Michael- A Little Bit of LEXology

A Little Bit of LEXology

One of the projects I have been working on a lot recently is assisting with the translation of the Yo Sakakibara's book into English (the working English title is Sing the Sounds, Children). Pretty much I serve as a native-English, university-educated reader who helps suggest the proper words, with proper connotations based on the LEX philosophy. The translator does an amazing job, but when there are such complex ideas written in a traditional Japanese matter (with added poetic or vague style), it can be hard to know exactly what the philosophy is. We work to make it applicaple to the potential U.S. reader.

I also 'attempted' to assist the chairman, Kenshi Suzuki, with a speech at one of our older youth workshops. I say attempted because I don't think I was really much help. His voice was weak that day and we had many international guests so he wanted to whisper to me what he wanted to say and I would use my voice to tell the workshop. It was quite hard!

Anyways, I have been swarming in LEXology recently. I continue to be amazed by and in agreement with what I have encountered. One of the things I got really excited about was the Flower Model of language acquisition from Chapter 7. Really simplified, there is a universial basic structure (UBS) to all language. Multilingual people are able to embrace this structure (the circle in the middle) and keep pedals for the differences that exist between languages (pronuncation, grammar). The more languages, the more reinforcement for the UBS and the better the language ability. Traditional foreign language focuses too much on the differences and not enough on the similarities! But that's just the tip of the iceberg! You'll just have to read to find out all the rest...

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Daniel- こにちわ！！

こにちわ！！　(Daniel) Hello,こにちわ, bonjour, Привет ! My name is Daniel Panasenko, and I am the 2012-2013 LEX intern in the Hippo office in Tokyo. I am from Sacramento, California, although originally from Dnipropetrovs'k, Ukraine. I first came across LEX and Hippo when I came to Japan with People to People in 2009. I was hosted by members of the Hippo Family Club for four days, and I enjoyed the experience so much, that I came back to work for Hippo as an intern. Although I am fairly new to Hippo, I have been received warmly and welcomed into the Hippo family. Everyone at the office and at the family clubs are very kind, supportive, and incredibly patient as I unintentionally butcher their language. As the year progresses, I will blog about my experiences in Japan as well as my insights into the language and culture. Although I am a bit overwhelmed by the novelty of the lifestyle and language, but I am more than happy to be here, making fascinating new discoveri...

Michael- Koto-ku Community Festival

Koto-Ku Community Festival Wow! It seems like just yesterday that I was writing my last blog post, but yet it was really 2 weeks! I have been told it has gotten a lot colder in the U.S., so I should probably tell you I've only worn a light jacket once so far...And that was when the latest typhoon was offshore and pulling wind down from Russia. Otherwise, it has been amazing weather here. As always, I've been doing a lot, but I will talk about one thing I really enjoyed. I worked at a Hippo booth at my community festival. The festival was held over the weekend a week ago at Kiba Park near my home. The park is quite large and known for the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, but mostly it's cool because it has a suspension bridge over a canal in the middle. The event was quite exciting for me as it was also my first Japanese festival. I want to say it was a mix between a flea market and a trade show. There were many tents set up in many different areas. Booths varied a...

Danielle- Shopping Malls

Shopping Malls I noticed I don't talk about shopping enough, so here's a brief overlook of some of my favorite shopping malls (so far~) out here in Japan. AEON I have one about 5 minutes away from my local train station here in Chiba. It feels very homey to me, just because it's really spacious and open and reminds me of a shopping mall I had back in Illinois. What I love about Aeon, too, is that it has a bunch of different stores (other than just clothes). On the first floor, you have your groceries, bakery, and cosmetics, and stuff like that. On the other floors, you have your clothes, electronics, food court (talk about majorly nostalgic, especially with the KFCs and Subways), and mini arcade. Chiba is kind of out-of-the-way, and so Aeon has been a very convenient place for me to buy my toiletries and CalorieMate... and just walk around, if I feel like it. I bought my first winter coat there and some gloves, and it was all reasonably priced, I think (granted,...

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