone’s favorite food, etc) Or can i just use the word “mental list” this way? ↓ I made a mental list for all his favorite foods.

Hello! I've been learning phrasal verbs and wanted to consolidate them in my brain by writing a made-up story using those phrasal verbs that I'd like to go over. This story is very random, so it might sound very silly and have nothing to do with my real life, haha. Could you please kindly correct how I use those phrasal verbs, if I'm using them wrong? Thank you in advance!! ........................................................................................... I went to the most beautiful beach in the world. I put suntan lotion on and enjoyed my time there. After returning from the vacation, I talked to my friend about how amazing the experience was, but he didn't believe me because he thought I couldn't afford to go to the best beach in the world. He said "don't try to put me on." I replied, "It's not a put-on!" "I don't believe you have the ability to pay for that. It must have run into $1 million," he said. I told him, "yeah, I had a coupon, which took 99% off the entire cost. Also, my business has taken off, so I had no problem paying it all up. If you're still dubious about that, that's fine. I'm not going to talk about that anymore" So, I took off in frustration. By the way, in my business, we hold so many events every month, like 25 company events per month, because we like to have fun. Normally, each event comes off very well. Everyone is meticulous and attentive, so they pay attention to every single detail, they even care about whether or not the color of the decor shows up well against the color of the wall. Some of them easily come down with a cold or even with the flu because of the fatigue from their work. There was someone who had cancer, but he pulled through completely, because of his mad love and insane degree of passion toward working for my company. He's so loyal to me and my company. He always goes along with my decision and idea. I hope all this story didn't make you want to doze off.

My dad is really concerned about the huge earthquake that has been predicted to occur within the next few decades (could be in a few years). It might hit all the prefectures on the Pacific coast side of Japan and could affect a large scale of the country far and wide. We live in Tokyo, so it could not only tear down our house but also, potentially, take our lives. I think we should do some earthquake drills so, when it happens, we can take the right action to know what to do. That being said, we might still be overwhelmed to some extent and may not take action as smoothly as we are supposed to do, since we never know what time in a day it happens; it could be in the middle of the night.

Hi! I need to present a formal speech in front of many priests and other reverends. In that speech, there is a paragraph that I want to begin by saying "不肖ながら (fusho nagara)" in English, which is basically a humble expression to say "Though incompetent as I am,". The reason I want to say this at the beginning of the paragraph is that I want to express my humble determination to work on a new path in my religious trajectory that I'm going to take on, and basically, I want to say "Though incompetent as I am (as a novice priest), I will do my best to accomplish my new task (etc)" Does that sound unnatural to say "Though incompetent as I am"? I want to find an expression that has the same meaning in English. Thank you!

"I would like to state XXX" I'm translating a speech from someone who is in very high authority (actually the High Priest of a certain religion), so it is a very formal speech to a large audience. He stated something very confidently and explicitly. Can I translate it this way?↓ 1) "I would like to clearly state that XXX" (this part is basically "honesty is important") 2) "I would like to explicitly state that XXX" 3) "I would like to expressly state that XXX"