#300 Life Experiences and Present Perfect Tense with Akari (Nihongo For You)
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I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Level Up English podcast, the best place to come to practice the English language, learn about the British accent and culture with me, your host, Michael Lavers. I have an exciting guest episode today because I am joined by Akari or Akari-sensei from the Nihongo4u podcast.

So Akari is a Japanese teacher and she has her own podcast for Japanese learners. And I know some of you may also be interested in the Japanese language. So if you are and you're a lower level, that podcast will be...

hopefully be really suitable for you. So I really hope that some of you can check out that podcast too, because she is an amazing teacher and speaks very clearly. And in today's episode, we are thankfully talking in English for the rest of you.

So we have a nice chat, a little bit about learning English, teaching Japanese, moving abroad because both Akari and I have lived in other countries and moved away from our home countries. We actually live fairly close by in neighbouring countries now, just by coincidence. And then for the main part of today's episode, we go into some discussion questions about

where I made it a little bit more challenging by using the present perfect tense. So you'll see a really nice example in this episode of using the present perfect tense grammar naturally in a conversation. I'm not teaching it, I'm not talking about grammar, but

but I'm using it naturally. So this is a really great way for you to hear how it's used. For example, I have been, I have done, you have eaten, these kind of structures. So listen to that where we talk about various topics like travel experiences, living abroad, skills we've learnt, recipes that we've made, different fun things like that. It's a very nice casual conversation.

today there was a little bit of a technical problem so we actually had to record this one twice which was really annoying for me i felt really bad for taking up so much of akari's time but she was very gracious and kind and i do think the second conversation was even better than the first and we didn't repeat ourselves too much

So I really hope you enjoy this one. If you need any help, transcripts and bonus content to help you learn will be available on the members website. That's levelupenglish.school and there's a members button at the top of the page. Without any more rambling from me, let's get right into our episode with Akari and I really hope you enjoy it.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Level Up English podcast. I am very happy to be joined today by Akari from the Nihongo4u podcast. So, welcome. How are you today? Yeah, I'm good. And you? I'm also good. I'm also good. I'm glad to hear you're good because I can let everyone know kind of behind the scenes things.

info that this is the second time we're recording this right because it's never happened before but the first time was not we had some technical problems so i'm really grateful for your time again and i'm glad we could we could do this yeah it's my pleasure and for me um i have chance to talk better you know better english so for me maybe it may be even good for me so

I think you were fine last time and I'm sure you'll be fine this time as well. But I kind of wish I had that chance because I can also let the viewers and the listeners know that this is a...

a podcast share episode where you recorded a podcast for me and I did one for you as well, which we did yesterday. And it was really scary for me because it was all in Japanese, which I have never done before. I was so nervous and I think it will be very obvious in the recording if you decide to publish it. But yeah, maybe you could tell people about a little bit about your podcast and what you do as well.

Okay so I'm a Japanese teacher and I'm also creating podcast program and a YouTube channel and it's called Nihongo4u as Michael introduced in the beginning so and I'm teaching Japanese online to students from all over the world so yeah that's what I'm doing. Yeah fantastic so it's

We're in quite a similar situation, just maybe for different languages. And I know we have some listeners to this podcast who are not only learning English, but also learning Japanese, whether it's for a hobby or some other reason. So I'm sure they'll be interested in hearing from you. So obviously they can have a look at your podcast and we'll talk about that again later in the episode. Yeah.

Yeah, but I guess I wanted to ask - well, actually, first of all, where are most of your students from? Are they mostly from like UK or America? Are they all around the world?

Well, it depends on the time. For example, like when I started teaching Japanese, I used to have a lot of students from the US and from Asian countries, mostly East Asia, like China and Korea and like Taiwan or Hong Kong, for example. But now...

I have quite a lot of students from Europe and I also have some students living in the UK. Very nice. Yeah, it's nice to hear that it is quite global as well. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Like when I moved to Thailand, a lot of my students changed just because of the time zone. So I guess it could be good or bad depending on how you look at it.

Yeah, time difference is the tricky part for online teachers, right? Yeah, yeah. But of course, we're very lucky today because we're in a very similar time zone. And that's partly because we have both moved abroad. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your experience, like where you're living now, how long it's been and that kind of stuff, your feeling there.

Yeah, sure. I'm living in Malaysia now and I moved here on 2012. No, no, 2022. So it's been two years since I moved.

And as you know, like Japan and Malaysia has very few similarities, actually. So it was a bit challenging for me to adjust like my lifestyle, for example, or like we speak Japanese, obviously, in Japan. But in Malaysia, nobody speaks Japanese. So I had to speak English all the time, mainly.

So, there are lots of challenges, but I'm also enjoying the life in Malaysia. That's good to hear. That's good to hear. So, yeah, similar time to when I've moved as well, which is a nice similarity we have. How have you found speaking English there? Have you found it challenging? Have you noticed that your English has improved in the last two years? Yeah, I think so. And I hope my English improved a little bit. Yeah.

But interesting point is that since in Malaysia, there are mainly three ethnicities, which are Indian, Indian Malay, and like local Malay people, and there are also Chinese Malay people. And depending on the race or ethnic. Ethnicity. Ethnicity. The accent is very different, you know.

So for me, it took time, quite a while to get used to all those accents. And I'm still struggling with hearing the English, actually. Yeah, I guess that's understandable. I've had Malaysian students before, and I've also been there. And...

I'm not familiar with all the different accents, but to me, the accent I hear in Malaysia, I really like it. It sounds really nice to me. But I can imagine if you're learning English, it might be quite challenging to catch some words. So that's an extra challenge for you, isn't it? Yeah, especially in Japan, we get educated by American English. So, yeah, it was difficult. But at the same time, you know...

The Malaysian English sounds softer than American English. So for me, it sounds like it's comfortable to listen to it. Oh, interesting. Okay, okay. That's interesting to know. I wonder if they also learn like American English. I don't know if there's any similarity there, but...

How is the situation in Thailand? In what sense? You mean with language? Yes. Do people speak English or if they have an accent? Yes, to both, I would say. In Bangkok, of course, it's a very big, fairly international city. So in the center, there is...

There are a lot of people who do speak English, very good English, because they're dealing with foreigners all the time and Westerners. So it's very important to speak English in the centre. I know people who've lived here for 10, 20 years and they've never learnt any Thai, which I think is not great. I think they should, but the point is you don't really need to. You can get by without learning Thai.

However, when you go away from the centre, there's a lot of people who don't speak any English. So if you're looking to explore a little bit outside of the centre of Bangkok, then I think it's quite important to learn some Thai phrases. And of course people do have

Thai accents and I think they sound so nice. I mean, I love all accents. I've said it before, but I really love the Thai accent, like the way they pronounce English words, a little bit like Japanese, right? Where you might have a word like coffee, but say it a little bit differently, like coffee or the Thai one is, I don't really know. It's like cafe or coffee, something like that. I don't really know, but it's similar. It sounds very similar. Yeah.

Yeah, it's nice. How would you say that your experience as an English learner has influenced your teaching style? I would say it has a good impact on my career as a Japanese teacher. And I'm actually still taking English lessons every week for one hour. And...

I think you also experience the same thing, but sometimes you want to remember or you want to recall the vocabulary, that word that you should know, but it takes time to remember, you know. So sometimes I want the teacher to wait for me to remember the thing.

And I know that frustration. So I also try to be patient in my Japanese lessons to my students.

That's a really good point. I think that's a sign of a really good teacher in my opinion is someone who allows you to think, gives you time to think and maybe even lets you make mistakes and doesn't just give you the answer. My Chinese teacher does that too where she won't interrupt me, she'll let me finish and she might correct me later but not in the moment which I really like. So that's a great thing to learn from your learning experience. Yeah.

Yeah, you can understand from both sides as a student and teacher, right? Yeah, and of course, as a teacher, you're always learning as well about teaching and even about the language you're teaching too. There's always more to learn about your own language. That's so true. Good experience from both sides.

I haven't prepared you for this question. So if you don't have an answer, that's fine. It just came to my head. But is there anything recently that you can think of where you have learned something from a student in the class? Oh, that's an interesting question. I think I'm learning a lot of things from students. Yeah, maybe I can use an example.

in one lesson with my intermediate students and then he brought me a question which is for the first time I got it in my whole life and it made me think a lot about like Japanese language

and their grammar especially so like why do why do you use like this particle not that particle could you please explain it for example you know and then i had to think a lot and lot and lot and i tried to make sense my explanation so that's one of the things that i'm learning i learn a lot

Yeah, it's really cool. I guess like a learner's perspective can be so different from a native speaker. And I get that quite a lot too, when a student will ask me, you know, are these two words, are they connected? Because they sound a bit similar. And I'll be like, oh yeah, I never really thought about it, but they are. Like one example from last week, someone asked about the word entitled.

to be entitled or entitlement and it's got the word title in the middle and i guess it's quite obvious if you're hearing it but i never really thought about it before like oh yeah title title i wonder how it's connected um little things like that that always i find interesting that i never thought of until i heard the question so yeah i honestly that's why i enjoy teaching um as well as learning languages yeah it's a rewarding experience for sure

Exactly. I'm also curious, I didn't know that you're still taking English lessons because to me your English sounds perfect. It sounds like really natural and fluent. So I kind of expect that people stop taking lessons when they get to some stage, but it's kind of cool to hear that you're still learning. But what are your lessons like at this stage? Are they, you know, is it grammar? Is it teaching or is it just conversation practice? What's the format of them?

It varies, but we always have a free conversation time, like from 20 to 30 minutes. And then we will also read an article in the lesson.

And she asked me, asks me what I think about that article, but she doesn't allow me to read beforehand. So I have to think in that moment, you know, and that's for me, it's very good practice because reading,

Sometimes I feel like I want to say something, but it takes time for me to make sentences in English. Especially I have a conversation with Western people who are very fluent in English.

That's a really cool idea. I really like that. In my lessons right now, basically it's just free conversation. And generally what happens is we end up talking about the topics that I like or the topics that I'm interested in or what I'm doing tomorrow or something like that. But what I like about this method is you're being forced, not forced, but encouraged to be spontaneous. So you don't know what you're going to talk about. And it's kind of replicating, like copying something.

real life situations, right? Where you don't know what's coming up and you have to respond to what people say. So that's a really nice idea. I think when you get to more advanced levels, maybe that's something that other people can consider doing as well.

Yeah, yeah, right. And I think I'm in upper intermediate level, my English. And so I don't think I need to use an English textbook to learn grammar points, but I would rather want to practice in a practical way so that I can be confident in my daily life.

Yeah, I totally agree. I think obviously everyone's different. Everyone learns differently. But I think generally, once you get to the higher levels, these kind of textbooks become less useful and you just want to practice and do what people do naturally, like speaking, reading, that kind of stuff, right? It sounds like you have a good teacher and a good method there. Yeah, I really like her and her method. Very cool.

Well, if you are ready, we can maybe move on to the second half of today's episode. And I thought this would be a great opportunity to practice a little bit of grammar, but as listeners might know, I don't really like to teach grammar so much, more show grammar and how it's used. Because just like we were just saying, listeners to this podcast, probably a little bit higher level, a bit more advanced. So

They might have some idea on the grammar and I think it's a good chance for us to show how to use it. And based on our conversation that failed to record, I know this is also no problem for you as well. But I thought we could... But after... Oh, sorry.

After listening to that hearing that your students is mostly advanced level, then it scares me because I shouldn't make mistakes. So please point out if I make any mistakes. I can try to, but we'll see. I'm sure you won't anyway. But I mean, just a side note. One thing I think is great about my group classes, for example, is

some students will make mistakes and then other students might correct them or they might ask about it. And I think hearing mistakes can be a great way to learn. Like even if you don't ask about it, you kind of notice, oh, maybe that was a mistake. And then it's, you might notice it in yourself. And I don't know, I find it really useful when I'm hearing other people speak Japanese and they make mistakes and it's

It's not always a bad thing. So I don't think we need to speak perfectly anyway, but that was just a side note. That's right. It makes me feel better. Thank you. Okay, good. So yeah, we can, I'm going to ask you some questions using the present perfect tense, which just a reminder for listeners is like, have done, have been, have gone, have

"have" and then the past participle verb. And it's often used to talk about experiences or things that we did in the past that we are proud of, or some kind of feeling like that. So I think it will become obvious in the questions. Feel free to answer naturally. Don't overthink it too much, you know.

Okay, I'll try. Okay, here's the first one. So what is the most rewarding experience you have had in your job, in your career so far? If you ask this question to teachers, like language teachers, I think more than half of teachers would answer the same thing. And like,

Every time I see my students' progress, it makes me very happy. And that's one of the greatest things of teaching language. So that's the nice thing that I've ever experienced. Is it correct? That's the nicest thing that I have ever experienced. Yeah, nice.

Yeah, fantastic. That's a really good one. And you kind of asked me a similar question on your podcast and I said the same, right? I guess it's just nice to see that your work, your effort is not going to waste. It's actually being used for something good. Totally, yeah. Is there a time when you can think of a specific example of a student

achieving something really well because of their language skills and they've told you about it? Yeah, this year that happens a lot and one of my students were looking for a job in Japan

And his Japanese was already good, but I helped him to be able to speak like business Japanese. And then he had some interviews. And then this May, he passed the interview of our company. Actually, not one company, but more than one. And then he got a job. And now he's working in Japan. So that's nice, isn't it?

That's amazing. Yeah. And it's nice to feel like maybe you had something to do with that. You had some influence on their life. That's super exciting. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. I can't say it's thanks to me. But yeah, I'm happy that he got the job. Yeah. Fantastic. That's really cool. Hard to get a job in Japan as a foreigner as well. So that's even more impressive. Yeah.

Okay, let's try another one. Talking a bit about travel now. So rather than career impact, what countries have you visited that have had the biggest impact on you?

I like traveling and I traveled some countries, mainly in Asia, but some European countries and the US and South Africa. And travel to South Africa was the most impressive or a trip that has the biggest impact on my value, I'd say. Can I ask why? Because...

everything like totally everything was different from Japan and I didn't know I almost knew nothing about South Africa but I saw like many things that I've never seen in Japan for example

Like there are more than 11 official languages in South Africa and there are three races, white people, black people and colored people living in like one country. And I guess there are many problems, but there is some kind of harmony, you know.

amongst those different races and different languages. So that's one of the most impressive things that I saw in South Africa. That's really cool. I've heard so many good things about it. I've also heard it's quite a dangerous place to go to. Did you feel unsafe at any point or do you think that is exaggerated in the media, in the news?

Luckily, I wasn't scared or I didn't have any scary experience, scary or dangerous experiences. But once I visited a friend's house in Cape Town, we drove to his house and then we carried our stuff to stay over.

his house and then tried to get into his house and then he said that no we should have brought all the belongings in the car to his house because when someone sees that the like valuable things for example like phones or laptops in a car then they try to break into it and rob it yeah so I see it's not necessarily exaggerating I think

Yeah, I mean, it's good to take precautions anyway and be safe. But I wonder, it must be quite strange coming from Japan, which is one of the safest developed countries in the world. And, you know, I've experienced, I've seen people at Starbucks leaving their laptop in

on the table outside and they like run across the road and they don't worry about it. In the countryside people don't lock the doors of their car or their home, stuff like that which is really, even in the UK, very unusual. But I don't know if that was weird for you to see that contrast in other countries.

Yeah, to be honest, I was a bit shocked by him saying that. But I also, to be fair, I also want to say that most places in South Africa are safe. So I could walk by myself at night, for example, as a woman, and it was totally fine. So it depends on the place.

Yeah, I imagine a lot of these things, bad things happen, but they also get exaggerated in the news, don't they? And it's often not as bad as we might think. So that's good to hear. Yeah, I think so. Cool. A good answer. Let's go to a new one now. I'm curious about this one. What new skills have you learned recently that you're proud of?

I really want to talk about my diving experience. I got a diving license this April. Fantastic. In Malaysia? Yes, in Malaysia. I think you can get it in Japan too, but the price is a bit different. Price range is a bit different.

There are so many diving sites in Malaysia and there are also some small islands where you can dive. So we decided to get it in Malaysia, not in Japan. Okay, that makes sense. I imagine the beaches there are very nice. What is the deepest you've ever been, you've ever dove under the water? What's the deepest you've gone?

Actually, there are two types of diving licenses. And depending on which you have, there's a limit that you can dive. And I have open water license and it allows you to dive up to 18 meters depth. So that's them. Yes, deepest. Yes, that I've dived.

uh alone or with an instructor like when you went that deep oh you must um dive with the instructor yeah the instructor okay that makes sense otherwise it's too dangerous for me yeah it does sound quite dangerous i imagine it's it's a lot it can be a bit scarier than it looks it maybe looks quite peaceful and relaxing but i imagine there's a lot you have to do to make sure you're safe and and not doing anything wrong so i've never tried it but i would love to

Yeah, please. You should do it because you're living in Thailand, which is one of the greatest dive sites in the world.

um according to what i heard yeah really i mean i even know someone who is a diving instructor so maybe i should ask him and get some get discount or something i don't know yeah there's no reason not to do it then yeah you're right i mean the one reason is not to do it in bangkok because the water here is not clean but yeah go to a beach somewhere to do it that would be nice very cool very cool

Okay, I already know a little bit about you. I know that you said you like cooking, trying new recipes and stuff like that. So I want to ask you what new cooking recipes have you tried recently? Then I have the latest news that I suddenly failed to cook something. Oh no. And actually, I've been into vegetarian dishes lately for a few months.

And so I try a lot of new recipes using like beans, peas and tofu, stuff like that. And then yesterday I cooked an Indian dish. I can't remember the English Indian name, like Hindi name, but it's the dish that uses dal. So it's a lentil. Lentil dal, yeah.

Yeah, lentil and spinach. And I cooked it following exactly the recipe, but it ended up looking a bit strange. And it didn't taste as nice as I expected.

Although I put quite a lot of effort on it, so it was a bit sad. In what way was it strange? How was it weird, do you think?

First of all, the color was not very nice. It should be a bright yellow, like using turmeric. But mine was like dark brown or greenish color. Not very appetizing color. No.

No, no, not at all. I've made a lot of lentil dal before. I like the Japanese name, by the way, for lentils, which is like contact lens, right? Lens bean, is that right? Yes, yes, yes, correct. But I don't know how they call it, like lens beans. Do you know why? So you know like a contact lens that you wear in your eye to help you see better? I think the shape of the lentil is similar to a contact lens, right?

Oh, is that? Why? I didn't know that. I only guessed so. But am I teaching you Japanese now? Yeah. You can be a Japanese teacher now. Yeah, it's easy to remember for me because it's like a very visual meaning. It's quite easy, but...

Yeah. Yeah. I've made a lot of lentil dough and I think my biggest problem is I don't measure the spices. I think spices are the most important part to the flavor. And so sometimes I'll just like chuck it in like a bit of this, a bit of that kind of experimenting. And it always ends up too spicy, like too much turmeric, too much whatever paprika or whatever else I put in. And

Yeah, it's like uneatable or maybe too much salt. So yeah, that's always my biggest problem. I see. It sounds like you're quite creative, Shaf. I think I am, but I think in reality, I'm just a bad chef. I don't think so. Okay, maybe we can have time for one quick one. It's going to be a hard one, though.

But let's see what you can come up with. What challenges have you faced that made you stronger? Oh, I can talk about that challenge regarding my language school, like English school. And when I was 12 years old, I've been in the US, New Hampshire for a month alone.

I was home staying in host families, like my family in New Hampshire.

And at that time, what I knew was that the very simple grammar that I learned in junior high school, but somehow I had to communicate with like kids in the house or their parents. And I had to tell what I want or what I didn't want or what I needed.

or something you know and it was very very difficult and I was like depressed um for the first two weeks and then from the third week yeah um I can like somehow I can understand what they're trying to say you know and then like my uh my mood has changed a lot so that's interesting so at some point it just kind of clicked and you you were able to

understand more clearly it sounded like it was quite sudden yeah i would say so or maybe i um i rewrote my my memory but um yeah in the last day we were like crying and we were so sad that we had to be separate you know my me and my host uh host sister so i think i understood to some extent at least

Awesome. Great answer. Great answer. I've had similar experiences where it definitely impacts your mood a lot when you're not able to communicate. And then when you can, it just makes you feel so much better. And I think it also works in reverse. When you feel positive about your language knowledge ability, it helps you speak more easily as well when you're optimistic as well. I think it goes both ways in my experience.

Yeah, that's so true. So true. Well, I think now would be a good time to finish up, but maybe before we go, can I ask you once more a little bit about your podcast and where people can find you if they want to see you have lessons with you or anything else? Yeah, sure.

So if you're interested in taking online Japanese lessons, you can find my website and it's www.nihongofuyu.com. And you can also find my podcast and YouTube and it's the same name, Nihongo for You. So please try to listen to it if you're interested.

Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, I will be listening for sure. And I hope other people do as well. But thank you so much for joining me. You've given me a lot of your time. So I'm very grateful. And let's hope this will be the final one. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I enjoyed a lot. My pleasure. I do hope we can talk again, though, a different topic, perhaps. But yeah, thank you. It's been it's been great.

Thanks for listening.