Nov. 2, 2006
"Using English to make new waves"
Kiyomi Arai/ Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

KAWASAKI--Junko Edahiro has many titles, from simultaneous interpreter to environmental affairs journalist to self-management consultant, just to name a few. But she doesn't have a preference for any particular one. In fact, she doesn't really care which title people use to describe her. What's more important is what she does with her skills.

"People can call me whatever they like--it depends on how they define what I do. For me, my mission is to pass on what I know to people, using English," she said during a recent interview with The Daily Yomiuri.

It's amazing how enthusiastic 43-year-old Edahiro is about matters in so many fields. And this amazement is amplified on hearing that although much of her work is related to English, she wasn't able to speak English before she was 29 years old. She claims to have jumped from "unable to speak English" to "working as an interpreter" in two years.

Like many university graduates, she had a longstanding inferiority complex about English. Having graduated from Tokyo University's graduate school with a major in psychology, she did not have a problem reading English, but her communication ability was poor.

The first major turning point for her linguistic fortunes came 15 years ago, when she went to the United States with her husband, who was going to study there for two years, and their 8-month-old daughter.

"I couldn't catch a thing that was said at immigration, and I kept having to ask the immigration officer to repeat each question. Eventually, they let me go through," Edahiro said.

After this inauspicious start, she set a goal to reach within the following two years--to become a simultaneous interpreter. She chose this occupation because "it seemed like the most challenging one among all kinds of work related to English."

She was determined not just to overcome her inferiority complex with regard to English, but also to become good at it.

Several factors limited her language-learning environment, however. One was having a little daughter who needed constant attention, and another was not being so rich. This situation precluded the option of going to an expensive language school.

So Edahiro came up with a language-learning program for herself. Her studies involved very ordinary materials--TV news programs, magazines and newspapers. Once she was able to catch what was being said in English and understand it, the next step was to quickly translate it.

Edahiro asked an American acquaintance to record English sentences on tapes as a part-time job. She practiced translating these sentences while the tape was running.

"I paid her about 10 dollars a tape, and about 20,000 yen in total. That's all it cost me to study English in the United States," she said.

Although she didn't spend so much money, her studies were intensive. She studied for eight to 10 hours a day after putting her child to sleep. Sometimes the hours got longer when her daughter was at a child-care facility or with a babysitter.

Many find it extremely difficult to study a language on their own. But Edahiro said it is a more effective way than relying on outside help.

"When you have a clear objective, you're the only one who can tell whether the method you're using is suitable or not," Edahiro said. "I think many people don't realize that they're mistaking methods for objectives--they think completing a course at a language school or studying learning material is an objective, when in truth it is just one of the methods."

Edahiro experimented with a number of ways to improve her English skills. She failed in using many of them, she said, but did not lose sight of the ultimate goal.

"During the two years in the United States, I gave myself three-month school terms--a school that has only one student, me--and at the beginning of the school term, I decided the method I would use for the next three months. When the school term ended, I looked back to see if the method had worked for me. If not, I just changed my approach."

She also made herself quantify her improvements. For example, she kept notes on how much she understood of each CNN news program she watched each day. On the first day, she wrote "1 percent," as she had understood nothing more than the word "Clinton." The figure gradually improved, but after reaching 20 percent to 25 percent, her progress seemed to plateau.

"When you don't really know how you have improved, hitting a slump can be hugely discouraging. But I would look at my notes and say: 'Wow, I only understood 3 percent of this program three months ago. I'm making big progress.' That made me feel a lot better, and kept me going," she said.

She came back to Japan, attended a training school for interpreters for six months, and then started her career as an interpreter.

But that was only the beginning.

Another turning point in her life was an encounter with the renowned environmental analyst Lester Brown, which led her to become deeply involved with environmental activities.

Edahiro had just started working as an interpreter, and there were not many offers of work for a new face.

"Since I had a lot of free time, I thought I would do some volunteer work related to English so that my communicative skills wouldn't deteriorate," she said. She sent a postcard to Brown, offering to help him when he made his next visit to Japan.

Her offer was accepted, and when Brown came to Japan, she was asked to give assistance to Brown during his way between hotel and conference hall.

"It was pure luck. If I hadn't received that reply, I wouldn't have got as involved with environmental issues as I am now," she said. "But, even if I hadn't got the reply from Lester, I would have sent more postcards out to other people until I received a reply from one of them."

After helping Brown, becoming an environmental affairs journalist didn't require any special steps, she said--it was simply a case of one thing leading to another, including getting to know Brown and acting as an interpreter at international conferences.

She started to notice that although Japan was often said to lag behind in environmental activism, this was not always the case. In fact, there were actually some interesting new projects, but few people would find out about them outside of Japan because the information was not properly distributed at the international level due to language barriers.

In 1999, she started sending e-mail newsletters, which she called "enviro-news," to those interested. Three years later, she started a nongovernmental organization, Japan For Sustainability (JFS), which distributes information in English on environment-related activities in Japan.

Now, there are about 9,000 subscribers of JFS newsletters in 187 countries. In addition, JFS puts up 30 new stories each month in both English and Japanese on its Web site, with the help of volunteer translators.

In addition to these projects, in 2004 Edahiro started a firm, e's Inc., which offers self-management workshops and translation services.

One of the key words in her activities is "change agent," describing a type of person who brings about changes.

"I want to be someone who can set off a wave that leads to change on a bigger scale," she said.

The more she does, the more she wants to do.

"I never imagined I would be where I am now, 15 years ago. And I expect myself 15 years from now to be somewhere unimaginable," she said. "It's so exciting. I'm so much looking forward to it."

(Nov. 2, 2006)