Spotifyのポッドキャストから
2021年5月25日に放送された
English Mindset (Spotifyオリジナル)
#18 ケント・ギルバートさん「Be proud of your country」
の内容です。
グーグルの音声認識ソフトで文字起こしをしました。
会話の内容でこれはいいと思った箇所を太字にしています。
★ここで強調されていたのは
①英語の正しい発音
②語彙力
でした。
あとは、後半の５個の母音字
a e i o u エイ イー アイ オー ユー（アエイオウ）
について、フォニックスの観点から説明されています。
文字起こしが中途半端な部分がありますが、
ポッドキャストを聞かれてみてください。
このフォニックスについては、下記のケントギルバートさんご自身のブログでも書かれていました。
▲他にも参考になるエピソードが沢山ありましたが、今年2020年夏にこのポッドキャストの番組が終了したようです。
ここからが文字おこしです。
👇
Hey, what's going on guys?
English mindset
日本人の思考ロジックに迫る番組です。海外で働きながら英語力を獲得した人や夢実現のために英語力ゼロから努力し、奔走する人の現在に至るまでの刺激溢れる話をシェアしています。今日はギルバートけんをお招きしています。
I hope you guys enjoyed my conversation with Kent Gilbert. Hey Kent. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?
I'm doing great. Hello to everybody from Tokyo.
So can't I have a whole bunch of questions that I want to ask you today but I guess where else start with is
You've been living in Japan for many, many years now. And I want to know the beginning of it all. So what brought you to Japan, Kent?
Okay in 1971 when I was 19, I applied to become a missionary for our church and they called me to Japan. I did not get to choose the place. They chose it. So in August of 1971 I received a letter and said you have been called to Japan and I said to myself, Japan. Let's see. Where's Japan. That island off the coast of China. Yeah, that's Japan. It's about how much you care about it. And so I went to the library, checked out a few books, I was in college then, I checked out a few books on the Japanese language and on Japan itself and I read up but it was hard to visualize Japan. I mean, I can visualize it. The country. But I've never really met any Japanese people. Hmm. Anyway so I came to Japan as a missionary. I served here for two years mainly in Kyushu around the Fukuoka area, Fukuoka, Kitakyushu ,Sasebo. I was a little bit up in Yamaguchi prefecture in a place called Yanai, and after the two years were over I went back and went back just to college.
and let me stop you there for a second so far all the listeners who may not know what a missionary is.
1971年に日本に宣教師として召されたのです。自分で決めるのではなくて教会が決めるんですけども、これ2年の期限付きのメッシュなので、私は日本人なされたわけです。
1971年の暮れにですね、東京に東京じゃなくて九州に行ったんですね。福岡に行って、2年間あの周辺で、布教活動をやってました。布教活動って言うけれども事実上修行みたいなものなんですよ。
大人になりますね事実上修行みたいなものなんですよ。２年そういう仕事をやるとですね、大人になりますね。
2年間の間はですね、まず来る前に言葉を覚えないといけないですから、ハワイで10月の半ば頃から12月の半ば頃まで8週間、日本語の集中講義を受けました 朝7時半から夜9時半まで。毎日8週間続けて。日曜日は休みだけど。 結局ですごい効果的なものでしたね。すごい効果的なものでしたね 。
From 7:30 a.m. till 9:30 p.m. six days a week.
What you do is the first hour, you review yesterday's material, then the next three or four hours, you'll learn new material. And then in the afternoon, the first hour you review what you learned in the morning. And then learn some more new material and then we had an hour for exercise, an hour for dinner and an hour for “文化の時間”.
日本の文化ですからね、琴ができる人がやってきて、琴を弾くとかですね。電車の時間ができる人がやってきてお事を聞くとかですね.
一般的な文化のことであの後で思ったんですけど、和式便所をそこで使う方法を教えてくれば良かったですけど、日本に来てからそれをどういう風に使うんだろうなと思いましたよ。あの和式便所をそこで使う方法を教えてくれば良かったですけれども。。。中略
夜の3時間は昼間やった事をもう1回やります。これで覚えた事はですね、あのまず1回覚えた内容は忘れます。しかしだから覚えて忘れてもう1回覚えて忘れてもう1回覚えるとだいたい3回目で残るんですね。それで次の日の朝1時間、朝の最初の1時間は、昨日やったことをもう1回はやりますから。これの繰り返しで言葉を覚えて、それから日本に来たんですね。
So this is all taking place even before coming to Japan. This is in Hawaii, right?
and how long was this eight weeks? Eight weeks. So it's like a very intensive eight-week program that you were in before coming to Japan.
Very intensive in the last portion of it was spent memorizing.
A book of phrases, things that we would need to say. So we just memorized. It was very, nowadays. I'm sure they use computers and Technology but then it was just we had of this book and they said memorize this whole book. like oh wow! but if you set your mind to it it's like a 倍々ゲームで早くなっていきますね。
覚えるのが、一つの技術なので、覚え始めたら早くなっていきますね。
So then, what I got to Japan on the first day we went out on the street and started proselytizing.
もういきなり、福岡の中心部の天神という場所に行って、人に話しかけるんですね。もういきなりですよ。こんにちは、お元気ですか？と話しかけるんですよ。相手は、はい、元気ですと言ってくれればいいんですけど。そうじゃなくて、”ぼちぼちだな”とくるんですよ。どの教科書にも書いてない。
nobody writes those kinds of words in textbooks. So fortunately I had a companion. Mmm. So immediately I had to start talking to people from the very day until the end of the two-year. I spent every day talking to people about religion and life and various things. So it was very it was extremely at first, it was quite kind of hard and then I got to be really fun. I got a real kick out of talking to people and I like talking to Japanese or talking with Japanese in Japanese. I learned how to do that.
So, What is this? I've never had really that experience of standing on the street and talking to people. I think maybe the closest thing was when I was living in Japan, shooting a YouTube video and asking people. If they would like to be interviewed on my Hapa eikaiwa YouTube channel, we did that for, I don't know, a couple of hours. Obviously, you know, when you do something like that, you're going to get turned down more than people be willing to talk to you.
What was your experience like with Japanese people? Are they more open to talking to you or do you like 95% of the people either ignore you walk away from you or just you know say they're not interested or something like that. Well what else is there?
They were pretty receptive.
Because back in those days “gaijin”s were really “珍しい”.
so what you do is you stand there, you see the people coming and you choose a Target. I want to talk to this guy.”この人に”
And what has he comes to you? Step in front of him and you say ”ちょっと話していいですか？and he looks really surprised that he goes. ”ハイ”, most people don't say, yeah. Some of the women would but you know, because they were so surprised that I was speaking Japanese.
外人がその当時は日本語ができなかったですよ。
So it was. So I spent all day talking to people is sometimes it was street contacting like that. Sometimes we did door-to-door mmm, Tobias hormone and sometimes we would have meetings but the whole day was spent doing that until 9:30 at night for two years.
Wow, that is that's intense.
It is. And that's why I said “修行”.
You're yeah you are you grow up fast you have to do that every single day for two years.
At what 19 years old at the time？
I was 19. I was 21 when it ended in October of 1973. And then I came back to the US. I went back to college and then after that in 1975 I went to Okinawa to work for the government for a while. And then I came back and went to graduate school or on the MBA and a law degree. And then in 1980, I moved to Tokyo and I've been here ever since, wow. Don't got to think you're God's vision and God needs you teaching in this car? Yeah, well those to know how its you got sudden injection and universe the curse you know in and OK. Donald wow.
1980年からずっとですから、21年ですか。今年の8月で21年になりまして、九州の2年と沖縄の6ヶ月と7ヶ月か後途中で東京で研修もやったもんですからまあ通算して44年ぐらいかな
2年間修行した後ずっと九州だったケントさんは、その2年間終わった後ケントさんは九州弁だったのですか？
Did you like to acquire the kyushu dialect after talking to Kyushu people every single day? You know it's really interesting. I didn't I didn't think that I did.
And that that my last six months I was in sasebo it's in Nagasaki prefecture and I didn't say “バッテン” stuff like that but When I got home, I spoke in church to do a sort of report.
中略
Let me kind of go back, into you learning Japanese. Because, you know, I don't even know where to start. It seems like you went through this two month period of just learning Japanese for what 14 hours a day, I think, is what you said, right?
Right? And then you actually hit the streets of Japan for two years. So you had almost like this balance of like focused learning in a classroom and then the practicality of being in the streets talking to people learning real Japanese. So what was the whole like learning Japanese process like for you did the actual like classroom help you out before hitting the streets, or did you feel like all really need to do was get out and talk to people. Okay, it depends on the person. Hmm, and I think some people can learn language naturally. Some people must learn it as a system. They can't pick it up naturally. I am that kind of a person. Hmm. I can't learn Japanese or any other language naturally. I have to understand the system like mathematics, and then I can learn it very easily. So, in Hawaii, when we were studying Japanese, the first four weeks we learned grammar. and Japanese grammar is very easy, easy. Okay. I think it's easy
日本の文法は簡単ですよ。複数はないし、冠詞はないし。
And so what you learn is you say, I've learned two things,
動詞活用ー行く、行かない、行きます、行く時、行けば、行って、行った。
You just learned that system”動詞活用” right? And then you learn “助詞”
は、か、に、へ、と、まで、から.
If you know those two, the rules for those two things, you can make a sentence very easily.
You just piece it together, you just make the verb go at the end.
And the rest of it doesn't really matter what order it's in.
As long as you have the right particle.
We call that particle. “助詞”
So if you have that on there.
So you can say ”今日、東京から大阪まで行きます。”
Or you can say ”今日、大阪まで東京から行きます。”
It doesn't really make any difference the order as long as “行きます” comes at the end.
So I learned Japanese as a system and it was what worked for me. And then of course your big problem is how do you get to learn lots and lots of vocabulary. So, that's how I learned it and then, of course, speaking to people every day, then you hear how they actually say it right. Right?
How about learning ”敬語” or like ”謙譲語”l goal was that pretty difficult for you because I'm assuming when people who are learning Japanese learned a language for the first time, I'm assuming you loot, you learned the Kegel form right on you learn the Casual way, right? So I guess it should be maybe the other way around learning how to speak casually versus formally.
Was that a challenge for you?
Well as a missionary, you're supposed to speak the language.
”keigo” is hard and if you mess it up, you know, if you make a mistake with “keigo” then people can be offended. So we just tried to stick to “ですます調”.
And after a while I kind of got into using “keigo”.
And you know,
“いたします。” ”なさいます”
”謙譲語” is “自分”
”尊敬語” is is the other person and they come in three three they come in pairs.
Like “いたします,します、なさいます”
And but it's kind of tricky. So you have to be careful. Yeah, you do it but I started using more of that actually when I came back to Japan to work.
most of the time, just stuck with “です、ます。安全パイ”
So what was the biggest challenge for you then acquiring the language?
The biggest challenge was vocabulary vocabulary just remembering words? Yeah. And when I was a missionary, I did not learn very many kanji, mmm. The reason being I didn't know the system. Hmm, kanji has a system. And they have bushu, you know, they have it and if you don't know that there's a bush of system, there's no way you can understand why all the characters look like how they do. Hmm. So when I went back to University after being a missionary,
大学に戻ったら、それを学問としてちゃんと勉強したんですよ。
実は私の学士上の選考は日本語なんですよ。
その時にちゃんと部首を覚えて、ギョウニンベンとかニンベンと、シンニュウとか、それにどういうものが付いているかとか、これはシステムとして発音も占うことができるし、意味もなんとか分かるわけ。
でもちゃんとそれを覚えたのが大学の時でした
僕は大学に5年間教えています。
大学と大学院の時に日本語のクラスを僕が教えてました。
自分のクラスを持ったわけですから、教育漢字までは自分が教えてましたから、教育漢字は死ぬまで忘れません。それより難しい常用漢字の残りの方はまあ見れば読めますけど、書けって言われたら困りますね。
音読み訓読みとかもやっぱ結構難しいですよね
漢字もその一通りの読み方じゃなくて、組み合わせで読み方が変わってくるから、やっぱそれももう何回も何回もこう読んだり書いたりするのを繰り返して、ケンとさんは覚えたのですか？
音読みは原則として熟語の時ですから、
訓読みは熟語ではない時、大和言葉が訓読みなんですよね。
で、熟語になると、”くんくん、おんくん、くんおん、おんおんの4つのパターンがあるんですけども、まあそれ順番に覚えていけばいいです
原則として、音読みです。（熟語のときは）
検討しておりの熟語の時はこれで日本語を勉強した時は拳斗さんみたいに日本語を漢字覚えてないからこういうの聞くとなんか逆にこういう風に外国人で日本語を学ぶんだなって逆にもでも
a very systematic, the way you learned Japanese seems like, that's very systematic. And and so when I was teaching at the university, the text book was written by somebody from Harvard but it was really hard to understand because they would,
for example,
they give you the kanji “ikiru生きる”,
And they just teach you that at you read it "ikiru”.
And then two weeks later they say No, it should be ”sei 生”,
Like as in “jinsei 人生”（生活）
I thought it was ”ikiru”. and later on. They they come on and they said, it should be "sho" or it should be something else.”nama 生”
There's nothing like that, you know, there's actually about 20 or 30 readings for that character if you, if you include place names. Mmm, and so,
When I was in graduate school, the first summer, sprin, summer vacation, the Japanese professor and I got together and rewrote the textbook.
And they still use that textbook at the University where I went BYU
really, that is really cool.
And what we did is we take when we introduce a character, we introduce all of the readings, mmm. At once all at once, So that you know how many there are and it was a lot easier to understand that way.
I see. So instead of introducing how to read it gradually, you will just show them all. That was, these are all the different ways to read this kanji. So you already kind of know what you're getting yourself into before you start.
Yeah.And then in that lesson we only use one or two of the readings, but they know there are more like ”iku” , you've got a “iku” And you got “ko” and “gyo” and I don't know, there's probably more, but you do, you teach all of those? You know, with some sample, vocabulary,
そうでもしないと訳が分からないでしょう。
Let's take what you learned. As an American learning Japanese to now. Japanese people learning English, right? And, you know, living in Japan for 40 years or so. Now I'm assuming that you have encountered situations. You know, you mentioned before that, you know, you ran an English school in Japan for quite some time as well. So, you know, in your opinion, can't what can Japanese people do to improve their English.
Okay, there's two big things.
One, Use proper pronunciation. 発音を直した方がいいですね。
And the second
learn tons of vocabulary.
発音をきちんと覚えれば、自信がつきます。単語が無いと言いたい事が言えないでしょ。
私たちは、ハワイでそこが一番のポイントだったのですよね。仕組みは分かったけど、単語が分からない。だから、言いたいことが言えない。
日本に暮らしている間にそれを覚えたんですけどね。
でも日本に暮らしてる間にそれを覚えたんですけど。
今でも毎日新しい単語を覚えますよ
日本語を読むと知らない漢字が出てきてやばい特に日本語の場合って読めないとね
漢字を今だったらもうパソコンでコピー&ペースト接続に漢字を読み読み方でわかるけど
午後系大学生の時はまだそういうねあのなんで電子辞書しかなくて漢字読めなかったら漢字辞書つかなくてこいこいここを数えてってこれどういう風に読むんだろうって
In CG Source, connect the kanji kanji Jesus connected quickly Coke. Has avoided The Credo is doing yeomen, it was just a pain, how figuring out how to read the kanji. And I remember that being a digoxin is kanji so you could scrape it off with a garbage bag and then she booked a density so that night she died. No stolen base.
漢字大学生漢字辞書よく使って手軽な1代の人なんですよいやあのネルソンの漢字辞典があるんでしょうって思ってると思うけどまず数えて調べてだいたい出てこないですよね出てこなかったら本当に分からないからね大変だったんですよね
中略
I think Japanese people probably do not understand how to understand, how to pronounce something from the spelling.
Because the spelling, actually if you understand the rules and there are rules.
We have pronunciation rules, it's called phonetics or phonics phonetics. If you understand that you can tell how to pronounce an English word from the spelling, but they don't teach that in Japanese schools.
So you need to learn that on your own because you see my question about the pronunciation, because I know a lot of Japanese people are trying to work on their pronunciation. So you would recommend maybe most people Or to start with phonetics and learn how to make proper sounds in the English words.
Yes. And it's very easy,
母音は5つ日本語にないのがあります。あとは全部、日本語にあります。
The so then you you take theirs and then there's ”母音字が五つあるでしょ”
a e i o u ( sometimes ymw ) エイ イー アイ オー ユー（アエイオウ）
So you say when I say I show you the letter A（エイ）, how would you pronounce the letter? A? （エイ）
What would you pronounce it?
So there's a lot writers. Like, there's the a（エィ）sound. There's also,（ア）sound. There is also the, （アエ） sound. I guess it's how you say. A, you said five?
Yeah, there's only the schwa sound. Ah. Ah. Okay. And what's the last one?
I forgot. But anyway,
But the most Most Japanese, when they see the letter, 「A」（エイ） in English, they pronounce it. Ah,（ア） as in Katakana.
But it's not Katakana.
It's not Romaji.
It is in English.
And the most frequent sound is 「æ」
And the next most frequent sound is「ə」(uh) .
You know, the upside down, each swap.
（日本語であいまい母音と呼ばれる）(uh) 弱い発音 記号の名称は「シュワー」（schwa)
The next most frequent one is a, 「ei」日本語の「エィ」
「a」「ア」
and the least frequent one is a.「ɔː」 「ア」と「オ」
So if they always say, ah, 「ア」
they're wrong, 90% of the time.
The same thing with e.（イー）
Actually e is pretty good.
e isokay. Because they looked like “e”（エ）.
And then he goes to “i”.
And they go to “i”.
They they say ii,
“i”という文字を”イ”と言うでしょう。
That's the most unusual to sound pry.
The the most frequent Sounders are ”e”「エ」
And the next one is I. （アイ）
And then a few sometimes it's e.(イ）
That's not very freaking frequent.
That comes a lot from the Italian words like spaghetti and stuff like that.
So it's very unusual.
So they're almost always wrong with the letter”i”.
then you take the letter “o”,（オー）
they always say “Oh” （オー）that is usulally wrong.
that should be “Ah”.（ア）
for example, how do you say “暑い” in English?
Hot”ホット” 、”オ” sound by Japanese.
その時の発音は”ア” ”ɑ”です。
short vowel should be always Ah.
they mix up the mess up all the time.
And then how about the letter "u"?
You see how to sound like the letter “understand” Ah? Right?
I think that's ”u”（ウ） how Japanese people pronounce it,
they say they try to make everything ”u”（ウ）
あいうえおの”う”
It's not “u”（う）.
It’s usually “Ah” as in cup. (A)
Sometimes it happens. Sometimes is “you”（ユ）sometimes it's ”ユ” as in cute.
But in the most common presentation is “Ah”.（ア）
So whatever.
They think of it in romaji, it comes out these type of katakana things.
So you gotta dump cut romaji and think of it. He'll learn the rules for pronunciation.
So, do you think it is Katakana English? That is hindering people's ability, or Japanese, people's ability to speak? Proper English using a proper pronunciation?
Do you think that Japan should just get rid of Katakana English altogether?
Yes, yes, I do. I think that, I think they should teach the people whenever they start teaching, it used to be in seventh grade. Maybe now, it's before that they need to teach the kids, this is not “katanaka”.
これは英語です。この文字は主に”a"は「æ」
Oh,はah.という風に教えていかないと。
そうなれば自信を持って喋ることができるし、英語の教を見ても読み取れるし。
ちゃんとした発音が分かっていれば、
そうだよねやっぱどうしてもね多分英語の文字を見てしまうと、ローマ字みたいな感じで読んじゃうからカタカナ英語になっちゃうんだよね
そこでハワイに行って、お腹が減った時に、where is マクドナルド？と言って、通じなくてトラウマになってしまって、自信を無くしてしまう。
私たちも日本語覚えてる時に,第1日目はその発音なんですよ。
あいうえおかきくけこさしすせそ
なぜ、siじゃなくて、sheなの？
なぜ、tiじゃなくて、chiなの？
なぜ、tuじゃなくてTsuなの？
日本語にはこの発音しかない事を知って凄く安心しました。
その音は全て英語にありました。
英語にない日本語の発音は”りゃりゅりょ”だけでした。
それはもう1回知っておくだけでも全然違うよね
これがもう全部の音なんだと。これで安心します。
Now I think and then the other thing is just you have to learn lots of vocabulary. Just have to learn tons and tons and tons of vocabulary.
Yeah, exactly. And you know like you mentioned in the beginning there's really no end to how many vocabulary words you learn, right? It's just a lifelong process of continually learning new words.
