Self-Introduction (Sort of)

I am posting the original link information here for the "Future Operational Policy" (https://note.com/real_hare9943/n/ncb6a22d51d60) page. This is because this page itself will eventually flow downward and disappear day by day.

Thankfully, several people advised me that it would be better to have a "Self-Introduction" page. I thought that made sense, so I have decided to write up a self-introduction (sort of) below. If you have some spare time (pardon me!), I would be happy if you would continue reading.

Ever since I was small, for some reason, I have always held an interest and curiosity in language. Personally, I believe that when it comes to people having an interest in something in general, fundamentally no logic is needed. Or rather, reasoning is often an "afterthought," and I feel that in the end, it is a phenomenon beyond human wisdom.

Also, when it comes to the trigger for starting to have an interest in something, for example, if it was something superficial, there seem to be people in the world who mock and ridicule that, but I personally wonder about that too. This is because whether or not a certain area or field is interesting to a person can, after all, only be known by actually stepping into it. Therefore, even if the starting point was just by chance a superficial reason, I think that is perfectly fine.

Now, above, I stated that regarding having an interest in something, it is generally beyond logic. However, having said that, there are indeed some language things that I can recall as reasons for why I myself began to have an interest in it.

First, my father was a poet who wrote children's songs apart from his main profession. He even considered our house a small, small personal publishing company and named it "Seseragi-sha." He published several collections of children's songs at his own expense. There were even unique people who were interested in my father's poems and composed music for them.

Also, my mother was a female pastor, which was very rare for that time. I can still see her in my mind's eye working late into the night every weekend writing her sermon manuscripts. After the sermons, I was often asked for my thoughts. (I myself have various thoughts and am currently personally distanced from the church. Sorry, Mom and Dad in heaven. Haha)

In this way, both of my parents lived lives dealing with language in some form, so it is not hard to imagine that their influence reached me to some extent.

Now, regarding English, given the background of the times, I was no exception, and I can say that entering junior high school was the time of my full-scale encounter with it. However, there were also some personal special circumstances.

First, my cousin had an international marriage, which was very rare for that time, and lived in San Diego, California. One time, she happened to come all the way to our house to visit, and I still vividly remember seeing her report her arrival to her husband over an international call in English, and it felt like seeing an extraordinary scene.

Also, because my mother was a pastor and because our local area was a tourist destination, a social gathering called a "Pastors' Meeting" was held annually at a local hotel with overnight stays. Among the pastors were American pastors, and I, being relatively older, was fortunately or unfortunately entrusted with the "duty" of bilingual children while the adults were having their meeting, taking care of them myself.

Since we were all children, sometimes we would fight. At such times, being placed in a difficult situation where I had to fight back as best I could against children who would mix Japanese and English, or only English, and snap at me in a fast-talking way, looking back now, I think I was unexpectedly provided with a practical field that was very training-intensive and something you cannot easily experience. Haha

Well, among the Japanese pastors, there was a master of English. He was someone who kept his doors wide open to foreign believers as well, and he would write the weekly bulletin in Japanese-English bilingual format every single week. He was also a skilled interpreter, and even as a child, I used to look at him with envy. He had a very friendly personality, and I respected him from the bottom of my heart. Incidentally, he was the one who delivered the sermon at my wedding ceremony.

So, while entering junior high school was my first real encounter with English, I think I had already built a certain foundation for English before that.

Just one last point. When I entered junior high school (I'm not sure if they still exist now), I begged my parents to buy me the Obunsha 'Rose Series' 'First-Year English' reference book. This reference book was a bit different from those of other publishers, as it dedicated

a considerable number of pages to <pronunciation explanations>. Unlike in today's convenient world, there was no accompanying audio, but I read it with great enthusiasm

. And based on that, I kept taking notes diligently while making my own improvements, and thus began my own small-scale, personal <history of pronunciation research>. This steady work gradually evolved and continued until my university days, eventually resulting in dozens of notebooks. These are my precious personal treasures.

I have written at length, but I would like to stop here. Thank you very much for your kind attention to those who read until the end (if there are any, haha).

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