Guest Speaker: Dr. Jeffrey Angles

    Before attending this guest lecture, I first didn't know what to expect. It was the first time hearing a fluent non-native speaker speak Nihongo. However, I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised with Dr. Jeffrey's passion for the culture and the language. I also learned a lot from his lecture, and I feel that he made some very insightful points about the challenges of bridging Nihongo and English literature. As a translator, he noted that the actual sentence and word structure of Nihongo is a lot more flexible compared to English which is more rigid. Which makes it significantly harder to translate writings such as poetry. I also found it fascinating that there are only twenty-five Nihongo novels translated into English each year, compared to the thousands of writings that actually come out of Japan each year. Yet, the thing that stuck out to me the most was how he described studying a new language as unlocking a new aspect of yourself, or a new identity if you will, and how you speak and write will be much more interesting and creative. His piece of advice made the most sense though, go abroad and immerse yourself in the language and the culture. So you are pressured into using Nihongo on a daily basis. And if my grades were better, and I wasn't doing ROTC, I would more than consider going abroad for a semester. But overall, great lecture and I really feel like I learned more about the art of the Japanese language, and both the challenges and rewards of taking on new languages.