December 25, 2007

Season's Greetings from Seiritsu!

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Sano-Sensei decorated his classroom with a Christmas tree so I secretly snuck in to take a picture!


We just wanted to wish everyone Season's Greetings and Happy New Years!


Even though most Japanese are Buddhist, many people put up Christmas displays and outdoor lights to simply create a festive atmosphere.


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Suzuki-Sensei, the school nurse, and her happy Christmas display in the nurse's room.


December 25h is a normal work day in Japan. Students are on winter vacation, but special winter study courses are in for two weeks, along with many of the clubs are still meeting for practices. For example, the karate club I coach met at 7am today for a morning training.


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Front office staff Natsumi-san and Hatakenaka-san greeting junior high school students.


Today is also the last open house in 2007 for junior high school students to come to Seiritsu and talk to a teacher about applying to enter here next year. There will be one more day on January 5th, then entrance exams start two weeks after that.


All the best to everyone in 2008!


Richard
International Education Department

December 10, 2007

2 more graduating soccer students turn pro!

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Our 3 J leaguers!!!


In addition to our graduating international student Michael Fitzgerald signing with the top tier J1 professional J.League soccer team, Albirex Niigata, two of Michael's classmates from the student athlete program have also signed to go pro!


Yuki Otsu has signed with the J1 Kashima Antlers!


Tetsuya Kono has signed with the J2 Shonan Bellmare!


In the picture poster above, Yuki is in the top photo, Michael is in the center and Tetsuya is in the bottom photo.


Way to go guys!!!


Richard

December 6, 2007

Stolen English Words!

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We all know that the Japanese think really highly of foreigners. This is displayed during normal, everyday life and I found that it was also happening on the soccer pitch. There are a countless number of ‘stolen’ English words that the Japanese use.


When I first came to Japan, this was an extremely funny experience for me because I came from an English speaking country where the pronunciation was…lets just say very different. Many English words are used incorrectly in Japan. For example, words such as abauto (about) are used in soccer when a coach wants to tell his team that they are playing indecisively.


The amusing thing is that these incorrect words and sentences are even used in advertisements where everyone can see them! Last year, when I went to an ‘all you can eat buffet’ there was a label near the curry table saying ‘curay’. This is because the Japanese have what is called romaji which changes the Japanese pronunciation directly into the English alphabet. There are many funny things like this but I guess that it doesn’t matter too much because not many people can spot these mistakes, but still…hilarious!!


Shooto (shoot – telling someone to shoot), naisu (nice – when someone has played well), naisu torai (nice try – when someone misses an attempt at goal), nai-shoo (nice shot – after a well constructed shot), are also some of the words I hear everyday during soccer training, and struggle to not laugh about.


I will keep in touch, but right now got to go to my next training. I’m looking forward to it too. I wonder how many Janglish (Japanese-English) words I’m going to hear today……


Ryosuke Yano

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about Seiritsu

Seiritsu Gakuen is a private co-educational high school created in 1925 and it is located in Tokyo, Japan.

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