What to talk about - Topics

Often, most of the students say that they have trouble thinking about what to talk about with their host families. I tried to show how the students can lead themselves into a conversation, where they can take control of the conversation by telling something about Japan. Hopefully, this will engage you, as the host parent, into further conversation. Here are a few conversations that we did in class. Once the students understood the structure of the conversation I asked them to write their own conversation. We will now go through these in class.


1. HP: did you have a good day?

S : oh, yeah, I learnt about tongue twisters today.

HP: oh, right, yeah are they difficult to learn?

S: well, today I learnt about............



2. S: oh, today I learnt about tongue twisters.

HP: oh, right, what did you learn?S: well, I learnt about.........


3. HP: What did you do today?

S: oh, well, today I learnt about elec, electi, oh, wow, that's really difficult to pronounce.

HP: oh, do you mean "electrical?"

S: ha ha, yeah, it's like a tongue twister

HP: oh, yes it is.

S: Many languages have their own tongue twisters. I played with them when I was young. It will be good to practice Japanese pronunciation. Here are some common Japanese tongue twisters. Please don't think about the meanings deeply since most tongue twisters don't make sense. Let's have fun! "Namamugi namagome namatamago (Raw wheat, raw rice, raw egg)," "Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyaku da (The customer next to me eat a lot of persimmons)," and "Bouzu ga byoubu ni jouzu ni bouzu no e o kaita (The monk draw the picture of a monk well on the screen.)"



HP: Wow, it's really windy today.

S: Yeah, but at least it's not raining.

HP: Oh, yeah, I don't like the rain.

S: Yeah, because in Japan, it's almost the rainy season.

HP: Oh, do you have a rainy season in Japan?

S: Yeah, well, June is a rainy season in Japan. I don't mind rainy days as long as I wear proper clothing and shoes so that I don't get soaking wet. Also, I like watching rain from inside of the house. There are many songs rain themed, but one of the most well known Japanese songs is the child's song, "Amefuri." I like the song, "Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head" by B.J. Thomas and "The Raindrop Prelude" by Chopin. I also like the last scene in "Breakfast at the Tiffanys," when Audrey Hepburn rushes through the rain to rescue her cat. Do you have any favorite songs about rain? (From http://japanese.about.com/b/2009/06/03/rainy-seasons.htm)