differences

Hello everyone. Now, I have a speaking partner, who is from Australia. Her name is Ashley, and she speaks Japanese very well. Sometimes, I and she and her friends talk together in Japanese and English. I have studied English so hard to understand their words in talk since I had foreign friends. So, now I enjoy my school life. Today, I’ll talk about differences which I found in life with them.

Please look at the picture. The other day, she gave me some Australian present, for her parents came to Japan, and they brought them from Australia. Do you know “Tim Tam?” I heard that it’s famous confectionery in Australia. And you know, the stuffed animals are koala and sheep. I was so happy to receive the present by her. I felt smell of Australia from them, and they have differences from Japanese. “Tim Tam” may be too sweet for Japanese. Please eat it if you want to know the taste. Let’s ask it for NaokoJ One day, I talked about anything with Ashley and her friend. In conversation, we found differences of nuance of words. First, we Japanese students use 'elementally school', but Ashley and my friend who is from UK use “primary school”. They sad “ ‘primary’ is correcter because 'primary' occurred earlier than 'elementally'. Is it right, Josh? Second, the other day, Ashley’s Japanese friend sad to her, “今日、病院に行ってくるね。(Today, I'll go to hospital.)” which mean she had cold. Then, Ashley was so surprised at the words. Do you know why she was surprised? She associated '病院(hospital)' with big injury, so she thought that her friend had had a traffic accident or a gig accident. Japanese often use 'hospital', but Australian and British don't use it easily. They say "go to the doctor/ see the doctor. It's so interesting, isn't it? It is important for us to enjoy studying, so 'the speaking partner system' in this University is one of good ways.