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Why study Japanese

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We live in a world of global communication, where the exchange coin of communication is the language. Experts in the field have estimated that there are between 5000 and 10000 spoken languages in the world, and that - without taking into account the various dialects of every language.Studying a foreign language literally changes one’s visions of life. According to certain studies – the way bilingual people think differs from that of people speaking only one language.

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Japanese Calligraphy Demonstration in the Republic of Moldova

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Date: 26th May, 2012

Place: Foundation for Moldovan-Japanese Relation 

I had chance to meet Mr. Valeriu Binzaru who is the president of Foundation for Moldova-Japanese Relation at my friends’ wedding party on 25th May 2012 and hear that their students were keen to learn and had strong interest for Japanese Calligraphy.

I told about my experience about teaching Japanese Calligraphy in Romania for 6 years and we decided to have “Japanese Calligraphy Demonstration” at the foundation. On that day, many students from advanced class participated to the demonstration on 2

 

Summery for Demonstration

 

    1. Japanese Calligraphy is one of the Japanese traditional art. Balance between black ink and white space is very important because which crate beauty. The character itself has many ways to express beauty of movement and riotousness, balanced and harmony according to tick, thin, deep, right, smooth, big, small, strong, weak, long, short etc.  By the pressure, inclination, and direction who gives to the brush, producing thinner or bolder strokes, and smooth or toothed borders. Eventually, the speed, acceleration and deceleration of the writer's moves, turns, and crochets, and the stroke order give the "spirit" to the characters by influencing greatly their final shape. First of all, we should learn stroke order and technic using Chinese and Japanese classic by the Sage of Calligraphy as an ideal model.

 

    1. The term Sanpitsu (三筆) or "three brushes" is used in Japanese to refer to a group of three famous Heian period calligraphers: Kūkai 空海（弘法大師）774–835, Emperor Saga( 嵯峨天皇)786–842 and Tachibana no Hayanari, (橘逸勢) 782-842. You can find Sanpitsu (three brushes) in each period in history, but no-one left more of a mark on subsequent ages than the Sanseki because of their high-toned and elegant style.

 

    1. Japanese had learned great script culture from ancient China such as Shang Dynasty (殷), Qin (秦), Warring States period (戦国), Southern and Northern Dynasties(東晋), Han Dynasty(漢), Sui Dynasty(隋) and Tang Dynasty(唐) then created an original Japanese culture during Heian period (794-1192) like Hiragana and Katakana characters and gave a strong influence on Japanese culture in later years.

 

    1. In chronological order, there are Oracle bone script(甲骨:Koukotsu), Oldest script(篆書:Tensho), Classic script(隷書:Reisho), Standard script (楷書:Kaisho),Running script(行書:Gyousho), Cursive script(草書:Sousho) etc. Learning technic and a variety type of scripts gives your father an insight of Japanese Calligraphy and new discoveries of attractiveness. We could feel every breath Kukai, the one of greatest monk, took in the ninth century and a part of Heian life behind his stroke and visualize honorable smile of Emperor Saga behind a bamboo blind clearly in our mind's eye. These are the all about Japanese Calligraphy.

 

Practice

Firstly, I showed the technic of Japanese Calligraphy such as correct strokes, stroke order, character structure, balance, and rhythm. Secondly, we wrote students’ names in Kanji checking the Kanji dictionary for meaning and found suitable Kanji for their names.

There were not enough time as I had only an hour for demonstration, however I was so appreciate that all students listened my story with strong interest. I hope I could offer another chance to enjoy Japanese Calligraphy together.

At the end, I may please express my appreciation for Mr. Valeriu Binzaru who gave me this great opportunity for having culture exchange with great Moldovans.

26th May, 2012

Romania Brasov Musashino Center

The former director Okubo Akio

The Special Jury Prize awarded to Anna Şefer

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On the 27th of April 2013 in Kiev, Ukraine was held the 1st edition of international Japanese speech contest, entitled “The Japan in my heart” organized by National linguistic University Kiev National Linguistic University in partnership with the Japanese Teachers Association of Ukraine, Ukraine-Japan Center and the Embassy of Japan in Ukraine.

The contest gathered students who study Japanese in different institutions from GUAM member states. The Republic of Moldova was presented by Anna Şefer – a 4th year student at the Foundation for Moldovan-Japanese Relations and 2nd year student at the Faculty of Chemistry of the State University of Moldova.

Plenipotentiary ambassador of Ukraine and of the Republic of Moldova, Toichi Sakata, said that this event offers the possibility to promote the talented students who study Japanese language and culture. ”It is important to draw up the quality of education to the level that the market demands, and along that, the integration of these students in Japanese companies is one of the purposes of this process.  Training qualified specialists guarantees the competitiveness of the country’s economy and attracts new investments.” emphasized His Excellency, Ambassador Toichi Sakata.

Anna presented her speech and answered accurately and coherently the questions asked by the jury, thus she managed to get a wonderful result – the Special Jury Prize.

The jury’s committee was formed by representatives from the Embassy of Japan and specialists of Japanese language who teach at universities in Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova.

Prizes awarded to the winners were very attractive – Japanese books and dictionaries, accessories and traditional Japanese souvenirs provided by Japanese companies present on the Ukrainian market.

“From the very beginning Japanese was something fascinating for me…a challenge. It’s true to say that studying Japanese helped me to develop some new skills, and taught me a lot of things. Participating in the international contest was a challenging experience for me, which combined difficulties and pleasure. The speech contest was hard enough for me, I had to rewrite my script several times and think of the best introduction and conclusion and so on, and I also was nervous and anxious before the contest. Other students were from faculties of Japanese, and their major was linguistics, which discouraged me a bit… I think this special prize is the greatest award for studying Japanese for 4 years at the Foundation of Moldovan-Japanese Relations, where I participated in every Japanese Speech Contest held in Moldova.” stated Anna.

http://guambenron.blog.fc2.com/

Margarita Mutelica premiată la concursul internațional de discursuri în limba japoneză!

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La Moscova a avut loc a 25-a ediție a concursului internațional de discursuri în limba japoneză. Concursul destinat studenților a  întrunit participanți din 21 de țări și regiuni printre care se numără Armenia, Azerbaidjan, Kirghizia,  Belarus, Uzbekistan, Ucraina,  Rusia și Moldova.

Organizatorii concursului au fost ambasada Japoniei în Federația Rusă, Fondul Japonez ”JapanFoundation”, Asociația Profesorilor de Limbă Japoneză din țările CSI, în colaborare cu Centrul ruso-japonez de schimb de tineri.

Participanții au avut libertatea să aleagă orice temă pentru discursul pe care îl vor rosti, în afară de temele cu caracter politic și religios. Discursul nu trebuia să depășească 5 minute.

Printre principalele criterii de evaluare ale participanților au fost: abilitățile în limba japoneză (exactitatea gramaticii, a vocabularului, a pronunțării și intonației, fluența vorbirii și corectitudinea expunerii gândului) dar și conținutul comunicatului (originalitatea prezentării esența punctului de vedere personal și aprecierea răspunsului la întrebarea juriului).

În cadrul acestui concurs, Republica Moldova a fost reprezentată de Margarita Mutelica, cea mai bună elevă a școlii de limbă japoneză din cadrul Fundației pentru Relații Moldo-Japoneze din Moldova și studentă la Academia de Studii Economice. Tema care a fost aleasă de reprezentanta țării noastre pentru discursul în limba japoneză a fost ”Minutul liber”.

Margarita Mutelica a obținut premiul special al juriului!

Partenerii principali ai concursului au fost în cea mai mare parte companii japoneze: Hitachi, Sojitz, Seiko, Itochu, Panasonic, Japan Airlines, ș.a.

http://jpfmw.ru/ru/events-archive/moskovskij-mezhdunarodnyij-konkurs-vyistuplenij-na-yaponskom-yazyike-2012.html