This month's session for the "英語で話そう会" was held on May 13 with the discussion topic "reading English magazine’s article that is tribute to Mr. Sakamoto Ryuichi, and talking about your favorite music (i.e., musical genre, musical instrument, song, singer, & etc.) now and then”.
Since the article clipping from the Economist issued on Apr.8 is rather difficult to read for us, its Japanese translation made by AI tool (Microsoft Bing) was shared for our reference by the presenter Ms. Ajima. It was interesting to see how current AI tool translates English sentences to Japanese. We found AI’s translation useful but not sophisticated enough, with some inadequate Japanese descriptions. Since some of our members of “英語で話そう会” also belong to “俳句の会“, they pointed out that our mother tongue Japanese is much more complicated and difficult to learn than any other languages.
While in the session of talking about our favorite music now and then (“then” is when you were a Waseda University student), there were so many interesting and exciting stories told by each member, in English and sometimes in Japanese. Stories related to Sakamoto Ryuichi’s YMO - techno-pop, Merry Christmas Mr. Laurence/Last Emperor - film-music, rock, fusion, jazz, Waseda Univ. High Society Orchestra, classic, 70-80’s disco dance music, J-pops, Yamashita-Tatsuro’s song, Enka, Karaoke (横浜稲門会カラオケクラブ）, playing piano, Yamaha-Electone, guitar, drums, trombone, flute, & etc.… were shared.
"英語で話そう会" is holding a session on second Saturday of every month from 10 am at "横浜稲門会事務所". If you are interested in English or you want to brush up your English-speaking ability, then this is the right place for you! Please contact 小板橋(marchkoitabashi@yahoo.co.jp) or 小林(soccer_foot04@yahoo.co.jp).
Written by Y. Ajima minor edition by T. Kobayashi
