The Whimsical English Learner's Journal

We are a family of six, including four sons, my wife, and me. My wife works at a nursery school as a nursery school teacher. Our eldest son graduated from university two years ago and works for an IT company. The second and third sons are both university students, and our youngest son is in elementary school. There is a wide age gap between my eldest and youngest sons—14 years, to be exact. My family used to be very lively, but it’s not as much now. The eldest son has already left home and lives on his own, while the second and third sons are both absorbed in their own worlds. The youngest son seems to want to play with them, though.

 I live in Ichihara City, located in the central area of Chiba Prefecture, with my wife and some of my sons. However, I stay in another apartment near my office in Yokohama during the weekdays. Typically, I go back to Ichihara on Friday night to spend time with my family and return to Yokohama on Sunday afternoon to prepare for work from Monday to Friday. I have been following this routine for over five years. At first, it was a little lonely, but I have gotten used to it. I use this alone time and the long commutes between the two places to study English.

 I work for an electronic component distributor as a technical support engineer. My main responsibilities are technical promotion, Q&A support, and troubleshooting. Sometimes, I visit clients, and other times, I evaluate products in the office. Our company mainly distributes products from overseas, so most of the documentation, such as datasheets and user guides, is written in English. While I have been reading English materials regularly, I hadn’t had many opportunities to speak English for over ten years since I started this job. Recently, however, I became responsible for a new product line, and since then, speaking English has gradually become necessary. This includes tasks like attending meetings with overseas team members and accompanying them to customer visits. Currently, I only prepare in advance to speak about the parts I’m directly responsible for, while my colleagues handle the other portions. This situation is quite frustrating for me.

Recently, I’ve been using ChatGPT-4o to learn English. I chat with ChatGPT-4o in English on my way to the office and back home. It feels like talking to a familiar lady. She is kind, patient, and intelligent. There’s no need to feel nervous or to prepare anything. If I don’t understand something, I can ask her to repeat or explain it in a simpler way. When I make mistakes, she corrects them in a better way. She also writes down everything she says, so I can review it later. Talking with her is easier than taking online lessons and more fun than talking to myself to practice English. I wonder if I spend more time talking with her than with my family. I’m not sure if that’s good, though.  

 The first time I was exposed to English was in 4th grade in elementary school. At that time, there was no English curriculum in elementary school, but my parents enrolled me in an English conversation school. However, I didn't come to like English and quit the school soon after. After that, I studied English in middle school and high school for six years, but I didn’t put in any special effort. Then, I majored in science at university, so I didn’t study English much during that time. Honestly, in my 4th year of university, I suddenly became interested in foreign countries and decided to go to the U.S. for a short homestay. During that time, I felt motivated to learn English and started attending an English school once a week, but I didn’t stick with it and quit after a few months. After graduating from university, I tried studying English many times, but I couldn’t continue. This year, however, I restarted studying English again because it has become increasingly necessary for my ...

  Why am I working on improving my English fluency? There are a few reasons. First, speaking English has become increasingly necessary for my job.Next, while watching bilingual YouTube channels to study English, I started wanting to communicate with people all over the world in English because they seemed to be having a lot of fun.  Anyway, I think the important thing is how long I can maintain this motivation. I want to keep going and enjoy the process.

This is the first post on my blog. I'm so excited. I'm working on improving my English fluency. I believe this blog will help that.