Conversations in Mizusawa

Learning spoken Japanese? Try your listening skills on a real-life challenge. Here are six unscripted, spontaneous conversations in everyday settings, recorded during the filming of MPG’s acclaimed documentary Can’t Go Native? Listening skill starts once you can understand spoken words. Mastery begins when you can supply the words you were not able to hear clearly in the clatter of normal background noise. Each conversation is given first in Japanese only, then repeated with English subtitles. A teachers guide, with transcripts, is available for free downloading from the project website www.cantgonative.com. From the website you may order DVD copies of the Can’t Go Native? program, with a bonus chapter on how the musical score was created. A second DVD, More About Mizusawa offers five additional chapters that expand the panorama of Mizusawa life by taking up topics including local history, everyday Buddhism, and the samurai heritage.