英米　２年
Mr. Kimochi said during his presentation, “My English teachers are books, songs, and movies,” and I was surprised at that because his English was so fluent that I could not believe that he had studied English by himself. In addition, he looked so lively when he was performing rakugo. I am so jealous because he can speak English pretty well, and he can communicate with other people with lots of smiles. If I had to do the same thing as he did today, I would be so nervous due to anxiety about my English competence. With that in mind, today’s presentation may show me a kind of destination for my English life.

英米　２年
Thank you, Mr. Kimochi, for your performance. I had never thought of studying English with rakugo, but after today I thought it is a good method for studying English. Rakugo includes many conversations among more than two people, so I think I will master natural conversation. I also learned how to make use of materials such as rakugo and movies. From junior high school to high school, I mainly learned English by reading, listening, and writing, so I am not good at conversation. Many people say I should watch English movies, but it is difficult to memorize conversations. I was surprised that you watched the same movie so many times! I will follow your example and become a fluent English speaker.

英米　２年
Thank you, Mr.Kimochi, for this very wonderful talk. It is very difficult to tell an interesting story in front of many people, even in Japanese, but I respected the fact that you could do it fluently in English. I think it is very difficult to acquire this ability and you must have worked very hard. You mentioned that you used movies and other media to study English, and I am also using movies and other media to study English as hard as I can. I think it is a very effective way to steal local, live and funny expressions from movies and dramas in order to create jokes in English. During the last question period, I noticed that you read the same script of the talk over and over again in order to give a great talk like this one, which made me think that I should practice it over and over again when I give a presentation. I can't speak as fluently as you do yet, but I learned a lot from this talk and I want to put what I learned into practice one by one so that one day I can tell interesting stories in English to other people like you do.

英米　２年
I really enjoyed Mr. Kimochi’s performance. It was first time for me to listen to “rakugo”. I was surprised at his power of expression. He played many characters in stories by simply changing the direction of his face and the tone of his voice. Even though he only used his expressions and voice, I could imagine the scene easily. The most interesting “rakugo” is "Like Father, Like Son". Especially, the scene where a father, his son, and his teacher are talking in a school was amazing. The content is of course interesting, but in addition to that, his way of speaking how he uses pauses and speed of speech made the story more interesting. I laughed a lot. Thanks to his performance, I became interested in “rakugo”. I must check his YouTube channel and subscribe it.

英米　２年
I like comedy and listening to rakugo as well. But this was the very first time for me to listen to rakugo performed in English. Before I listened to Mr. Kimochi’s performance, I had thought it is almost impossible to do rakugo in English because jokes or punchlines in Japanese are different from English. However, Mr. Kimochi performs rakugo considering an audience who has different cultural backgrounds. And above all, he does not adjust rakugo into English too much. For example, he said in the Q&A session that he uses Japanese proper nouns as they are because he would like an audience to experience Japanese culture. I really admire his attitude toward English rakugo and his respect for Japanese culture. Listening to rakugo performed in English is a good opportunity for everyone to start learning and improving English. I would like to visit Mr. Kimochi’s YouTube channel.

英米　２年
I was looking forward to today’s class. As I expected, the performance was really interesting for me. I enjoyed it very much. The story was funny and I learned important things. Imagination is important when listening to the performance. I think that you cannot enjoy “Rakugo” without imagination. I was caught up in the story because Mr. Kimochi used some techniques such as controlling his voice, changing the direction of his face, and creating conversations during “Rakugo”. Also, learning jokes in English is interesting. One of the funniest jokes was the story about Kinbo. He answered not “I lived in Tokyo” but “I live in Edo”. How stupid he is! But he has a good sense of humor in English. I think I don’t just need smarts. I was wondering how he comes up with such funny stories. Not just being smart but developing a sense of humor might be essential if you want to make people happy. He was good at English. He said he studied reading books, listening to music and watching movies. He had watched the same movies again and again, and then he recorded his voice reading phrases. This is not easy. Perhaps he studied English hard. I should study English harder like him!

英米　３年
Thank you very much for today’s astonishing Rakugo performance. Truth being told, my image of Rakugo has always been rather negative, as to be a boring and hard to understand and a performance for the fancy upper classes. However, today’s performance has shifted this image towards a completely positive one. Today’s performance content was relatable, funny and simply easy to follow, which are aspects I would have never expected from a Rakugo performance up until now. I myself do not spend much time watching comedy performances, as I would rather keep on scrolling through memes on Instagram or spend time watching tv shows, but this performance has made me think of giving a second chance to such comedy performances. After all, these shows might not only give me some giggles, but aid me with idea proposals, presentations and script writing, which is just the perfect deal for a busy student. Happy Holidays!

外国語学部　２年
Thank you for your funny stories about rakugo, Mr. Kimochi. Your class was totally different from that of other teachers, so I had a very good and enjoyable time. All the rakugo stories were hilarious, and my favorite was “Two Hunters”. You made a good use of subtle discrepancy of English. You noticed things that most people do not in terms of linguistic meanings, so you may well become famous as a rakugoka. Probably I will not make such mistakes like the characters in your story when I visit foreign countries, but I will be careful in order to catch English sentences properly. Actually, I was so impressed with your history, too. You said that you started studying English at the age of 30. I assume you were not such a perfect English speaker at that time. However, you read books or watched movies and then grew to be who you are today. You must have strived hard. Also, starting something new after you became an adult and making it your own through practice cannot be an easy task. I really want to praise you for your effort as well as your rakugo skill. Every teacher I had in the past classes was admirable, but you are the most memorable and wonderful speaker.

看護　１年
Mr. Kimochi taught us that English Rakugo can apply to improve our English level, especially the skill in catching some contents of dialogue. So, I thought about how we can improve our English skills by using English Rakugo. First, we can learn native conversation while having fun in English Rakugo. If we try to get a high score in TOEIC and study hard with some textbooks, it will be tough during our busy days. Then we do not study with these texts without our noticing. But, if we study by using English Rakugo, we may not have trouble of seeing it because it is exciting and we can see it anytime with only our digital devices. So, it is easy for us to continue learning during our busy days. Also, in English Rakugo, we can learn how we tell a joke in English conversation. In English Rakugo, there are many jokes. So, we can remember these jokes and try to adopt them for our English conversation. It makes the conversation more exciting and lively. Then it encouraged us to talk a lot in English and it becomes motivation for studying English. For these reasons, I thought English Rakugo is one of the best ways to learn English. I would like to improve my English by using English Rakugo.

聴講生
Thank you for his rakugo, Kimochi sensei! I really respect his ambitious and motivation since he relearned English and has used it as not only just for language or for some tests or something, but also a means to express Japanese culture. Countless people can speak English fluently, but few people regard English as just a means to do and express something. He has been sharing Japanese culture through English which is a language spoken by the most people all over the world! He is very cool in that way! My pinnacle is helping people in some developing countries in Eastern Europe, so I have to improve my English like him! I long for him! One of his missions is to tell people all over the world what the taste of Japanese laughing is. However, he is so flexible that he changes rakugo a little depending on whom he will do it for, like foreigners or native speakers. That's why his audience smiles. It's so important in globalization. For example, every person has to respect every culture and try to adapt to it. Some of the international students in my university are interested in Japanese culture, so I want to introduce Kimochi sensei to them!