Tetsu’s Road to Multilingualism (Part VI: 29-present)

Why Japan?

Two reasons. First, being half Taiwanese and half Japanese, I wanted to revisit my roots. But really, that’s not half as important as the second reason. I’ve always felt a disconnect between what I learned at university, i.e., biology, and my strongest assets, i.e., languages. The language of science is English and it was not about to change anytime soon. So I figured I could probably find some clues as to how to use my languages, well, at least Japanese, if I came to Japan, the scientific hub of Asia, and started my career here. The plan was to do a post-doc for about 2-3 years in Japan, and then do another one for 2-3 years in California, where a lot of biotechs are found, before going back to Canada to open my own lab. As usual, things don’t go quite as planned.

Tetsu’s Road to Multilingualism (Part V: 23-29 years-old)

As I mentioned in the previous post, after doing a few university courses in German and Italian, I decided that I should stop increasing the number of languages in my repertoire, but rather improve the level of the 5 that I already knew much better (English, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish).

Tetsu’s Road to Multilingualism (Part IV: 18-23 years-old)

I added three languages, Spanish, German, and Italian, to my list during this 5-year period, so the text is a little long. Please bear with me.

After high school, I went to Ottawa University for 1 year to do a what was called a Pre-science program in those days. My best friend Greg chose instead to go to Ecuador for an exchange program. A few months into my first session, I thought to myself, I wanna go visit Greg over Christmas! And while I’m there, I might as well learn Spanish!

Why not.

Tetsu’s Road to Multilingualism (Part III: 13-18 years-old)

I had a choice between Australia and Canada. Each had its pros and cons. In Australia, I would live with my father’s friend/business acquaintance, apparently a very rich man living on a ranch with his own helicopter. In Canada, I would live with my aunt (my father’s little sister). Oh, minor detail, I would have to learn French as this would be in Quebec.
I chose Quebec.

Tetsu’s Road to Multilingualism (Part II: 6-13 years-old)

My parents planned out two grandiose language assimilation schemes for me in this second part of my linguistic history.

Natural Japanese learning in Japan

The first began around the age of 6, when they started sending me to grandma’s place in Japan to spend all my summer vacations there. I had been there a few times before, but this time would be the beginning of annual summer visits. In some years, I also had the privilege of going there for Christmas. Although these visits lasted from a few weeks to a few months, this full-time immersion allowed me to naturally “be” a typical Japanese kid.

Tetsu’s Road to Multiligualism (Part I: 0-6 years-old)

Early in this blog, I guess I should start by telling you about myself, and the easiest way is of course, in a chronological description, which I will divide into a six-part series. You can read those that correspond to your age and get ideas for yourself, or perhaps you can read the earlier ones for inspirations on how to raise your kids. Of course, these are overviews, but if you would like me to develop certain examples in more detail or have other requests, please let me know! So here goes.