日本語のコーナー
Nihongo Speech Files #1: On ‘Lettting Go’
Not quite anime/manga related, but I thought I’d share this anyway. This is not the first Nihongo speech I delivered in the office, but since this is the most ‘ready for posting’, I decided to have this published first 
Lengthy Intro
LISTEN TO MY SPEECH
We have this ‘daily Nihongo speech’ activity in our department where all the members take turns in delivering a speech in Nihongo, supposedly to enhance our communication skillz, and the topic can be just about anything under the sun. While many of my colleagues think of this as a total pain in the ass (thinking about what to talk about, not to mention in Nihongo, is no easy task, not unless you ask someone else to translate it ^_^), I consider this to be a “chance to shine and allow the people to show the ‘other sides of you’, either to entertain, inspire, or to simply let other people get to know you better” :3
The day before my flight back home, it was my turn to speak, so I still had the chance to give my ‘last speech’. Yayyy!
The night I was cramming making my draft, my housemates/colleagues and I still didn’t know if the initial plan to let us go home by Wednesday that week would push through, and that’s like two days away gee whiz. The feeling was not unlike a cliffhanger, so to speak, and since I was being trolled by/trolling Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 during that time, I actually thought of giving a speech juxtaposing the ‘cliffhanger feeling’ I had with Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. But then there’s not really much of a point in talking about that, especially if the news regarding our departure would be confirmed the following morning. As such, I decided to talk about ‘letting go’ instead, a topic that would be totally relevant to my situation if we’re indeed going home that week.
I usually share my speech in Nihongo alone, explaining just a few words and phrases in English, but this time around, I thought the best way to do this would be to go Japlish, Japanese then explain whatever I said in English so that all people could understand what the heck I’m saying.
The Speech Proper
And, the speech… (feel free to correct my Nihongo please, I know I still need a lot of help, especially coz I just go about saying whatever without really paying attention to consistency and all that, shifting from semi-polite to not-so-polite form every so often .__.)
間違いがあったら教えてください。
「成長のために’Letting go’が必要だ」と私は最近実感しました。
“‘Letting go’ is necessary for us to grow”, as I’ve realized as of late (I’m so quoting otou-san on this)
英和の辞書で、「Let go」という言葉はいろんな意味を持っています:
The English-Japanese dictionary shows us the various definitions/Japanese equivalent of [the multi-faceted] ‘let go’, which are as follows:
手放する[tebanasu-suru]。。。 To part with
解放する、自由にする[kaihou-suru, jiyuu-suru]。。。 To let something/someone free
捨てる、あきらめる[suteru, akirameru]。。。 To throw away,To give up
自制心から自由になる、自分を解き放つ[jiseishin kara jiyuu ni naru, jibun wo tokihanatsu]。。。 To free oneself
どれもこれも本当のことを表します。
Each and every one of which speaks the truth (doh)
こんな「Letting go」の経験があるでしょうか？
I wonder if you’ve ever had this kind of ‘letting go’ experience?
例えば:
For example:
（一）物事がうまくいかない場合、自分とほかの誰を責める代わりに、「まあ、しょうがない」を考えて、改めて新しい始まりをします。
When things go wrong, instead of blaming yourself or other people, just think/tell yourself “Well, can’t be helped”, and start anew.
（二）失恋した時、「自分は何かをするべきだった」とか、「もう少し時間があったらできたと思う」とか、「時間を戻すことができればこんなこととする・しないか」。。。「もし～だったらどうなるか」という”What ifs”を考える代わりに、「しょうがない、神様の意志ではなかった」を考えて、諦めます。そして、感情的なお荷物を運ぶより、自分の経験から学んで、成長します。
When you experience heartbreak(s), instead of thinking “I should’ve done something about it”, “It would’ve been possible if only I had more time”, or that “If only I can turn back time I would’ve done this / wouldn’t have done that”, instead of thinking of any other “What ifs”, simply resign and tell yourself, “It can’t be helped, perhaps this wasn’t the will of the Lord / wasn’t meant to be” — bringing with you not ‘emotional baggage’ but rather learnings from the said experience, and be able to grow in the process.
頑張ってるより、簡単に諦める方がいいという訳ではない。最後まで一生懸命やり遂げる方がいい場合もあります。でも、手放すする方がいい場合もある。
Not to say that we should just give up instead of doing our best in what we do; there are times when we should exert utmost effort to finish what we’ve started, but then we’d have to understand that there are also times when the best thing to do is to not really do anything, and just let go.
「letting go」はもちろん簡単ではない。大抵、私達は「何かできるはずだ」そして「できないはずはない」を考えます。それにしても、手放す/let go が必要だ。
It’s not easy to let go of course. More often than not we’d like to think, “there has to be something I can do about this”, “there’s no way there’s nothing else I can do about this”. But we need to let go… we have to.
手放す戦った後のみ、重責から解放して、自由になる。そして、強くなる。生き返った気分でありながら、新たな困難に直面する覚悟を持ってます。
It’s only after the hard-fought struggle with letting go that we’d be freed from the heavy burden we’re carrying, and be stronger in the process. We’d feel alive/reborn/refreshed, ready to face new challenges ahead.
そういえば、今朝私達は明日マニラに帰ることになる、と上司がおっしゃってました。また新しい「Letting go」の経験です。心残りが少しあります。ほかの同輩達と話す機会がほとんどなくて、話す機会も作らなかった。「Team Building活動があるといいなぁ」と時々思います。
Speaking of which, earlier this morning we were told that we’re going back to Manila tomorrow, and this is once again, another ‘letting go’ for me. I have a few regrets during my stay here, I never had the chance to talk to most people in the group, and I never really did make those opportunities myself. I also thought that it would’ve been great if we had a teambuilding activity, but alas 
*sigh*
Oh well, such is life… have to ‘let go’~
(adlib in English yeah…)
人生は、問題と解決の繰り返し（のサイクル）だといいます。そして、頑張ると「Letting go」の繰り返しだと言っていい。
Life is said to be a repetitive cycle of problems and resolutions. I guess we can also say it’s a cycle of ‘doing your best/hanging on’ and ‘letting go’.
And now, for something random and cheesy (something I found in alc as I was looking up words/phrases for my speech):
より楽な愛を選び、困難な愛をあきらめるのは何も悪いことではありません。
There is nothing wrong with choosing a less draining love and letting go of a tough one.
- end of speech -
…and that’s about it
I was looking at my audience as I shared about this, and was glad to see people nodding in response, or going “ouch” or other responses that’s enough to tell you it struck a chord with them. It was OZM desu 
Funny thing is, there’s this “letting go meme” that was born out of my speech, as people were using the “let go” phrase in a whole lot of different contexts, as tongue-in-cheek lulz. Later in the afternoon, our superiors gave us a mini farewell party, the invitation email to which read as: “In response to the call to let go, we’re gonna have a pizza chow time later in the pantry, to ‘let go’ of our teammates who will be going back to Manila”
One of my colleagues thanked me for the speech during our pizza chow time, and I can only hope they really appreciated it!
Credits to もか and あとり for the wonderful images
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13 comments for “Nihongo Speech Files #1: On ‘Lettting Go’”
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that’s really nice. the only odd thing i noticed isn’t odd at all really, it was just the phrase “kamisama no ishi de wa nakatta”…which of course japanese people are not wont to use at all, but that makes sense because of the cultural differences!!
AhMahGawd! I would have ran out bawling and moaning…
K, that took me a while to read, but I do like that theme. That totally seemed like one of those get em0 while speaking speeches, but I take it you were powered up rather than fragile, right? right?
And back to Manila ^^
And…
より楽な愛を選び、困難な愛をあきらめるのは何も悪いことではありません。
I just dunno… the path of least resistance :/ Wouldn’t that cheapen it for the other “love” [even if non-human]. Maybe not, could make more valuable as well. tehe~
@animekritik Conquistadors would totally use it though
i miss these – the japanese characters, nihonggo(though im not fluent). this is inspiring and me thinking of learning nihonggo again.
You can speak better Nihongo than I can, that’s for sure. Don’t be too hard on yourself! Read this article I found on why being a perfectionist sucks before you end up BAWWWing your way to an early grave!
It’s not being a perfectionist with my writing that prevents me from ragequitting that I only got one comment on my Ponyo post!
At least you can make memes at all, whereas mine never catch on! I need to let go, and fast!
Where do you work!?!
I have an idea where because of the nihongo speech thing and all..
If I guess correctly you probably were a superior or something of mine there when I was working there. hehehee..
Haven’t really read your speech yet but will now… hehehe
Finished reading it. Hheheeh well its good that something you cooked up not so long time ago touched a lot of people. Yeah, you do tend to switch from polite and semi-polite from my reading of it but I am not yet that good to correct it.
It was a nice read. You really like the concept “letting go”. As I recall you wrote about it in the past, right? If I am not mistaken the Japanese also has a peculiar consciousness for transient things right? I just forgot the word though.
I’m confused. WTH is Nihingo?
Touching. Simple and short, but straight to the point. No wonder people accepted it as it is. Good job there, Jen.
As for the previous commenter’s question, Nihongo = the term for Japanese language.
I’m impressed with your Japanese ability.
And I hope you really did say “LISTEN TO MY SPEECH” before you started. That would be just perfect.
@kritik: that’s what I first thought too! But then I looked up alc and found this usage. Religious beliefs cut across different cultures after all
@Ryan: why yes, I was in GAR mode that time haha.
oh I thought about the ‘easy love’ vs. ‘hard/draining love’ too. Whether one love would be cheapened by the other one would depend on the basis for the decision (or whatever you did before reaching that decision), I guess. Like, if you chose the ‘easy way out’ simply to escape from the difficult path, or if the decision was so easy that you didn’t even have struggle to come up with the decision!
Ideally though, no cheapening would happen, because every experience would simply add up to the next. One love might not work out but you’d look back at it with fondness (albeit bittersweet), as it allowed you to grow. Treasure each and every experience~
@jen: get into jdramas, jpop or animes so you can be all the more inspired!
Learning another language becomes more fun when at least a bit of your hobbies are intertwined with it too ^^
@NGP: I’m not exactly BAWWWING at my imperfect grammar. I’m happy that it’s imperfect because that’d mean ‘room for improvements’!
You should really really detach yourself from comments. Writing the post and sharing it to the whole world should be enough to fill you with joy in blogging! Ideally speaking of course, I fail in that many times too, still trying…!
@maAkusutipen: the nihongo speech is only for our new department, so if that, and the fact that our headquarters is in Cebu are a match, then you’re guess is most likely correct
None of our Japanese corrected my ’shaky’ grammar too, because that’s not really the point of the speech lol. And yes, this is basically a reiteration of what I said in my H&C post
@Marigold Ran: You… can’t be serious, right?
@Shance: thanks. I think Marigold Ran is being sarcastic though, unless that was mean to be a sarcastic reply as well lool.
@2DT: Not that thick-skinned / gutsy enough to do that, unfortunately
Well, if it was meant to work both ways, then I guess it’s just like hitting two birds with one stone. Quite convenient, I guess…
Totally serious. What is this “Nihango” or whatever it’s called? Is it like one of those things where the people in the company get together and have pizza- but instead of eating pizza, everyone delivers a speech? Personally I’d prefer the pizza.
As Shance said, it’s basically Japanese language. We were made to deliver a speech in Japanese everyday (round-robin, people take turns in speaking), takes up about 30 minutes of our time, after our lunch break.
There’s no pizza involved with the speech delivery per se, it just so happens that the day I delivered this speech was also me and my teammates’ (from Manila) last day in the Cebu branch office, so our bosses gave us a pizza treat as a farewell party of some sort. Hope that clears up the confusion