MOSCOW, October 26. /TASS/. Taisuke Nagase is a third-year student at the Northern Arctic Federal University (NAFU) in Arkhangelsk. His first degree was in linguistics, and now in Russia he studies Laser Physics and Radiation Interaction with Substance. He has not traveled to home for two years. The only communication with the family and friends is by phone or on the Internet. He admits, he misses Japan, but the confidence that after the graduation he will be a unique specialist is very supporting.
Near SAFU’s International Cooperation Department we see a Welcome! sign in a few languages. Taisuke finds a Chinese variant and reads it out. I try to repeat four melodious syllables. As I keep failing to pronounce them correctly, Taisuke soothes me, saying "Don’t worry, not many Japanese speak Chinese!" He, however, speaks four languages - Chinese, English, Mongolian and Uzbek.
- Oh, plus Russian, - he counts. - At the university I studied eleven languages, though can’t remember everything now. Take Romanian, I have forgotten it - I’ve studied it for only one year. Mongolian for me is, so to say, at the expert level - I know it well, can translate from Mongolian. Uzbek is of the same group, I know it well, I have Uzbek friends. Interestingly, when three years ago I came to Russia, I knew Uzbek, met Uzbeks here and talked to them, though I did not know a word in Russian.
Unique specialist
Nagase has the University of Tokyo’s degree in Linguistics. However, he says, for making a good career in Japan, having a command of languages, even if more than one or two, is not sufficient. Besides, the languages he speaks are not that popular. Many Japanese speak English rather well. Nagase has chosen Russian because, he says, "it is a big language and not many in Japan speak it." At the same time, he says, Russian, Linguistics or whatever humanitarian subject would have been an obvious choice, and thus he decided to study theoretical physics as a new direction.
"Foreign languages and natural sciences - this combination is rare, such people are few. I will work as a free businessman, a freelancer, and thus it is most important to be unique. I will be able to be an interpreter in laser physics."
Language as a set of formulas
Taisuke says linguistics and physics are quite harmonious for him. At high school he studied natural sciences - the physics-mathematics direction. To him, linguistics is also a natural science. He compares a language with a set of formulas. Thus physics as a subject is not complicated. What is truly complicated is to learn it in Russian. When a freshman, he asked his friend, a student in engineering, to send him physics books in Japanese, to make studies easier.
- Two years ago, my level of Russian was not great. I studied physics the following way: physics as a subject - by using Japanese books, and in Russian I memorized the terms.
The most complicated aspect in Russian is auditing. Grammar, he said, is not a big problem. Certain sounds in Russian do not exist in Japanese. For example ‘r’ and ‘l’ sound similar for a Japanese.
- I say "ruler," but whenever I say "ru" and "ler", to my ear they sound similar - "rurer". "Hu," "fu," "pu" - are also similar. "I will go to SAFU (Russian abbreviation for the university)" and "I will go to Sahu (Russian name for Yakutia, in objective case)" - that is Yakutia - I hear them with no difference. I know how to move the lips, the tongue, how to make those sounds. I can even pronounce, but my ears wouldn’t hear the difference. "SAFU" and "Sahu" sound the same."
At the university’s Polyglot center, Nagase teaches Japanese. He expected to see among students those who study linguistics, but was surprised to see doctors, journalists, teachers and even school students - anime fans.
Calm city
According to NAFU’s head of the International Cooperation Department Lubov Zarubina, students from Japan study at the university since 2018, and they all have learned about the university independently from each other - by surfing the Internet. However, they had similar reasons to pick this university in Arkhangelsk.
- When we spoke with them, the students, very open, explained they had been attracted by the fact that Arkhangelsk is not a cosmopolitan city - it is a calm northern province. It was surprisingly to us, as some of them come from big Japanese cities and have used to study, for example, in Tokyo. At the same time, they have experience in international education, as they have taken educational modules in different countries.
This is how Taisuke explains it: he used to surf the Internet to find a university in Russia, though not in Moscow, St. Petersburg or Vladivostok - the Japanese know those cities and have visited them often before the pandemic.
- Arkhangelsk is not that popular, and this is why I have chosen it. In Moscow and in other big cities, live many Japanese, and I would have probably communicated with them and talked in Japanese, and with other people - in English. In Arkhangelsk, however, I am most deeply inside the language environment, which is what I have been looking for.
Lubov Zarubina says other Japanese students also give this reason.
The university education systems in Japan and in Russia differ quite much. Japanese universities do not have that many classes, which students must attend. The Russian university has more strict requirements in this aspect.
Attitude to Russia
Nagase comes from Province Nagasaki, a southern region. Taisuke says laughing - my students learn to speak a southern accent with a shade of Tokyo accent. Many of his relatives live on Tsushima. One of his predecessors was a general, who participated in the Battle of Tsushima. We are trying to count backwards - he was a great-great grandfather. I ask Taisuke how his family took the news he studies in Russia.
- My parents were students in the Cold War time, in the time of the antagonism between communism and capitalism, the parents had bad attitudes to communism. Presently, Russia does not have communism, but for them Russia anyway is like the Soviet Union, thus they do not really like it.
Anyway, he continued, they have got used to the fact he studies in Russia. Taisuke has lived abroad: studied in China, then for a year taught Japanese at the Chisinau University.
Taisuke’s posts on VKontakte are brief. In Russian, in Japanese and in other languages. Most posts are about studies. For example: "Until I studied quantum mechanics, I thought Schrodinger was a cat." In another post he wrote how for the first time he met in Moscow the Buryats and Kalmyks, and their common language was Mongolian. The student added - he dreams to visit Russia’s Siberian part.
- I’d like to go to Oymyakon. It would be interesting to be in Yakutia. And I want to travel to Altai.
Russian-Japanese dish
At the Japanese classes, Nagase tells students about his country, its traditions, peoples, he explains what anime exclamations mean, and, surely, tells about the Japanese cuisine. In Arkhangelsk, he goes to Japanese restaurants and regrets they do not serve natto, made from fermented soybeans. Thus, when he used the word in an example, he had to explain to the students what it was about and showed pictures on the Internet. Generally speaking, he is quite satisfied with the Russian variant of the Japanese cuisine.
- I have a reason to like Russia, - he laughs. - I like the Russian-Japanese dish - rolls! You wouldn’t find them in Japan. This is a Russian dish, not Japanese. They are not sushi, they are different, but I like them. Sushi never has cheese or cucumbers! But I like rolls, like Philadelphia, or others. I often go to Japanese restaurants specifically because I enjoy rolls.
Another big attraction in Arkhangelsk to him is a swimming pool, Vodnik, - a 50-meter pool, where visitors are not too many.
After receiving a Bachelor degree, Nagase, probably, would want to work for a Japanese company, though living in Russia. He is well aware of the Japanese workaholism - he has used to wake up at 5 in the morning to be back home well after midnight, and again to return to the office very early in the morning. Meanwhile he plans to continue studies to receive a Bachelor degree and then to take a Master-degree program, though not in physics. Most probably, in linguistics.
Foreign students at NAFU
Presently, another three students from Japan study at the university: linguistics, philology and information systems, and technologies. Two more students from Japan have joined the preparatory department this academic year.
NAFU students come from 50 countries. Master degree programs feature students from Canada and France. Post graduates come from Vietnam, Syria, Mongolia and Indonesia. In 2021, the university jointly with Kazakhstan’s State Pedagogical University offers a Master degree course in teaching Russian and Literature. Another joint project is with China’s Yulin University - in oil and gas. During this Bachelor degree program, students will study in China for three years, and will come to Arkhangelsk to continue studies for the fourth year.