Returning to the changes of the Japanese language and the language of youth in Japan an often familiar word used by Japanese youth is the word 「超」chou. Chou is often used to express “very” as in 「チョー気持ちいい」(It) feels great! It is not only used for positive expressions but for negative ones as well, for example: 「超むかつく」It’s really disgusting. It is even used with English words like: チョーベリーグ/チョーベリーバwhich are short forms of チョーベリーグッドandチョーベリーバッド. These words have become popularized by the youth throughout Japan. The use of Chou as in 超特急、超満員follows the pattern of preceding the noun and adds emphasis to the noun it attaches to. Moreover, chou is even attached to i-adjectives as in 超美しいcertain dictionaries introduce chou such that it adds excessive stress or emphasis. It seems that among the youth that the term has very broad meaning.It appears that the term chou is in fact a dialect from Shizuoka prefecture, which was brought into Tokyo and spread throughout Japan.

I managed to get a hold of a copy of the book Putting it Together: A Conversational Management Text by Kevin McClure from Amazon as far as I saw it was the last one in stock or maybe each Amazon book shop has a different inventory. The book is going out of print soon but still by far in my opinion a very good book for beginner to intermediate language learners. Very few books on teaching ESL break the conversation into beginning, middle and end. This book shows students how to begin, continue and finish a conversation like a native speaker. Good quality cheap teaching resources are hard to come by but those we find often become out of print. I have been accumulating a both on-line and off-line (hard copy) of teaching materials in the hopes of one day beginning to teach classes 100% on-line. I see it as the wave of the future for those who cannot attend classes but I still see the problem with too many schools and language courses (especially English) just trying to advertise themselves as having the image of the blonde blue eyed rather that high qualifications and experience. We need a no non-sense language school that truly believes in high quality education and not appearance.

After spending many years in Japan, my favorite place is still Kyushu. Although I do not have any relatives there I still feel that Kyushu is home. The longest I’ve spent in Kyushu has been Oita on a small remote island only accessible by ferry. One of the reasons I find Kyushu the most interesting is the many dialects that are still spoken and what is more interesting that across prefectures or even cities there are words and expressions that remain incomprehensible. While I was doing the research on Traditional Japanese Dances of Himeshima, which became my first publication in 2004 I have become fascinated with the Oita dialect as well as the Himeshima dialect. Both have similarities but have striking differences. It is said that the characteristic nature of the Oita dialect is no honorifics but I tend to argue the point that there is a sort of honorific language in the Oita dialect. For example, there is the expression ～されてくださいwhich is added to make what is known as reception honorifics. お大事にされてくださいwould be used at a hospital to a patient, 資料を参照されてください。ゆっくりされてください。These expressions tend to be used at service counters, reception desks and other places where customers are served. Other examples are, 名前を書かれてください。～時までにこられてください。The honorific されるtogether with くださいhave the meaning of requesting or instructing something to someone.

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