Simon Prentis

Simon Prentis has now reached an age where he has spent more of his life speaking and reading Japanese than not doing so. An experienced translator and interpreter in many fields, and former coordinator of the ITI’s Japanese network, he is currently writing a book entitled “The Origin of Speeches” which looks at the emergence of language and its unfortunate misuse as a tool promoting separation between cultures. 

Sessions

A Fish Called「魚」: Characters and the Myth of Difficulty

Despite the progress in surmounting cultural barriers between East and West over the past few decades, most people brought up with an alphabet still seem to feel that the character-based scripts used in Japanese and Chinese present a formidable psychological obstacle to further...

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