Yesterday’s English conversation school was exclusively a discussion, so not many notes were written down. So the recordings were transcribed by Whisper and explained by GPT4.

  • The conversation involves two people getting to know each other. They discuss the speaker’s day, mentioning they are in a small town and not sleeping well due to strange weather. The conversation shifts to the speaker’s occupation, where they reveal they are a software engineer and researcher at a software company. They work on research, prototypes, and small trial programs rather than actual products.
    • I’m feeling a bit tired became I’m here in a little town.
  • They also talk about where they are from, specifically Osaka. The speaker is from near the end of the shoreline, to the west of Namba, and shares their familiarity with the Chuo line from their college days in Mira. They mention the areas of Tenochi and Ikoma, and briefly compare travel experiences in Tokyo and Saitama.
  • In this conversation, the speaker talks about their cat, Touma, who they adopted from a cat shelter. They also discuss their English language skills, which they want to improve to better communicate with people from Taiwan in their job. They anticipate discussing topics related to democracy and the realization of people’s opinions with visitors from Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs.
  • The conversation shifts towards the differences between Japan and Taiwan, particularly in the area of digital technology. The speaker mentions that Japan has been lagging behind Taiwan in adopting digital technology, giving the example of still relying on physical paper for many government applications. They mention the recent creation of a digital agency in Japan, which aims to drive digital transformation in various sectors, such as agriculture. The speaker also discusses Japan’s paper-based voting system, comparing it to the digital ballots used in some places in America. The conversation ends with a mention of the challenges faced during the last U.S. election and the riots that occurred in Washington DC.
  • In the conversation, two people are discussing the digitization of various aspects of society, particularly in Japan. They touch on topics such as the January 6th riot in the US, the use of paper ballots in elections, and the need for better internet access in rural areas for educational purposes. They also talk about the importance of making digital tools more accessible for people to express their opinions on different issues and reference the V-Taiwan system in Taiwan, which allows for more direct and dynamic public input on policy issues. Towards the end, they discuss new words and phrases they learned during their conversation.

nishio.iconFocus on governance, democracy and digital transformation. Make digest as bullet lists. gpt-4.icon

  • January 6th riot in the US: Highlighting the potential impact of questioning election results and the need for secure online voting systems.
  • Paper ballots: Discussing the continued use of paper-based voting systems and the potential for digitization to improve electoral processes.
  • Internet access in rural areas: Emphasizing the importance of providing strong internet connections for educational purposes, such as accessing online lectures from universities like MIT and Stanford.
  • Digital tools for public input: Advocating for more accessible and dynamic methods for citizens to express their opinions and participate in governance.
  • V-Taiwan system: Referencing a successful digital platform in Taiwan that enables citizens to submit opinions and vote on various policy issues, promoting direct public engagement in decision-making processes.
  • Digital transformation challenges: Recognizing the need for Japan to keep up with digital advancements in order to avoid falling behind in governance and democracy initiatives.

I reqested to GPT4 to make a list of phrases which the learner should better to remember. Two of those are matched with the phrases by human instructor.

@nishio: wow, these top two actually match the phrases the instructor chose, wow, this topic is also a good topic for today’s English conversation! image


This page is auto-translated from /nishio/日記2023-04-30 using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.