Not very Christmassy round here yet, but Christmas is only a month away and I'm going to do something unusual and blow my own trumpet. If you're looking for Christmas presents, here are two suggestions.
First, let me introduce my very talented daughter, Reiko. She's based in London. She started out designing all sorts of things for the home - furniture, lights, cushions - but is now settled into designing bone china tableware. The best thing is that the china is made in England, in 'The Potteries' in Staffordshire, where she can keep an eye on manufacturing and quality, which wasn't the case in the early days when she was having things made in China and eastern Europe. She's still in her twenties, works very hard and has come a long way. I am very proud of her.
Her company is called Reiko Kaneko and this is the address. Take a look.
I can't get back to England this Christmas so she's coming here to visit. As you can imagine I'm looking forward to her visit immensely.
Next, my book. Last summer, 2010, when the mercury hit record levels, I spent every weekend on a book which was published last month with the title, 'Conversational Japanese: The Right Word at the Right Time'. I'm not supposed to say this but it's actually a revision of a book I wrote years ago. I added the kanji and brought it up to date adding internet shopping to the shopping section and e-mail to the chapter on letters. Every chapter has an orientation in English as I've learnt the hard way that knowing the bare bones of the language is not enough to make yourself understood. Then there are dialogues for real life situations, often disaster scenarios, which were fun to write. There are chapters on the neighborhood, the telephone, traveling, business, children, as well as gifts, weddings, funerals and speeches.
Here are details of the book.
Conversational Japanese: The Right Word at the Right Time
by Anne Kaneko (Tuttle Publishing)
It's selling on Amazon.com for $9, Amazon Japan for 1,470 yen, Amazon UK for 13 GBP.
If you like it, please give it the thumbs up ('Like' on sites in English and いいね on Japanese sites).
That's all for now,
Bye
Anne
Reiko is indeed very talented! I enjoyed browsing her site and ordered that gorgeous cluster vase for my parents' Christmas present. I REALLY wanted one for myself! Thank you for telling us about her. I love to see what our kids end up doing - mine at 15 and 11 are still to young to have any idea about what they will be, but it's fascinating to see how talented and diverse our kids are.
ReplyDeleteJust moved to Japan and picked up your book at a local bookstore here in Tokyo. Very useful - thank you!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your feedback. Glad it's useful.
DeleteThe trouble is things are changing all the time. For example, there's a section on 'Officialdom' but the law is to change this summer - we're no longer going to be Aliens!!!
More here:
http://www.soumu.go.jp/main_sosiki/jichi_gyousei/c-gyousei/pdf/eng_page.pdf
I've set up an author's page on Amazon but so far no discussion. If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them.
https://www.amazon.com/author/annekaneko