On September 9th, we held the first Japanese conversation group get-together at ELSI, which was appropriately arranged in the tatami room. This conversation group gives our international researchers an opportunity to practice their Japanese skills.


Given that ELSI's daily operational language is English, this is a nice complement to the Japanese language lessons that are offered twice a week here, allowing participants to try out what they have learned in class. Matthieu Laneuville (organizer of this group), Karen Lewis, Nicholas Guttenberg and seven Japanese researchers and staff joined this talk. We began with the question of what motivated our international researchers to study Japanese, which soon got all of us speaking excitedly of the cool products of Japanese culture such as animation, manga and games.


The meeting lasted only 30 minutes but it was a fun exchange for both the foreign and Japanese members of ELSI!