A well-received student event, Lightning Talks is coming back this autumn. Lightning Talks 3, My favourite Japanese proverb(s) is now scheduled!! It will be held on Saturday 4th November 2023, from 10:00 until 11:30 am on zoom. I have invited all the students who are already able to speak for 5 minutes in Japanese.

Each student who will participate the event will talk about their favourite proverbs (わたしの好きなことわざ・かくげん) for 5 minutes, all in Japanese! In Japan, there are myriads of ことわざ・格言（かくげん）, and quite a lot of them are still used in day-to-day, casual and formal conversations. For example, if you are very careful about some decision that you will make, you would use：いしばしをたたいてわたる (石橋を叩いて渡る, which means that 'I will test and hit the stone bridge before walking over it'). There is a derived expression from this proverb, and people may joke to say that「いしばしをたたいてこわす」, meaning, being too careful that the stone bridge is destroyed before this person walks over it.

Proverbs are all in Japanese people's blood. They use some daily, they hear some often, and some are taken from Chinese short poems, or some are Japanese original!

I have asked all my students who are participating to carry out a little research by themselves, and find the one they like.

In the past, we had Lightning Talks 1 and 2, and at each occasion, the students talked about their Japanese study and their Image of Japan.

I am really looking forward to watching each of the student's talks on 4th November 2023!