In this weeks episode of the KoreKara Podcast, we chat with Kaz, the author of Eigo Nodo. You also may know him from the Kaz's Nippon Dream Youtube Channel, or the Nippon Dream Website. But today, we're going to find out more about Kaz than just the language learning side. We dive deep into how he became proficient in English, his journey to the United States, the inception of Eigo Nodo and publication process, as well as his adopted son.
Kaz's Links:
► Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/eigonodo
► Twitter: https://twitter.com/eigonodo
► Website: https://www.nippondream.com/
About Kaz:
Kaz grew up in Hiroshima, Japan and became proficient with the English language from an early age listening to the radio. After doing his undergraduate degree in Japan, Kaz would go to the United States to get his PhD from the University of Chicago. At that point, he was very comfortable with his English speaking and comprehension level, but there was one thing that was missing. No one was listening to him.
This issue wasn't the most apparent until he actually starting working in the United States. He noticed that everyone would listen to his international colleagues, but no one would pay attention when it was him that talked. However, his wife went and pointed out something simple but drastic that would become the cornerstone of his book, Eigo Nodo. The concept of using your throat to speak English. Due to the quiet nature of speaking Japanese, you never actually hear when native speakers breathe in. Whereas the foreigners at the company Kaz was working at would always breathe in before they spoke, which let everyone know that it was their turn to speak.
Once Kaz actually put this concept into practice, he was able to see that everyone would listen to him, and could communicate at a much higher level than before. From there he decided that this is a problem that other Japanese people must be facing, thus he decided to make the book Eigo Nodo together with his wife. She wrote out the concepts in English while Kaz would go and translate it into Japanese. The final product was Eigo Nodo, the tool to help out Japanese speakers speak English better.
In conjunction with publishing the book, he created the Nippon Dream website and Youtube channel to further aid Japanese people who wanted to have a very high level of English. The website evolved into not only a hub for various learning resources, but an area where Kaz would personally tutor people as well. Over time though, Kaz noticed that it wasn't only Japanese people who were interested in his content, but also foreigners who wanted to speak better Japanese. Nowadays, Kaz looks to help both Japanese native speakers and foreigners become better at the respective languages through his interactive video series, website posts, tutoring, and more!