Over the last few years I have noticed many changes taking place here in Japan. the ever changing skyline, the introduction of many new abbreviated English katakana words (no wonder the Japanese cannot be understood when they travel overseas and use such words thinking that they are everyday English words) and the way women appear to be more aggressive and ambitious to attain mangement positions within their companies, more so than the younger generation of Japanese men. In addition there are also the changes I’ve heard in spoken Japanese with new words, the use of words in a new way & the use of abbreviations as well. I guess some of these things are taking place due to social networking & mobile phone texting where contractions are used, in particular within twitter, Mixi, Facebook etc which in themselves have been responsible for new words being created eg oversharing, retweet etc
I see these changes within my student population at Smith’s School of English Koenji and when I’m out & about marketing my school or just strolling around people watching and shopping but what made me really sit up and take notice was to see an article in The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-soft-and-gentle-young-men-of-japan-20101029-177j6.html
I was astounded to read about such Japanese things in a far away Australian newspaper as it reflected my own observations & raised some other interesting points. I think the article is one that my students will enjoy talking about- what about yours?
Ken
Smith’s School of English Koenji
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