JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Financial Advisor
- Select Asset Management KK, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥100,000 ~ ¥999,999 Paid Training Commission Based
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- Corporate Business English Trainers
- ACT Systems, Inc.（株式会社アクト・システムズ）, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥269,500 ~ ¥280,000 / Month
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- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
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papasmurfinjapan
Is she covering a mole or belly pierce??
Posted in: Swimsuit campaign girl
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papasmurfinjapan
People that complain about passengers travelling with kids. What do they expect us to do? Travel by cargo ship? Shove the kids in a suitcase and store them below?
Also, not passengers, but flight attendants with attitude. Some of them are convinced they hold glamour jobs and have attitudes to match.
Posted in: What behavior or habits by passengers on planes bother you the most?
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papasmurfinjapan
My first instinct of course is to call the cops. But I must admit I have a (probably unfounded) suspicion that any call from a foreigner reporting this wouldn't be treated with the seriousness and immediacy that a call from a Japanese person would.
soooo
If I was with my wife or another Japanese friend, I'd probably ask them to call the cops instead.
Posted in: If you saw someone you thought was murder suspect Tatsuya Ichihashi on the street, in a restaurant or on a train, for example, realistically speaking, what would you do?
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papasmurfinjapan
Arudou Debito's Profile
White: Check
Dorky: Check
Mangled Japanese: I don't know.
I think Debito is just pissed he wasn't chosen to represent McDonalds.
Posted in: Mr James
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papasmurfinjapan
Off with her head!
Posted in: What do you think Noriko Sakai's fate should be?
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papasmurfinjapan
I took some photos of my wife wearing a camisole when she was pregnant. Used natural light for the whole thing and the results were great. This whole studio thing is a bit gaudy for my taste, but to each their own.
Posted in: Pregnant pix
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papasmurfinjapan
oh yeah baby...
Actually I'm more surprised that this "maternity photo studio" isn't using an L lens for the photo shoot. Surely they should be investing in better lenses.
Posted in: Pregnant pix
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papasmurfinjapan
I have to admit, that teacher has balls... in a few months we may be reading about a teacher bludgeoned to death by a student who wanted to get revenge for having chalk put in his mouth.
Posted in: Teacher gets pay cut for putting chalk in yawning student’s mouth
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papasmurfinjapan
Ahh I love reading the posts on JT.
Wear the leash and the parent is condemned for humiliating the child.
Don't wear the leash and the parent is condemned for not taking into consideration the child's safety on a busy street in downtown Tokyo.
Japanese parents can never do anything right, can they?
Posted in: Tight leash
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papasmurfinjapan
True, DVDs will soon be forgotten, but good books are a great investment.
My 3yr old is hooked on Mr Men...
Now he is running around saying "drat and bother" from the Mr Mean book, and calling his mum a "meany"...
Posted in: Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily
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papasmurfinjapan
I think they have every right to block sites they don't want people looking at during work (especially facebook etc.) and access to freemail.
I'm not too keen on having my email monitored though, even if it is my work address.
Posted in: To what extent do you think employers should block employee access to online sites, social networking accounts or monitor email?
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papasmurfinjapan
societymike
I second Ah So and DS's comments. If you are living in Japan, make English your home language (all household members only use English at home). Your kids will get enough chance to learn Japanese outside.
If you live in an English speaking country, make Japanese the home language and they will learn the other one from everyone else.
Although it depends on the child, generally input from only one parent in the second language (and more importantly the communication that stems from it) is not really enough to raise a child bilingually. Of course there are exceptions, as Scrote notes above.
I know many families in similar situations, and more often than not, when only one parent speaks English at home (and the child becomes old enough to realise they can speak in Japanese to that parent and they will understand), the child becomes a passive-bilingual. They can understand the language well enough, but their output will be Japanese.
Masayo Yamamoto has done some useful research on bilingualism in the Japanese context if you'd like to follow up on it.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/Language-Interlingual-Families-Japanese-English-Sociolinguistic/dp/185359539X
Posted in: Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily
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papasmurfinjapan
My wife and I speak to our 3yr old in English at home. He gets his Japanese input from everyone else, mostly grandma. As a result, he successfully codeswitches between English and Japanese depending on who he is talking to. He will only ever speak English to me, and only ever use Japanese with his grandma. Sometimes he even translates (or just repeats what he says in English in Japanese) when speaking to me and grandma at the same time.
That said, given his chance for English communication is much greater than Japanese, English is for now the dominant language. When he goes to Japanese kindergarten, that will no doubt change.
Bilingualism isn't really some great mystery... it's just that most Japanese are monolingual (or think they are - though they can usually speak their local dialect) so think it is some amazing feat.
Posted in: Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily
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papasmurfinjapan
Ｔｈａｔ's by far the best pic of the day I've seen for a long long time...
Posted in: Gundam
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papasmurfinjapan
bcbrownboy I was only taught how to bastardize the English language, not read, write or speak it. I rest my case regarding the utter pointlessness of "credentials". Mine didn't even teach me how to write or spell proparly. :)
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papasmurfinjapan
Hell, I'm an English teacher and proud of it. I quit my respectable "sarariman" job as translator and web designer (well, was forced to quit for not working overtime so I could care for my son), and started my own school in December in my living room. And guess what, I'm not teaching as a last resort - it was a conscious decision to get away from a job where I slave behind a computer for 10 hours a day. I prefer interaction with real people, and kids are such a joy to be around. I couldn't be happier.
Now we have over 70 students, I work about 25 hours a week, and am already making the same amount I made as a sarariman working 50 hours a week - actually considerably more as everything is now tax deductible and I can reduce my tax to practically zero.
I think this is a great time for small, private schools. I agree however, that it is probably not so great for the franchises.
As for qualifications, they have very little to do whether one is a good or bad teacher. A MA in TESOL doesn't make you a good English teacher any more than a degree in politics makes a person a good politician.
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papasmurfinjapan
I'm not a fan, but good for him... I wish them well.
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papasmurfinjapan
Hey I think Mino-san is pretty good-looking.
Posted in: Why are there no good-looking guys on daytime TV?
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papasmurfinjapan
Surely this is the last thing the government wants. If most people dropped off at 70-75, most, if not all their worries about the sustainability of the pension scheme would be solved.
Posted in: Longevity of life a mixed blessing for Japanese
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papasmurfinjapan
Err, leaving the whole Science vs Religion debate aside for a moment, isn't clandestine filming of the Sistine Chapel - private property, the owner of which specifically forbids filming or photography without permission - and then using that footage for monetary gain breaking some sort of law?? At the very least it is morally questionable.
Posted in: Science friction: Howard, Hanks examine faith vs science conflict