KOZHIKODE: Looking at the script, one may think Japanese is one of the toughest languages to learn. But in reality it is easy for one to speak Japanese within a short period of time, says Tessai Yamanaka, section officer of the Japanese Language department of Miyazaki Information Business College, Japan. He was here to teach Japanese.
A fair sprinkling of students and adults attended the class held at the Japanese Language Academy in the City. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Mr Yamanaka said that a lot of job opportunities were available for Indians in Japan in academics as well as for jobs in Japanese companies. “In fact the Japan government demands that we give priority to Indians,” he said.
Japanese Language Academy Director Dr Subin Vazhayil said that despite huge opportunities in Japan as well as in Japanese companies in India, not many Keralites were turning up to learn Japanese.
“Japanese has a similar grammatical format as South Indian languages and it is very easy to learn. Japanese companies in India are looking for Indians who know basic Japanese. However the people here are not aware of the vast opportunity Japanese learning can provide for them,” he said. “So far over 200 students passed out from the Academy and about 30 are studying in various Japanese varsities at present,” he added.
“Japanese learning is really fun and is easy ,” said Karishma Nikita, a fourth year student at Government Engineering College, West Hill who passed the N5 (basic level) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). “Because the Japanese have three different scripts, it is a bit difficult to learn the script but still it is an achievable task,” she added.
