I Am An English Speaking-Monkey

Of my 国際文化学部 (Kokusaibunkagakubu, Faculty of Intercultural Studies, ie my faculty) classes, I like Translation studies the best. I understand most of it and the teacher is really nice (and speaks German in case I really really need to know something exactly) . Anyway, slightly amusingly it seems Sensei has decided that I`m going to be the class`s English-speaking monkey... If there`s anything lengthy and written in English (It`s translation studies so most stuff is English to Japanese translation examples, though sometimes we get the odd exotic one like Hungarian or Finnish, which NOBODY in the class understands), the teacher sort of looks over to me expectantly.

I don`t mind it at all to be honest, I just find if quite funny. As the only native English speaker in the class (about 25 Japanese, 1 person from China, France and Germany and me) I suppose I`m most qualified, and it means we avoid odd- Japanese English situations. That said, I would prefer not to be asked to imitate and 8 year old American girls accent again...

There is one thing about the class that gets to me though. Whenever I`m there I seem to completely loose the ability to string together a coherent Japanese sentence. Understanding is not the problem, I just can`t say stuff! Maybe it`s just the fact that it`s in front of a big bunch of people...

Oh, and I`m going to be in a video on Kobe University`s web-page at some point. I don`t think I actually do anything other than sit in a lecture though...