British English Conversation with Stew Sensei | Talking about Japan, languages and much more. – YouTube Dictation Transcript & Vocabulary

1.I would like to be able to speak all languages perfectly to be fluent in every language so no matter where I went in the world I could go to a tribe in Kenya and then just kick up a conversation with them um welcome to English with Lewis let's go hello everybody and welcome back once again to another video of English with Lewis and I have another fantastic guest it's St welcome hello thank you very much for inviting me uh it's my pleasure I remember we actually um met up and recorded a video like a year or two years ago and now here we are once again so um how's life been treating you recently I think great really really good busy which is always the best way to be I think um and yeah just enjoying life and enjoying time with family and that kind of thing fantastic so I'm sure most of the people watching this will know who you are they'll recognize you from your content but for uh people who don't already know who you are could you do us a favor and introduce yourself I'd love to so uh my name is ju Sensi I'm a British English teacher who lives in Japan um of course I do social media just like Lewis here and I have been here for in Japan for coming up to 10 years uh I have a family wife and two kids and I love my time here it's so good per so um I think people can tell that you're in Japan at the moment from the background famous photo there's F there's the mountain just there beautiful but um so you have a wife two children uh you've been living in Japan for 10 years a decade why did you move out there in the first place my wife's Japanese so um we met in the UK we both worked together for a few years um and then obviously during that time side a relationship and then decided Japan I I wanted to try Japan anyway and then um we decided yeah let's give it a go and actually at that point the Visa process was Far simpler to come to Japan than to go to UK for hell um it all kind of worked in the favor of moving to Japan and I've been here ever since right so uh were there any like cultural shocks that you had at the beginning was it difficult to adjust to your new surroundings it's a good question I I mean before I came I did a lot of research like I was really I I had a bit of time maybe about a year before I officially came over where I was just finding out as much information as I could before moving a lot of people come over here really struggled to to adapt to the different culture but I think because I put all that time in um it done me a a world of favors you know so I um yeah there's there's a bunch of things that are slightly different of course but um I think I managed to kind of slide in quite nicely and and uh transition well um the biggest culture shock is probably obviously the language is going to be one but I think that's a given but um if we're going to talk about other types of culture shock it's probably the one that shock most people is um in the UK we're very used to we have a set time for working we tend to if we work over that time we get paid extra for it people are very thankful if you stay later um but in Japan it's kind of expected it's part of the package so you say your hours are from 9: till 5: um you might be expected to stay potentially an hour extra quite frequently maybe daily um so when I started to work for someone else that was a bit of a shock but I did read about it before I kind of knew and um I've done jobs where I've worked a lot in the past for myself so I don't mind doing the extra El putting in the extra elbow greas Nosa it's all good a nice little expression you said that you put in the extra elbow grease um put in the extra elbow grease yes what does it mean just to put in the extra effort basically in the simplest form um yeah so doing the extra hours would be a an example of that let's say exactly perfect it's interesting because I think a lot of people are very interested and fascinated by Japan as a culture history and a country I know from many of my Spanish students when I asked them if they choose any place to visit many of them say Japan and it's weird that uh few people say China for example which is another very huge country very close to Japan um so in your opinion what do you think it is that fascinates people so much about Japan and Japanese culture it's a great question I think that um I think because things are so different I mean like you you give a great example of China as well and you could go around most East Asian countries and say that they are all so different from the West um but I think it could be because Japan's the the furthest um if you if we were to look at a map maybe Indonesia slightly and Philippines May cre creep over as well at top of Russia as well but I think uh maybe Japan is one of the furthest away that's probably one reason another's obviously as with all East Asian countries the culture is so different to the West so but it's a lot more colorful and we have a lot more exposure I think to Japanese culture anime or um mango or or even just general like when we see um things on on TV or on YouTube we see a lot about Japan in comparison to other countries so I think um those are all factors that kind of draw people in which is great it really is yeah they should definitely experience Japan if they get the chance I know it's definitely on my bucket list of places that I'd like to visit as well and um a friend of a friend recently went there as well and I saw that they went to lots of different places they tried amazing food and uh I have never been that into anime or Manga but it's true that when I was growing up I was obsessed with Pokemon so I used to play all of the uh Game Boy games the Nintendo stuff I always wanted to get Charmander and Pikachu and all of these different Pokemon um but yeah I've never really read or watched Manga and Anime uh that is that is you are you are watching a form of anime there with Pokémon so you know it's there are and I think that's a great example another one I didn't mention actually but the gaming industry is so big in the west and it's heavily influenced in Japan so I think that that's another great factor that people have from their childhood like you say and kind of continues through they always have good memories of that kind of thing and then it draws them more towards Japan and other other countries I think yeah definitely and uh focusing on the food I love food whenever I ask people on my Channel about food we could go on for hours for donkeys years for ages um but uh what is the food like really in Japan it's great I mean well I mean I don't want to sound too like positive super positive you know uh it sounds unrealistic but it is good I I really enjoy it um I think a key thing you have to do when you come to a different area of the world especially so far from home if you're further in the like the UK is um is you really have to keep your mind open it's very important try as many things as you can even if you think you wouldn't have been interested in it if you were to have it at home you just have to try there's a lot of thing I used to work as a hotel manager actually or or within management teams in the in the UK for a long time maybe eight or 10 years and um one thing that I noticed was that one of the big things that I had to kind of get out of my system is there's a lot of things that we say in the UK that shouldn't be done that they do here so for example one of the things they always used to say was don't reheat rice and it's quite common here um uh for example using raw egg um people eat raw egg here like with their food with their rice fly enough um there's a lot of little things that oh of course eating raw fish maybe would have been something that we were told not to do especially maybe this is we're talking 20 years ago so things were a bit different then obviously now Japanese Cuisine is more popular throughout the world I think so some of these kind of small myths that were there in the past uh disappearing but um these were all there when I was first coming over and I had to kind of just be like okay so I need to completely you know completely think away from what I'm used to and and just try and and that way you can really experience the food properly you know and yeah so obviously Sushi everybody knows uh and sashimi which is just the raw fish no no um rice and then uh for me though the best and and it's an interesting one because we have a culture for this type of food in the UK but for me the best Japanese food is Japanese Curry and for me Japanese Curry is the best Curry I've had and I love curry like Pakistani Indian my opinion now I love all of them I love all no honestly I'm a curry obsessive I love curry and I I love curries from different parts of the world you know but for me I really enjoy Japanese Curry I don't know what it is about it that's so different but yeah it's it's good I really enjoy it I always bring back some stuff for people if I'm going to bring it back it' be Curry so CU it's one of those quite easy ones that you can oh Curry we have it in the UK you know it's so common um and this one's from Japan you can try people tend to try it so it's a good one to you know get people interested and uh when I think about eating out and going to restaurants in Japan immediately it comes to mind the image of having robots uh taking your order and serving you food uh is it like this do they have really like Hightech restaurants uh in Japan uh not before the pandemic they didn't that's for sure I mean in every um in a lot of stores it's a bit difficult to really explain but I'm going to give you two kind of sides to it okay in in a lot of the family kind of stores or bigger stores you will have an iPad at your table where you can order food and and before when I first came here maybe that's common now but before when I first came here that wasn't a thing in the UK you know they barely had the the monitors in McDonald's when I left so when I came here and I saw that I was like oh that's actually quite a good idea but actually we have this really this interesting perspective that Japan is super super Hightech and it's really not when I first came here this this it it was a cash-based society meaning that they only use cash predominantly and it's only because of the pandemic things really changed so now you can use card or or Apple pay or whatever um in stores and and the same with the the restaurants and and the robots in the restaurant so that's really only been thing since the pandemic from what I noticed there are a couple of like um you know specialist restaurants should we say in Tokyo where there would be like robots that are at your table but they're not it's more like an entertainment center I would say is what it is not so much like they come and take your order but there are there the the like the dalic going around um look they look like cats the robots are going give your food yeah that is a thing which is a great invention from the pandemic I think that was become popularized here it sounds interesting and the fact that it was a cash bit Society before the pandemic as well is quite shocking obviously around the world uh we had to adapt and change very quickly to be able to accept card payments instead of just cash um but with Japan like I said usually from the UK and Europe we have this perception that Japan is really really high-tech but then at the same time it's famous for its history and its temples and all of these really really old-fashioned Traditions that go back Millennia yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly so that like a good example of something that's relatively new it's not like this year but it's I'm going to say relatively new again a thing from the pandemic is like going to the going to the till and touching your card and that's not everywhere but when I went back to the UK I've only just come back last week you can barely paying cash now it feels yeah you know and that shocked me because I come over with cash because obviously being the person on holiday now so I came over with cash and you can't use it it's like actually kind of irritating so as as a tourist so I'm seeing the opposite side now and and it's very very fascinating and and also the the big surprise going sorry I know we're gone to the UK here but I was in London and going on like a the bridge next to London ey and next to Big Ben and there's buskers on the bridge and you can pay by card and I was like that's what's going on here that's like crazy like I couldn't couldn't even imagine it you know so that's super I know what you mean 100% even here in Brussels I remember going to the cinema like a couple of months ago and it was very expensive and usually you pay and then you have your popcorn your Coke or whatever but then if you go to the bathroom you don't have to pay because you've already paid for your ticket of course that's what the normal Common Sense would tell you um but then there was somebody waiting in the bathroom saying like oh it's one Euro if you want to go to the bathroom I like seriously but anyway I don't have any cash I don't have any change so can I just go anyway and then she got out like the card reader machine I I was like seriously okay whatever and then I ended up paying with my phone uh a Euro just to go to the toilet which oh really gets on my nerves but yeah well return to Japan a little bit and then we'll go over some random questions that we're going to take it in turns asking each other um but obviously going to another country moving there you've been there for a decade now what has it been like learning the language yeah I mean there's been ups and downs I'd say on my journey unfortunately one of the one of the negative sides of being an English teacher is I just speak English most of the time you know and living in Japan I have two kids so at home I only speak in English for their benefit you know so um it's really affected my Japanese learning I would say now I worked for five years in a company here where they they kind of forbid using Japanese um as an English teacher which is fine I get that um but yeah that really kind of halted for the first while my Japanese um my Japanese studying is probably the best way to put it before I came I did some studying I I nailed down two of the alphabets there's three alphabets or Char characters should we say rather than but there's three sets of them um so i n down the two most necessary ones um which was a great benefit before coming over but then what I found is since becoming since running my own thing um I left a job after five years and now I've run my own business so since then um I've been able to put more time and effort into the language so and and there's a there's diff it's so different from English that you have to kind of unlearn things in a way okay yeah so like you know we have our the simplest version would be the structures for example so um you'd have to reorder the sentence in a different way so the the I prefer to think of it as I just learning a completely different system and try not to associate too much between the two and then that way it's helped me out a lot more so yeah with um yeah Japanese it's obviously very difficult like I said three um three sets of characters you have to learn one of them is over 10,000 which is quite tricky obviously most native speakers only know about 2,000 so 2,000 to 5,000 let's say so that gives me a bit of help bit of Hope but um yeah there's there's still a lot to do of course like it sounds like it's just like an endless journey and I guess that's the same with any language like if you want to maintain a language you need to use it all the time you need to consume the material you need to listen to podcasts watch videos and stay in touch with the language whether that that's with English Spanish or any language uh but then if we take it to the higher level of most difficult languages to learn like Arabic Japanese Korean Chinese at least for Europeans like I don't think I'm brave enough to take on the challenge of learning one of these languages because I've got experience learning European languages which are in theory the easy languages to learn but even still it's so hard to feel conf confid to express yourself so I can imagine how tricky it is for Japanese it's it's challenging but whatever you do you just have to go for it you know that um it's great having theory of stuff but just like with your job if you only had Theory and you didn't apply any of it you'd never move forward and and when we think of work we force ourselves to move forward actually because we think we must because we need the money you know so if you're in a new job you force yourself to meet new people there you force yourself to uh try and push yourself to the next level because you want to improve your lifestyle you know and it should be the same we have to take that same mindset into language learning so obviously one of the biggest issues that seem to appear I work with a lot of students actually in the UK who have lived there for a while and um have struggled to you know be able able to speak in English there because theyve created their own community of users of their own language so really it's building confidence and and and supporting them to use the language but the problem they had is they stopped using it actually they still had the knowledge it's all there they just stopped using it so and they've been in the UK for two three five years and they're stuck in like lower end jobs you know so for all of us who want to get to a usual lifestyle or lifestyle where we want to be wherever you are and use English to to maybe improve it or um support your lifestyle you have to start using it as much as possible and I learned the same here using Japanese as I say if you don't use it you lose it and we have to kind of push ourselves out of our comfort zone in order to be in these situations where you have to speak you have to express yourselves um and I have the same problem sometimes when it comes to practicing I don't know French uh because I've been studying French for the last couple of years and I've got to a level where I can get by and I can do all the things I need to do but then I don't really have French speaking friends and if I don't have that then it's hard to just walk around speaking to myself all the time it's a good trick but it's not the be all and end all at some point you do need authentic genuine conversations with people in order to test yourself and practice because it's like working out it's like going to the gym if you don't do it then it gets harder and harder and you lose that skill yeah there 100% yeah it's it's kind of like it all those people that I said I I I teach they they have the language but it's I always think of the mind like an attic and we have stuff stuck in boxes you know all filled in boxes that are a bit Dusty at the back of our brain but we have we've stopped using them and you know what it's like when you know you got something in the Attic you got to go and find it and then you struggle to find it you know in in your own H home I kind of think it's like that with language so it's a bit of a struggle to find the language you're trying to find so like you say it's important to use it as much as you can you know to to stimulate your mind and keep you going and keep that recall it's all about recall honestly keep that recall going and keep it sharp and a nice little tip if you don't remember a word that you want to use we can always use a few similar words in English to say like you know the the thingy or the what youall it or the thingy majiggy um so if you don't remember a word you can use these three terms which are very informal kind of fun words as well you can say the thingy and then proceed to describe it or the W youall it or the thingy Miggy but then of course you need the other person to know what what you're on about to then say oh yeah of course the the hammer yeah yeah totally but but that's a good that's a good way I think many people stop conversations at that point you know they they in the conversation it creates an awkward silence like I think the best thing you can do is is either use injections or to use something that aids you to continue the conversation with the person because that's exactly what native speakers do that's we don't remember everything always you know and we'll say we do one of two things we'll say what's that thingy oh it doesn't matter I've lost my train of thoughts is quite a nice phrase I use that a lot I've lost my thought let's continue with something else or um we'll describe it and I think that's such a valuable thing that Learners can do is describe it it's not embarrassing it's normal we do it all the time native speakers do all the time you know so um yeah good tip the thingy what youall it or thingy Miggy um totally anyway now we've discussed Japan if you have any more questions related to Japan feel free to leave them in the comments and I'm sure St will be delighted to respond and we can have a chat in the comments as well about Japan and hopefully we'll all be going to visit sooner rather than later um but moving on from that uh I've written down some random questions so we're just going to take it in turns to ask each other these questions uh to keep speaking and keep using some natural British English so uh Stu I'll kick us off I'll get the ball rolling um do you prefer coffee or tea in the morning uh I prefer coffee in the morning actually because um it helps wake me up get me going in the morning how about you uh yeah I'd say I used to prefer tea it's kind of soothing if you have a cup of tea in the morning with milk it feels nice but only really works for me if it's the weekend and I'm going to have a nice relaxing morning um but if I know I'm waking up and I'm working I'll get up I'll have an espresso and then usually go to the bathroom and then go back to the kitchen and I'll have another espresso and then it's time to start work so I need a double hit of caffeine sure sure sure good choice awesome and um next question Su do you prefer the city or the countryside and why um I've lived in both for a long period of time um I it's a real difficult one actually where I'm situated now is probably the perfect place it's like kind of and it's in the countryside kind of it's about 70,000 people Liv in here so it's not so many um but it's about an hour from Tokyo so it's probably the best of both worlds so I can't really answer to be honest with you I love the I love the countryside but the thing is the commuting and the and the moving around is very very difficult so if you got good transport links definitely the countryside yeah how about you yeah I would say um I probably grew up in a town which is more like the countryside than a city uh I say I'm from leads but I'm from a town called Bingley which is like 20 minutes train to leads like 40 minutes to Manchester more or less um and right now I live in Brussels it's a big city and I like living in the city but only if I live close to Parks uh because I work from home I'm always at home I need to get outside a couple of times per day or if not I go a little bit crazy um but I think it depends on the period of time like it depends on how old you are so if you're at University or you're in your 20s or 30s even maybe you prefer living in the city and I think the older you get the more like it is that you'll move out into the sticks or into the countryside so you can have more space and a more relaxing lifestyle so like you I'm kind of on the fence I'm in the middle but I see myself in the future with a garden so Garden yeah Garden would be good yeah I completely crossed okay uh nice expression is to be on the fence so if you're on the fence it means that you cannot decide side between two different things I like the city and I like the countryside so I'm on the fence both on the fence in this case exactly uh next question uh steu what's your favorite way to relax after a long hard day um for me I I it's all about family I think so I enjoy spending time with family playing with my kids and um yeah that's pretty much it that kind of chills me out quite a lot how about you um I'd say usually lying down on my sofa and watching a football match but then usually when I'm watching football is that relaxing H is that relaxing it's relaxing if it's not my team who's your team uh Leeds United so oh it's a very relaxing year for you then I guess oh but actually uh we played you maybe the other day I guess a QPR fan so um oh no you ruined our promotion party yeah yeah this last run in is a bit tricky for you guys yeah terrible so um last week um leads were second we're still technically second but now uh the future isn't in our hands if we had won against QPR we would have been in control of our destiny to go up and get promoted again to the Premier League we lost we actually got thrashed we got beat by a big margin it was 4N um now the future is hanging in the balance that we're depending on IP switch to drop points and then we need to beat Southampton at home but I still believe but watching leads is not a nice relaxing way to finish the day but watching match of the day for example uh a summary of all of the highlights of other matches that's relaxing and I can play on my phone at the same time yeah definitely so Al and uh St you've got two kids do you have any pets too uh I don't have any pets unfortunately because um in my uh apartment we are not allowed pets we are forbidden so but I would love to at some point to get a pet of course yeah actually we've had like um insects cuz in Japan kids love to collect insects like a grasshopper or something like this um and we've had lizards grass lizards but um that's it not really a proper bet I guess and if you were to choose would you go for cat dog rabbit Turtle i' I've had a dog in the past dogs are take a lot of work but they're fun uh I don't know actually it's a great question I'd love to try something a bit different I guess this time like um I've also had a hamster at some point as well but and fish but I don't know I'd like to try something I don't know what though that's the thing but I'd like to try something different if I could yeah definitely so maybe turtle turtle are quite cool yeah very cool how about you u in my case I used to have cats growing up all of the time and then most recently got a dog um who passed away about five six years ago now so it's been quite a long time but that was the the family dog and family pets I've never actually been in charge of looking after uh any pets myself but it's it's on the cards it's something that I have planned that I'd like to adopt uh a puppy or a dog because I think dogs are the most affectionate and loving animals that you can have as they say a dog is a man's best friend and this is something I definitely like to do maybe when I move out to the countryside and have my garden then it would be the perfect timing yeah definitely so definitely you're retiring early but it sounds of bit yeah yeah I just need to win the lottery in a few years and then I'll go buy a mansion in the countryside get loads of dogs and live a good relaxing life yeah definitely um let's do a couple more questions um what's your favorite app on your phone hm I mean I mean know I use it because of work you know because of what we do I use it so much on my phone use so many different apps obviously a lot of social but do I have a fake oh that's a really great question it's not something I really thought about uh before I I'd have to get back to on that one how about you um favorite I'm not sure my favorite is probably so let me have a look because the ones that I use uh probably the most is Instagram um like I upload stuff to Tik Tok but honestly I never use Tik Tok myself so I never reply to any comments or anything like that uh but YouTube and Instagram I use quite a lot I'd say if I had to choose I'd probably say YouTube why not because there are a lot of videos I watch when I'm going to bed and I'm under the covers just before I fall asleep I'll watch some random video videos um just before I nod off before I go to sleep so yeah if I had to choose my number one app is YouTube so YouTube please monetize me now sure sure sure then if that happens then YouTube is also my favorite exactly yeah here we are dreaming now let's finish off with a final question another hypothetical second conditional question and it is um St if you could have any super power what would it be and why H superpower so I I would love that's a really again another tricky question but I I would love something like it either be something to do with I'd love to have endless energy that's not a real superpower I we see any comics with that but endless energy would be very useful I think because you know I'm I'm doing I do a lot and then having kids as well as you know you want to have I want to have energy with them as much as possible you know so if I could have endless energy um that would be great and and when I say endless energy it has to be energy that allows me to be not to the word I've lost as well there um not to procrastinate and energ that allows me to get on with things so it can't be Just Energy it has to be like a energy that helps me direct me somewhere how about you um I mean the typical ones is being able to like fly or to teleport or to read people's minds I think if I had to choose uh given that we teach uh English and we like learning languages I would like to be able to speak all languages perfectly to be fluent in every language so no matter where I went in the world I could go to a tribe in Kenya and then just kick up a conversation with them um I could go to any country in the world and speak perfectly like you would be the best interpreter of all time and it'd be pretty cool not so much to show off but just to be able to understand everything in the world no matter who's speaking Yeah that would be a useful one 100% that's a great idea yeah yeah when I win the lottery and I speak every language in the world and I have my dog and my house in the countryside um you're gonna turn into Bruce way awesome well I think we'll call it a day there um we'll end this um natural British English conversation there but I hope you enjoyed listening to uh Stew's experience in Japan uh as I said if you have any comments any ideas any questions let us know below don't forget to like this video And subscribe for more and if you have any guests that you'd like me to invite on these videos let me know too uh Stu thank you it's been a pleasure no always great fun thank you very much buddy appreciate it until next time see you later people and byebye C thanks for watching like subscribe and see you next time