A Japanese man is angry with Japan

A Japanese man is angry with Japan's television company NHK. He is tired of hearing so many English words on TV. Mr Hoji Takahashi, 71, says he is stressed every time he hears an English loanword on NHK. He is taking NHK to court. He wants the TV company to pay him 1.4 million yen ($14,300) for his "mental distress". Mr Takahashi's lawyer told the AFP news agency that Japanese TV is too "Americanised". Takahashi doesn't understand why NHK uses words borrowed from English instead of Japanese words. He said NHK should use Japanese and not loanwords for vocabulary such as "toraburu" (trouble), "risuku" (risk) and "shisutemu" (system). He said this would help protect Japanese culture.
Mr Takahashi started a small group called "The Treat Japanese as Important Association". He started it after he wrote to NHK but got no reply. He said NHK does not care about his opinions. Takahashi said older Japanese people often have problems with the many loanwords on NHK. He said they have trouble understanding what announcers on NHK say. He told reporters: "Young people can probably understand a lot of this stuff, but for older people like myself…I don't know what it means." The Japanese language has thousands of words borrowed from English and other languages. It uses a special alphabet called katakana to write them. It also changes the pronunciation to fit with Japanese phonics.

1. LOANWORDS:Students walk around the class and talk to other students about loanwords. Change partners often and share your findings.

2. CHAT:In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics or words from the article are most interesting and which are most boring.

Have a chat about the topics you liked. Change topics and partners frequently.

3. STRESSED:What advice do you have for people who get stressed about these things? Complete this table with your partner(s). Change partners often.

4. CHANGE:Students Astronglybelieve it is good that languages change; Students Bstronglybelieve it isn't. Change partners again and talk about your conversations.

5. LANGUAGE ANGER:Rank these and share your rankings. Put the things that make you angry most at the top. Change partners often and share your rankings.

6. VOCABULARY:Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word 'vocabulary'. Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories.

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 929