These are wonderful experiences of Waseda students who participated in the October 2023 Japanese Chat Club!

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Lost in Translation

 Peter Roche
SPSE

I was lucky enough to be selected as a participant for the ICC Japanese Chat Club (October), which took place every Tuesday, and it quickly became the highlight of my week.  

Every week we’d be placed at a random table with people we didn’t know, but this wasn’t as scary or intimidating as it seems, as everyone was always so, so welcoming, whether they were the other participants like you or the Japanese volunteers who came to help. I never felt out of place and the conversation was always kept at a level everyone could understand, no matter their level of Japanese.  

Every week there was a different topic and task to talk about. I remember in particular the session explaining some Japanese slang and buzzwords. One I thought was funny was “ワンチャン” (wanchan), which I thought meant puppy, but apparently means ”one chance”? :’)

Photo by author 

The Japanese Chat Club and these kinds of activities made practicing speaking Japanese so engaging and fun, being allowed to speak casually here as compared to formally in class. Having the opportunity to make friends, with other exchange students and with the Japanese volunteers, was something that will help me enjoy and make the most of my time here at Waseda. Don’t be afraid to sign up to any ICC event, and I, for one, can highly recommend the Japanese Chat Club! 

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The perfect platform to practice Japanese!

Ruben Ramos
SILS (exchange student)

When I heard about the Japanese ペラペラ (Pera Pera) club, I immediately thought that I should join it! Being an exchange student at Waseda, one of my main goals for this year is to improve my Japanese skills. I realized that the only way to truly develop my speaking skills was to engage in conversations in Japanese, but it’s not always easy to find opportunities to do so. The Japanese Chat Club, however, was the perfect platform to do that.  

I thus took part in the Pera Pera club activities in October, every Tuesday in the ICC Lounge. Each week, we were divided in groups of 5 to 6 people and warmly welcomed by Japanese-speaking students, there to help us and give us very useful advice. This division into small groups made discussion easier and also allowed us to meet many new people every week. All coming from very different backgrounds, we were able to have very interesting exchanges concerning our different countries, cultures, hobbies, etc. Despite our very different levels, everyone had the opportunity to speak and improve. 

Each week we had two activities: a warm-up to get to know each other, and a main topic. We were thus able to play very fun games, for example, “Two Truths, One Lie” or a game where we had to guess a word by asking questions. Other sessions included free talks, discussions about travels or our home countries, etc. We also had an interesting session about the words used by young Japanese, which was very useful as this allowed me to learn words that are often used but that we wouldn’t learn in class. Overall, the discussions and activities were always fun, diverse and yet always useful, allowing us to talk about many things, improve our level in several ways and get new vocabulary every time. 

I feel like the Pera Pera Club really helped me to improve my Japanese skills by pushing me to practice conversation, and it also allowed me to meet many great people, so I would definitely recommend it to everyone. I myself hope that I will be able to join it again in the future!