50-Year History of English | Episode 7: Winners Write History

I was still listening to FEN. At that time, it felt like the world was entirely dominated by Western music.

John Cougar's "Jack & Diane" was playing constantly on FEN. It felt earthy, quintessentially American. I loved this song and tried my best to catch the lyrics.

Before long, artists like Madonna appeared. On FEN, they called her "Madanna." The native pronunciation was fresh to me.

Michael Jackson's Thriller. Vincent Price's narration. The moment I heard it, I got chills. I bought the record. I looked at the script in the liner notes and practiced until I was exhausted. I became him, imitating even his breathing.

"Raiders of the Lost Ark" moved me. I found myself clapping in the middle of it. I don't even know why I did that. Someone else started clapping along, and the movie theater erupted in applause.

I loved it so much that I think I saw it about twenty times.

"I'm making this up as I go." I liked this. It felt like "winging it as you go."

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I bought the paperback. It was about five hundred pages long. Slang, idioms, and colloquial expressions appeared one after another. This was tough. Honestly, I had underestimated it. I used my dictionary extensively and worked very hard to read it.

I was reading not only English books but also Japanese books voraciously. International affairs, military, adventure, history, science, economics. I was also reading Blue Backs. I was reading everything I could get my hands on. After reading all night, my eyes would be tired, but the morning light felt refreshing.

Eiji Yoshikawa's "Musashi" was over ten volumes, but I read it in a week. The trigger was that Kaoru Yachigusa in her youth who played "Otsu" in the movie was incredibly cute.

I was also reading American outdoor magazines extensively. Describing things like camping. I was able to understand a little bit about the American way of thinking and culture.

A magazine called FEN Guide. Charlie Tuna was featured in it. I could understand exactly what he was saying. I practiced like a madman, imitating him. I practiced until I became him in every way.

When I went to America a few years later, a native speaker asked me, "What did you do in Japan? Are you an announcer?"

I had a groundbreaking discovery.

When I read aloud over Charlie Tuna's voice, I inevitably ran out of breath.

This is strange. There is no way to say this in one breath. So I thought about it. Even for a native speaker, it should be impossible to say it in one breath. They must be taking a breath somewhere.

When I observed with that in mind, I felt there was a slight pause every three to four words. Even before conjunctions, there is a slight break. I see,
is this the unit in which English is spoken.

I was naturally conscious of linking. But this discovery was completely different from that.

I searched for a book that explained this theoretically. That was when I came across something called sight translation in interpreter training. I thought, this is it.

Reading long texts became incredibly easy. Moreover, it was easy to understand. Because it's chunk-based, even if there's a part in one chunk you don't understand, you can ignore it and move on. It's like the bulkheads of a submarine. If one compartment floods, the ship won't sink as long as the other compartments are intact.

At this time, I was technically a ronin student, but I had never bought any entrance exam reference books or workbooks. I had never even read one. That's why I don't know what entrance exam English is like. I didn't want to get anywhere near that stuff. I felt like beautiful English would be defiled.

Three years had passed since I graduated from high school. I was a complete bum. Even I started to wonder what on earth I was doing.

What exactly do I want to do?

Besides, I felt sorry for my parents. They had been watching over such a foolish son. They would tell me to study or go to university, but they actually let me do pretty much as I pleased. I felt I had to repay them now. I seriously decided to take the university entrance exam.

The university had been decided a long time ago. My old man had always said it. In Kyoto, there had long been Ritsumeikan and Doshisha, and he said Doshisha was a school for rich kids where the children of the wealthy went. In contrast, Ritsumeikan had many rough-and-tumble students and was a tough university. Since I was a child, I had wanted to go to Ritsumeikan.

In our family, when it came to university, Ritsumeikan was the only choice.

However, the problem was that my younger sister, two years below me, was already attending Ritsumeikan. At this rate, I'll end up being my sister's junior. Can't be helped, I guess.

In high school, I wanted to study science. Since it was the Showa era, there was a general trend where boys were expected to go into science and girls into the humanities. I personally felt that science suited me better. But studying is hard after all. I had no idea how to go about studying for entrance exams.

Switching to humanities is the only way.Besides, there wasn't anything in particular I wanted to do in science anyway.

I had absolute confidence in my English.

I thought that if I could do English, I would probably pass. That said, I had never taken a mock exam even once. I had no idea how good my English skills actually were.

However, I could watch movies and understand them to some extent, and I had the confidence that I could at least handle daily conversation.

I tried taking the Eiken Grade 2 test. It's supposed to be about the English level of a high school graduate. I thought if I could pass this, I could take the university entrance exam. I passed it easily.

Until then, I had never seen entrance exam English. I bought one copy of the Ritsumeikan 'Akahon' (past exam collection). I tried solving just one year's worth.

I could read the long English passages with ease. As for the grammar questions, I didn't really understand them.

I could solve modern Japanese literature questions with ease. Classical Japanese felt somewhat familiar, like it had the scent of the Japanese language. What about Kanbun (Classical Chinese)? I didn't have any trouble with it. I had ignored it from the start.After all, this isn't Japanese, is it? It's a foreign language; there's no way I could read it.

For social studies, I chose Politics and Economics exclusively. Since it was called Politics and Economics, I figured it was just common sense. It seemed like the one that required the least amount of memorization. In the end, I didn't study it, so there was no memorization to speak of anyway.

Since I had confirmed this much, I didn't do anything else. Or rather, I was afraid that if I delved any deeper and encountered difficult questions, I would lose my confidence. I didn't solve any more past exam papers, and I didn't do any other studying.

At this point, I decided not to study any further. I thought I would pass. I wasn't brimming with confidence, butthere was no room for negative thoughts to enter my mind.

The night before the entrance exam, I went to a preview screening. It was director Michael Cimino's 'Year of the Dragon'.

Just before the movie started, there was a Kyoto Shimbun news flash. The Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded shortly after launch.

The movie began. 'I'm a stupid Polack' was a catchphrase. I thought it would be nice if that appeared on tomorrow's entrance exam. Not that it would, though.

I ran into a friend. In the end, it was past midnight when I got home. There was nothing particular to do now, so I went to bed early to avoid sleep deprivation. Though 'early' still meant past midnight.

I put only a mechanical pencil, an eraser, and my exam admission ticket in my pocket and headed to the exam venue.

In the end, I took exams for three universities: Ritsumeikan, Doshisha, and Kyoto Sangyo University. I only had any intention of going to Ritsumeikan, but I felt like I might as well take the exam for Doshisha, which could be called a rival. Kyoto Sangyo University was just in case.

The English exam was easier than I expected. I was also able to solve quite a bit of the modern Japanese literature section. I don't remember the Kanbun section. Because I ignored it.

I don't remember which university it was, but there was an interesting question in Politics and Economics. I learned about credit creation for the first time in that question text, but as I read it, I understood the mechanism. It was a calculation problem, but I solved it with ease. I was happy that I understood how credit creation worked. I felt like I had gained something.

In the end, I passed Ritsumeikan and Kyoto Sangyo University. I was happy, as expected. I didn't really have much anxiety, but it is still a happy thing to actually pass.

I thought to myself, 'See, I can do it if I try.' Although, when I think about it, I didn't actually do anything.

I failed the Doshisha exam. I was a little disappointed. It wasn't that I really wanted to go there. I wanted to be able to say that I passed both Doshisha and Ritsumeikan, but I chose Ritsumeikan because it was closer to my house.

When I told my parents I passed, they were like, 'Oh, I see.' I felt a bit let down. But several years later, I heard that my parents had been incredibly happy about it, andI felt that I had been able to show some filial piety.

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