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The First Japan Quiz Competition was held Friday at the National Olympic Memorial Youth Center in Yoyogi with 72 participants from Japanese language schools all over the country.
The competition was organized by a subsidiary company of public broadcaster NHK to provide foreign students of the Japanese language with opportunities to deepen their understanding about the country and to encourage more foreign students to come to Japan.
In Friday's competition, 71 participants from South Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Uzbekistan and the United Kingdom answered questions on the Japanese language, history, geography, culture and lifestyle.
Two South Korean students won the competition and were awarded 500,000 yen. Kim Jina and Ju Eunji, both 21, are currently studying Japanese at a language school in Tokyo.
Kim said, “We applied for the competition without taking it too seriously,” while Ju added, “I didn't imagine we would win this competition.”
Kim and Ju said they will study social welfare for children and business at Japanese colleges after their graduation from the language school in December and next March respectively.
© Japan Today
7 Comments
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rjd_jr
A wonderful story of cross cultural exchanges, how nice that two South Koreans won this competition. Hope to see more nice stories like these.
bamboohat
This may be a good story, brimming with good feelings of cultures coming together to learn about each other with the enlightened goal of promoting world peace and yearning for an era where common human desires are held in higher esteem than petty differences.
OR it could be an underhanded propaganda attempt to show that the only good foreigner is a Japanese speaking one that is self directed to learn not only the language, but the gloriousness and superiority of Japanese culture.
Pukey2
Yep, certainly is. Just goes to show you can learn a lot about the culture by being here, and not by being on the other side of the earth and pretending to know everything that goes on here.
Yuukorin
Just think how happy the Japanese would be if you came to Japan and applied for this competition and won it.
moonbeams
Well, foreign nationals **should learn the language of their host country, no matter where they live. This has nothing to do with superiority.
roomtemperature
Pukey2
"....and not by being on the other side of the earth and pretending to know everything that goes on here."
Couldn't agree with you more. Let's hope all those pedants here on JT got your message.
tzveteli
It's a far more interesting idea than the Benrontaikai,organized by NHK,where everyone learn their speech by heart.Congratulations on the idea!