I have been asked to write something interesting, so I will write about the two most interesting things I have experienced this week. Firstly, on Sunday I saw the first copy of a book I have written, called "151 Common Mistakes of Japanese Students of English", or「日本人に共通する英語のミス151」.
This is a revised edition of a book I wrote years ago called "121 Common Mistakes of Japanese Students of English". The new book contains 151 mistakes which Japanese students often make, such as "I like movie" and "I was exciting" and "Almost people", together with an explanation of each mistake in both Japanese and English, and then the correct sentences, i.e. "I like movies", "I was excited" and "Most people".
The second interesting thing which I experienced recently was a discussion with my students in my seminar on global issues. I asked my students to think about the fact that in the last 50 years both Americans and Japanese people have become much richer, but the proportion of people who say they are happy has stayed the same - about 30%. Why has the proportion of happy people not increased? Also, why do people try to find happiness by buying things? My students and I did not reach any final conclusion on these questions, but we had a very interesting discussion for 90 minutes.