WARNING:LONG POST
I'd like to share how I managed to win a 2 week study trip SPONSORED by the Japan foundation. Sponsored flight ticket, accomodation and food. Any money you bring there will be used for entertainment
. NOTE: I haven't taken the JLPT nor attended any Japanese classes
Each year, the Japan Foundation of Kuala Lumpur hosts a japanese speech competition (日本語弁論大会) When? Follow the JFKL facebook page. Have an idea on what you want to talk about. Something you're passionate about or skilled at. Perhaps about your own experience, or your dreams. Anything at all. Write the rough draft of your script in your native language.
Go to
lang-8 and create an account and create a post. translate your script to japanese to the best of your ability. For each post, translate ONLY ONE OR TWO paragraph(s). Make sure to write the include the english script as well in case your japanese is too difficult to understand, japanese people can see what you're trying to say by reading the english text.
This was my the first part of my initial script
QUOTE
誰でも成功者になりたいです。そうなのに、人間たちの中に何人が成功するのために何でもします?誰でもマーク・ザッカーバーグ、 スティーブ”・ジョブズなんての人生の話もう知っていますかもしれません。今日私は多分皆さんが知らない人生の話を話します
本田宗一郎さんは1906年に生まれました。子供の頃、自転車屋でお父さんを手伝いました。中学を卒業しました後、新聞で求人見まして、東京へ引越ししました。東京のアート商会というワクショップで働いていました。車が大好きで、ワクショップで働いていましたけど、めしつかいの仕事をしましたから、車のことを出来ませんでした。
Everyone wants to become successful. But how many people are willing to whatever it takes? Everyone has probably heard the story of Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs. Today, I'm going to tell the life story that you probably never heard before.
Honda Souichirou was born in 1906. Since he was small, he helped his father at the bicycle shop. After graduating from middle school, he saw an job opening in a newspaper and moved to Tokyo to work. In Tokyo, he worked at a workshop called 'Art Shokai'. Even though he loved cars and worked at a workshop, he couldn't work on cars because he only did menial jobs.
Japanese users will then correct your japanese sentence by sentence. Copy the correct sentences and paste it in a google doc. YES, GOOGLE DOCS. Not word. You'll see why later. Keep posting paragraph by paragraph until you finish your script. again, copy and paste the correct sentences to the google doc.
By now, you should have a complete script in japanese. Although the sentences are correct grammatically, it might not sound natural since we only copy pasted the sentences, which might have been corrected by different users. So how do we make the sentences more natural?
If you have a japanese friend on skype (luckily,I do) CALL (not chat) him and send him the url of the google doc. Ask him to adjust the sentences so it seems more natural and fluid. as he tells you what to change, you can make the changes on the google doc and he will see those adjustments being made in real time. It's like having a native japanese speaker at your side correcting your script!
If you don't have japanese friends on skype, copy and paste the japanes translated script from the google doc into a lang-8 post. Mention that you want it to be corrected so it would sound natural.
After having my text corrected in real time through skype and google docs, my lame script I wrote previously, turned into this masterpiece
QUOTE
「成功者は、例え不運な事態に見舞われても、この試練を乗り越えたら、必ず成功すると考えている。そして、最後まで諦めなかった人間が、成功しているのである」本田宗一郎より
「成功者になりたい」、これは誰もが願うことですが、それを実現させようという意思を持つ人は一体どれくらいいるでしょうか?
今日私は、最後まで諦めなかった人の話をしたいと思います。
本田宗一郎は1906年に生まれました。彼は中学を卒業した後、東京へと引越し、自動車修理工場で働き始めました。
Once you have an awesome script, try reading it out loud. There will be a time limit of 5 minutes (if I'm not mistaken) so see if you can finish the script within 5 minutes. If it's too long, edit unecessary parts out. If its too short, you can read it slower or add some parts.
If you can, get a japanese friend to read the script while you record him. Keep the recording on your phone and listen to it constantly. If you don't have a japanese friend, record yourself reading it. Keep practicing until you memorize the script. Try to minimize any foreign accent.
During the competition, after your speech, you will be given some questions regarding your speech. My speech was titled 'Honda Soichiro and the Power of Dreams' and the 1st question I was given was 'あなたは夢がありますか?' Don't make the same mistake I did and answer with a simple 'はい、あります' Instead, I should've answered 'はい、あります。私の夢は。。。。' I found out later that although my speech was the best, I lost valuable points because of my short answers. Moral: answer the questions in full sentences.
After you step off the stage, don't worry. nothing you do after will change the results. If you manage to make top 3, congrats. You're going to Japan. if not, you can always try again next year.
By 14AW005 <--my id for the study trip
This post has been edited by airiholic: Jan 12 2016, 09:53 PM