×

We use cookies to help make LingQ better. By visiting the site, you agree to our cookie policy.

image

Steve's Language Learning Tips, Enjoy the English Learning Journey with Rupa Sensei (1)

Enjoy the English Learning Journey with Rupa Sensei (1)

Hi there.

It's Steve Kaufmann here and today I have a guest that I'm really happy to meet up

with again, it's Rupa Sensei from Japan.

But before we get into that, uh, remember if you enjoy these

videos, please subscribe, click on the bell for notifications.

If you follow me on a podcast service, please leave a review.

Rupa.

The last time we met was in Osaka Japan two years.

I think.

Oh, time flies.

Time flies.

It was, it was, uh, we were at, my son mark and I were on our way to

Fukuoka for the, a polyglot conference.

The first time that the international polygon conference was held in, in

Asia, in Japan, as it turns out.

And, um, what struck me with you and I think why I'm so happy

to have you on my channel...

first of all Japan, of course, is, is a major country when

it comes to English learning.

I think Japan, I mean, there are more people in Japan who take

TOEIC than the rest of the world combined or something like that.

Wow.

Tremendous country of TOEIC takers.

And, and when I go to bookstores in Japan, of course, there are books for

learning other languages like Korean and Chinese and Spanish and so forth,

but overwhelmingly it's English.

And I think you're very much involved with helping Japanese people learn English.

So could you begin first of all, by giving, making a brief sort

of introduction of, of what you do and your activity there in

Japan now, your presence online.

Okay.

Hey guys, how you doing?

I'm Rupa Sensei as I'm called on YouTube and I teach English to Japanese people.

As Mark said, I used to be a teacher in Japan back about five years ago.

And I just kind of realized like just one classroom, you

know, it's not enough for me.

I want to make videos online and teach the whole country or

even the whole world one day.

So that's why I started making videos on YouTube.

And I really like it.

I think I found my passion in teaching and not only teaching the language

in its elements, but also about motivation and also, yeah keeping up

the enthusiasm to continue to learn.

Well, you know, that's why I wanted to have you on my channel.

I had a discussion...

Perfect

...not too long ago with, with, uh, I think his name was Alberto, an

Italian guy who teaches online now.

And he also was very enthusiastic and I just think enthusiasm

is such an important quality.

And so often the language learners seems to be so serious, he's seriously

studying, uh, you know, lists of words or he's studying the grammar

book or he's doing exercises.

And that's not the solution really.

I mean, the Japanese put a lot of effort into those kinds of activities.

And I think what you provide is sort of this energy that allows them to break out

of that mold and actually make progress.

What has been the reaction to your style sort of call it somewhat unorthodox

style of English teaching in so far as the Japanese learners are concerned?

Well, so far, it's been pretty good.

I've been doing YouTube and stuff for about four years and it's been

going, it's been going really well.

Um, yeah, I think definitely at the start, uh, the kind of reason was

because I was teaching in Japan and I did kind of see that what you said, the

very serious side of language learning where people are so focused on tests

and studying long lists of vocabulary.

And I just kind of asked some of my students and really wondered to

myself, are these people having fun?

Are they actually doing the language learning because they enjoy it or just

because the teacher's telling them, just because if they don't do it, they

won't get into the good university?

And I think that's a shame if it is the latter, if they are just

studying it without having fun.

So I guess my goal or my mission that I've been on is just create

things that are much more fun.

And it all started back when I was a teacher and I would just put on like,

you know, show little scenes of Back to the Future or something in class

to fill a half an hour or 15 minutes.

And during those periods, during those classes, the students just, you know,

their, theie, their faces would just brighten up, their eyes would lighten up.

And I could tell that they were just having a lot more fun than

with there, you know, TOEIC, um, preparation or the ... preparation,

uh, entrance exam kind of preparation.

And that's kind of why I started to go down that road or that

path, just making more fun things.

And it's definitely been received pretty well over there.

You know, it's interesting.

Uh, not all learning activities are equally valuable and we could

be doing things that we think are learning activities and we

may not be achieving very much.

And the magic ingredient that makes any learning activity that sort of, you

know, multiplies the effectiveness is that element of enjoyment, enthusiasm,

liking it, interest all of these things.

And it's very difficult for a teacher to inject that I typically.

You know, a classroom teacher with 30 kids in the classroom, half of

them are looking out the window.

It's so...

Sleepy.

Hungry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, but your people are the people you who interact with you, who

ask you questions, who come back at you, they, they presumably

are infected by your enthusiasm.

And what sorts of questions do they ask typically?

What sorts of comments?

What sort of feedback do you get from your learners?

Well, I think, um, the number one thing or the number one goal that I have,

especially with the YouTube videos and everything that I make, I want to be

kind of a gateway into a long-term path.

So they might have a little bit of interest.

Uh, they, might've learned a little bit of English at school but they've kind

of forgotten it already and they kind of want to start again from scratch, but

they just don't know where to start or they just haven't found fun material yet.

And then they search it on YouTube or on Google who are the, like the

biggest, you know, searching platforms.

And then they might come across my video.

I just want to be a good first impression to the language, right.

Obviously I can only make, you know, one or two videos a week, so I'm not

all that they should be doing, but I just want to be a good step in the right

direction where it's like, okay, well learning a language can actually be fun.

Your videos then typically what do they consist of?

Maybe tell my viewers.

Back in Japan um, I used to do a lot of interviews, whether it's on the

street or, you know, kind of organized interviews with someone and talk about

different cultures, culture shocks that they have, uh, being in a new country.

Um, I used to do random English tests where we would have hidden cameras and we

would just go around talking to people in English in Japan, ask them for directions.

These days, you know, especially due to the lockdown that we had and

everything where I couldn't really do those kinds of videos i, I focused

more on learning with a movie snippets where I might take a, a little movie...

Yeah.

Show about 15 seconds or 20 seconds, and then explain it

together with the audience.

Oh, that's really good.

So for a while you were interviewing people on the street, uh,

foreigners or Japanese people.

Uh, but now you're working more with new movie snippets.

That's an awfully good idea.

And then explaining some aspects of the language or the culture

that's kind of embodied in those movies snippets and what...

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And what's been the reaction to those from your audience?

Going pretty good.

It's going pretty good.

Definitely.

That's the good thing about YouTube is you kind of know if something's working

or not working, it kind of tells you.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

And, uh, so yeah, the interesting thing about YouTube is you have no idea what's

going to, which video is going to do well.

You, you, you think you have some idea, it's a mystery.

It's it's, to me, it's still a mystery.

Some videos do very well.

Some videos don't do very well at all.

And, and sometimes the videos that I thought were really good don't do well

and conversely, that ones that I didn't think were very good, they do well.

So yeah.

Sometimes you just put up the most random video, like, "oh, I'll just

put it up just, just for fun."

And then it gets a million views or something.

What happened?

Million!

I'm..

The last million views I think it was the one I did with you.

In, uh, at that park.

I'm glad.

I'm glad.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's true.

It is amazing.

This explosion of the provision of lessons and content in, in all languages

that that's available on YouTube.

It's amazing.

And, and your learners are, are they aware of like, do they spend a lot of

time on YouTube looking for people like, not just yourself, but other people

as well uh, as part of their strategy?

Exactly.

And that's also one thing that I advocate is, you know, YouTube has got such a

plethora of great teachers that if you only subscribe to one or you only watch

one person's videos you're missing out because, you know, I, I'm just

kind of a one man team, two man team.

Where I can only put out one video a week or two videos, but, um, if you've

subscribed to all the other teachers in the niche, we're all friends,

we all like to work together and collaborate from time to time that you

can have like 20 videos a week or 30.

Exactly.

And so someone who, who subscribes to you, what happens then YouTube suggests

sort of related videos on the side?

Or how do they get from you to these other...

I think so.

Yeah.

It's a big algorithm, which is still a mystery to me, but I do believe that if

you do watch videos in that niche, like the English learning niche, you do get

suggested more and more videos about those topics that you're interested in.

Do you provide the subtitles in Japanese or in English?

That's right.

One thing that I've been known for, for my YouTube journey is

always put in the double subtitles.

So I put like English on the top and then Japanese on the bottom.

And the feedback on that's been pretty good.

Well I'm sure they appreciate it.

It's a lot of work to do that.

Good on you for doing it.

It takes a long time.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to leave a link to your channel in the description box.

And a lot of my viewers are learning English at different levels and,

uh, I definitely recommend that they visit your channel and get connected

with Rupa and with other people who are doing similar things on the

internet, and Rupa thank you very much.

And, uh, now that the COVID hopefully is behind us, although

not entirely, hopefully I'll get to Japan again, or we can have another

meeting in that park in Osaka.

Yeah, we'll go to the same park and the same Starbucks.

In fact, you know

what?

I will leave a link to that video.

Uh, here.

So people can go to that video from this video.

Learn languages from TV shows, movies, news, articles and more! Try LingQ for FREE

Enjoy the English Learning Journey with Rupa Sensei (1) ||||||Rupa| Genießen Sie die Englisch-Lernreise mit Rupa Sensei (1) Disfruta del viaje de aprendizaje del inglés con Rupa Sensei (1) Profitez du voyage d'apprentissage de l'anglais avec Rupa Sensei (1) Godetevi il viaggio di apprendimento dell'inglese con Rupa Sensei (1) ルパ先生と一緒に英語学習の旅を楽しもう!(1) Ciesz się nauką angielskiego z Rupa Sensei (1) Desfrutar da viagem de aprendizagem de inglês com Rupa Sensei (1) Наслаждайтесь путешествием в изучении английского языка с Рупой Сэнсэем (1) Rupa Sensei ile İngilizce Öğrenme Yolculuğunun Tadını Çıkarın (1) 与Rupa Sensei一起享受英语学习之旅(1) 與Rupa Sensei一起享受英語學習之旅(1)

Hi there.

It's Steve Kaufmann here and today I have a guest that I'm really happy to meet up

with again, it's Rupa Sensei from Japan.

But before we get into that, uh, remember if you enjoy these

videos, please subscribe, click on the bell for notifications.

If you follow me on a podcast service, please leave a review.

Rupa.

The last time we met was in Osaka Japan two years. ||||nous sommes rencontrés|était|||||

I think.

Oh, time flies.

Time flies. |летит |passe

It was, it was, uh, we were at, my son mark and I were on our way to

Fukuoka for the, a polyglot conference.

The first time that the international polygon conference was held in, in ||||||多边形|会议|||| ||||||polygon||||| ||||||ポリゴン|||||

Asia, in Japan, as it turns out.

And, um, what struck me with you and I think why I'm so happy Und, ähm, was mir bei Ihnen aufgefallen ist und ich denke, warum ich so glücklich bin

to have you on my channel...

first of all Japan, of course, is, is a major country when

it comes to English learning. |vient|à|| дело доходит до изучения английского языка.

I think Japan, I mean, there are more people in Japan who take

TOEIC than the rest of the world combined or something like that. 托业|||||||||||

Wow.

Tremendous country of TOEIC takers. tremend pays|||TOEIC| |||TOEIC|受験者

And, and when I go to bookstores in Japan, of course, there are books for И, и когда я захожу в книжные магазины в Японии, там, конечно, есть книги для

learning other languages like Korean and Chinese and Spanish and so forth, изучение других языков, таких как корейский, китайский, испанский и так далее,

but overwhelmingly it's English. |压倒性地|| |surtout|| |pero mayoritariamente es inglés|| |в основном|| но в подавляющем большинстве это английский.

And I think you're very much involved with helping Japanese people learn English. ||||||увлечен|||||| ||||||impliqué||||||

So could you begin first of all, by giving, making a brief sort

of introduction of, of what you do and your activity there in

Japan now, your presence online. Япония сейчас, ваше присутствие в Интернете.

Okay.

Hey guys, how you doing?

I'm Rupa Sensei as I'm called on YouTube and I teach English to Japanese people.

As Mark said, I used to be a teacher in Japan back about five years ago.

And I just kind of realized like just one classroom, you

know, it's not enough for me.

I want to make videos online and teach the whole country or

even the whole world one day.

So that's why I started making videos on YouTube.

And I really like it.

I think I found my passion in teaching and not only teaching the language |||||страсть||||||||

in its elements, but also about motivation and also, yeah keeping up ||元素||||||||| ||||||||||garder|

the enthusiasm to continue to learn. |увлечение||||

Well, you know, that's why I wanted to have you on my channel.

I had a discussion...

Perfect

...not too long ago with, with, uh, I think his name was Alberto, an

Italian guy who teaches online now.

And he also was very enthusiastic and I just think enthusiasm

is such an important quality.

And so often the language learners seems to be so serious, he's seriously

studying, uh, you know, lists of words or he's studying the grammar

book or he's doing exercises.

And that's not the solution really.

I mean, the Japanese put a lot of effort into those kinds of activities. |||||||||||||activités

And I think what you provide is sort of this energy that allows them to break out |||||offrez|||||||||||

of that mold and actually make progress. ||模具|||| ||moule|||| ||mold|||| ||型|||| ||de ese tipo||||

What has been the reaction to your style sort of call it somewhat unorthodox |||||||||||||非传统的 |||||||||||||unorthodox |||||||||||||poco ortodoxo ¿Cuál ha sido la reacción a su estilo? Llámelo algo poco ortodoxo.

style of English teaching in so far as the Japanese learners are concerned? styl nauczania języka angielskiego w odniesieniu do japońskich uczniów?

Well, so far, it's been pretty good. ||jusqu'ici||||

I've been doing YouTube and stuff for about four years and it's been

going, it's been going really well.

Um, yeah, I think definitely at the start, uh, the kind of reason was

because I was teaching in Japan and I did kind of see that what you said, the ||étais||||||||||||||

very serious side of language learning where people are so focused on tests ||aspect||||||||||

and studying long lists of vocabulary. |勉強する||||

And I just kind of asked some of my students and really wondered to ||||||||||||me suis demandé| ||||||||||||考えました|

myself, are these people having fun?

Are they actually doing the language learning because they enjoy it or just

because the teacher's telling them, just because if they don't do it, they |||dit|||||||||

won't get into the good university? |||||université

And I think that's a shame if it is the latter, if they are just |||||可惜||||||||| ||||||||||dernier|||| ||||||||||latter|||| ||||||||||後者|||| ||||||||||последний||||

studying it without having fun.

So I guess my goal or my mission that I've been on is just create |||||||mission|||||||

things that are much more fun.

And it all started back when I was a teacher and I would just put on like,

you know, show little scenes of Back to the Future or something in class

to fill a half an hour or 15 minutes.

And during those periods, during those classes, the students just, you know,

their, theie, their faces would just brighten up, their eyes would lighten up. |leur||visages|||s'illumineraient|||||s'éclaircir|

And I could tell that they were just having a lot more fun than

with there, you know, TOEIC, um, preparation or the ... preparation,

uh, entrance exam kind of preparation. |examen d'entrée||||

And that's kind of why I started to go down that road or that

path, just making more fun things.

And it's definitely been received pretty well over there.

You know, it's interesting.

Uh, not all learning activities are equally valuable and we could

be doing things that we think are learning activities and we

may not be achieving very much.

And the magic ingredient that makes any learning activity that sort of, you |||成分||||||||| |||ingredient|||||||||

know, multiplies the effectiveness is that element of enjoyment, enthusiasm, |增加|||||||| |multiplie||efficacité|||||| |掛ける|||||||| |multiplica||eficacia||||||

liking it, interest all of these things. Gustar||||||

And it's very difficult for a teacher to inject that I typically. ||||||||灌输||| ||||||||注入する|||

You know, a classroom teacher with 30 kids in the classroom, half of

them are looking out the window.

It's so...

Sleepy. Сонный Somnolent

Hungry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, but your people are the people you who interact with you, who

ask you questions, who come back at you, they, they presumably ||||||||||大概 ||||||||||предположительно

are infected by your enthusiasm. |被感染||| |感染した|||

And what sorts of questions do they ask typically? ||||質問||||

What sorts of comments?

What sort of feedback do you get from your learners?

Well, I think, um, the number one thing or the number one goal that I have,

especially with the YouTube videos and everything that I make, I want to be

kind of a gateway into a long-term path. |||入口||||| type|||||||| |||入り口||||| |||puerta de entrada|||||camino a largo plazo

So they might have a little bit of interest.

Uh, they, might've learned a little bit of English at school but they've kind

of forgotten it already and they kind of want to start again from scratch, but

they just don't know where to start or they just haven't found fun material yet.

And then they search it on YouTube or on Google who are the, like the

biggest, you know, searching platforms.

And then they might come across my video.

I just want to be a good first impression to the language, right.

Obviously I can only make, you know, one or two videos a week, so I'm not évidemment|||||||||||||||

all that they should be doing, but I just want to be a good step in the right ||||||||||||||pas|||

direction where it's like, okay, well learning a language can actually be fun.

Your videos then typically what do they consist of?

Maybe tell my viewers.

Back in Japan um, I used to do a lot of interviews, whether it's on the ||||||||||||que ce soit|||

street or, you know, kind of organized interviews with someone and talk about

different cultures, culture shocks that they have, uh, being in a new country. |||chocs culturels|||||||||

Um, I used to do random English tests where we would have hidden cameras and we ||||||||||||cámaras ocultas|||

would just go around talking to people in English in Japan, ask them for directions.

These days, you know, especially due to the lockdown that we had and ||||||||封锁措施|||| ||||surtout|à cause|||confinement|||| ||||||||confinamiento|||| ||||||||локдаун||||

everything where I couldn't really do those kinds of videos i, I focused

more on learning with a movie snippets where I might take a, a little movie... ||||||片段|||||||| ||||||фрагменты фильма|||||||| ||||||fragmentos de películas|||||||| ||||||фрагменты||||||||

Yeah.

Show about 15 seconds or 20 seconds, and then explain it |||||||expliquer|

together with the audience.

Oh, that's really good.

So for a while you were interviewing people on the street, uh, ||||||брали интервью|||||

foreigners or Japanese people.

Uh, but now you're working more with new movie snippets. |||||||||片段 |||||||||extraits |||||||||clips |||||||||fragmentos de películas

That's an awfully good idea. ||muy||

And then explaining some aspects of the language or the culture

that's kind of embodied in those movies snippets and what... |||incarné|||||| |||represented||||fragments|| |||embodied = represented|||||| |||体现|||||| それは|||体現されている|||||| |||encarnado||||fragmentos de películas||

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And what's been the reaction to those from your audience?

Going pretty good.

It's going pretty good.

Definitely.

That's the good thing about YouTube is you kind of know if something's working

or not working, it kind of tells you.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

And, uh, so yeah, the interesting thing about YouTube is you have no idea what's

going to, which video is going to do well.

You, you, you think you have some idea, it's a mystery. ||||||||||тайна ||||||||||mystère

It's it's, to me, it's still a mystery.

Some videos do very well. |||très|bien

Some videos don't do very well at all. ||ne|||||

And, and sometimes the videos that I thought were really good don't do well |||||||pensaba||||||

and conversely, that ones that I didn't think were very good, they do well. |inversement||||||||||||

So yeah.

Sometimes you just put up the most random video, like, "oh, I'll just

put it up just, just for fun."

And then it gets a million views or something.

What happened?

Million!

I'm..

The last million views I think it was the one I did with you. ||||||c'était||la|||||

In, uh, at that park. ||||parc

I'm glad.

I'm glad.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's true.

It is amazing.

This explosion of the provision of lessons and content in, in all languages |взрыв|||предоставление|||||||| ||||provision|||||||| ||||提供||||||||

that that's available on YouTube.

It's amazing.

And, and your learners are, are they aware of like, do they spend a lot of

time on YouTube looking for people like, not just yourself, but other people

as well uh, as part of their strategy?

Exactly.

And that's also one thing that I advocate is, you know, YouTube has got such a |||||||пропагандирую|||||||| |||||||提唱する||||||||

plethora of great teachers that if you only subscribe to one or you only watch 大量|||||||||||||| 多数|||||||||||||| Plétora|||||||||||||| множество||||||||||||||

one person's videos you're missing out because, you know, I, I'm just

kind of a one man team, two man team.

Where I can only put out one video a week or two videos, but, um, if you've ||||mettre||||||||||||

subscribed to all the other teachers in the niche, we're all friends, ||||||||领域||| ||||||||niche|||

we all like to work together and collaborate from time to time that you

can have like 20 videos a week or 30.

Exactly.

And so someone who, who subscribes to you, what happens then YouTube suggests |||||||||se passe|||suggère |||||登録する||||||| ||||||||||||sugiere

sort of related videos on the side? ||||||à côté ||relacionados||||al lado

Or how do they get from you to these other... ||||obtenir|||||

I think so.

Yeah.

It's a big algorithm, which is still a mystery to me, but I do believe that if |||算法|||||||||||||

you do watch videos in that niche, like the English learning niche, you do get ||||||细分领域|||||||| |||||||||||ニッチ||| |||||||||||нише|||

suggested more and more videos about those topics that you're interested in.

Do you provide the subtitles in Japanese or in English? Вы предоставляете субтитры на японском или на английском языке?

That's right. c'est|

One thing that I've been known for, for my YouTube journey is |||||connu|||||parcours|

always put in the double subtitles.

So I put like English on the top and then Japanese on the bottom. |||||||||||||abajo

And the feedback on that's been pretty good.

Well I'm sure they appreciate it.

It's a lot of work to do that.

Good on you for doing it.

It takes a long time.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to leave a link to your channel in the description box. ||||laisser|||||||||

And a lot of my viewers are learning English at different levels and,

uh, I definitely recommend that they visit your channel and get connected

with Rupa and with other people who are doing similar things on the

internet, and Rupa thank you very much.

And, uh, now that the COVID hopefully is behind us, although

not entirely, hopefully I'll get to Japan again, or we can have another

meeting in that park in Osaka.

Yeah, we'll go to the same park and the same Starbucks. ||||||||||星巴克

In fact, you know

what?

I will leave a link to that video.

Uh, here.

So people can go to that video from this video.