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12 March 2020

Studying Smörgåsbord & Pedagogical Pitfalls | ♡Koko || Everyday Kiki+Koko | 日常の嬉嬉+興子 | Nichijou no Kiki+Kouko

Photographed by Indigo East of ieindigoeast.com.
Kiki+Koko: Let's NihonGO!! supporting Mug and SpeRaToBo Mod Pastel Gyorin Pattern print
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ハロー、こんにちにゃん!こちら興子☆彡
Hello, konnichinyan! Koko, here.

How are you, today? I hope you're doing well.

Who am I? Well, if you don't know me, my twin sister, Kiki, and I create Japanese language and culture lessons and articles on ieindigoeast.com under the series: Kiki+Koko: Let's NihonGO!!.
And, if you know me from there, you may find the first-person singular pronouns to be out of the ordinary. Well, just for something interesting, Kiki and I decided we would sometimes create personal blog posts, here, as well as collaborative posts. And, I think that's something useful in the whole scheme of this. Our collective perspective is a dichotomy and I think it could be interesting to strengthen our individual presence. Though, all in all, it's really meant for us to contribute to an even stronger collaborative effort. Our main focus is always creating the best Japanese language and culture lessons we can, but, here, it's all about simply relaxing after you've spent time studying, and covering things that may be adjacent, but not always forward facing to our usual topics.

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Kiki+Koko: Let's NihonGO!!
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So, long before Kiki and I began creating proper lessons, there was something that became very apparent about teaching a language, these things being already known, but just more apparent. Knowing a language doesn't always mean you can teach a language, and in order to teach, you have to understand how to learn. I think it isn't much of a hot take to say that everyone isn't meant to be a teacher, and I do think there's a bit of traits that make people cut out to become teachers, but also quite a bit of learning and experience. I think it's a huge responsibility that I know I don't take lightly, especially when dealing with communication. Communication is the way you reach out to the world and it's your very existence in that the words you choose and the meanings they convey is the perception of yourself as an individual through the channel of that language.

That being said, perception can differ from person to person. There are certain biases and histories tied to very minute lexicon and syntax that may vary wildly from one person to the next. We're in a unique position where we feel as though we stand betwixt worlds as bilingual Earthlings. We try our best to build upon each layer and give enough information to give proper decision making abilities to the learner. If it were up to me, we would run on for pages and pages of explanation of word choice, when it should be used, what kind of character it evokes, but when people are given so much information or too many options, they tend to shut down. I believe the concept was introduced in the 70s in psychology when the term 'overchoice' was coined. People tended to be more likely to regret decisions when there were more options. Even if it's different in semantics and structure, it still reminds me of the feeling of having so much to learn and simply being disappointed when it's too much to handle.

Now, I think it's difficult to put yourself into someone else's shoes when it comes to being totally inexperienced in regard to a new language, when there's been no experience and you're starting at zero. It's when you want to learn something, but you literally have no idea where to start, and it can all seem so overwhelming. I feel like it's something very important to experience as a teacher. Granted, it's a bit impossible to get the same exact experience across languages as no matter the amount of similarities, you'll find the process is different each time. Even the experience of learning a second language versus learning a third or fourth is a totally different mental challenge with much different needs and hurtles. Even still, it's something I think is essential if you'd like to really attempt to get into the minds of a first-time language learner.

That being said, I've begun to learn Swedish, as it seemed as far away from English as Japanese, but still within a realm of something I'm interested in. There are so many interesting cultural similarities betwixt Japan and Sweden that may not seem apparent at first, and I think that will be something enjoyable to discover. But, I also look forward to sussing out a new form of grammar and pronunciation that should hopefully be challenging.

Anyway, it seems I didn't start off properly taking notes, so I'm definitely going to begin taking notes that I will do my best to share with you, here, through photographs. They'll be in Japaneseーand Swedishーbut hopefully they will be interesting, and maybe even motivational. In the same way, it's fine to simply dabble in different languages. It's useful for cognition and general mental acuity, and... it's fun.

This seemed like something adjacent to the whole topic of our main site as well as 「♡Kiki+Koko」, as this is certainly something that fits into things we enjoy and things that definitely affect our perspective and our journey here on Planet Earth as a whole. 

I hope you'll join both Kiki and I in our journey on planet Earth, and that we'll hopefully be an interesting part of yours.
♡Koko