Mr. Vinayak Ragunath Vaidya
A Japanese translator and teacher, Civil and Structural engineer, Singer and a Violinist.

Q. Tell us something about yourself?
A. I was working with Air India as a structural engineer from 1970 and am retired in 1991. Other than this I have learnt Indian Classical Music from Pandit Balkrishna Umdekar for 5 years. Later on learnt violin and classical music from Pandit Gajananrao Joshiji for 25 years. I belong to the Gwalior gharana.

Q. Tell us something about your start with the Japanese language?
A. When at Air India one of my friends who returned from Japan suggested me to learn Japanese as its word order is similar to that of marathi. After retirement I started learning the Japanese language from November 1991 at Indo-Japanese Association, Mumbai. I studied there for three years and completed my advanced diploma in December 1993 under an expert teacher Mr. Norio Sasaki.

Q. How did the fluency in your language improve?
A.After my course was completed I developed the writing and speaking skill at home by practising it regularly. I always say that the gramar is the spine of any language and which only helps to construct a correct sentence.I studied regularly for 3 - 4 hours a day till July 1997 and mastered grammar.I still spend about 4 - 5 hours per day to keep in touch with the langage.

Q. Other than Japanese which are the other languages you know?
A. Since I was born and brought up in Gwalior I am very fluent in Hindi and as my mother tongue is marathi I speak this language obviously very well. Other than these I know Punjabi, Gujrathi and some basic of Konkani.

Q. Do you also take classes for teaching Japanese language?
A. Yes, I do conduct classes for those who are really keen to learn this language. I take the 6 months basic course and intermediate course for four months. After the completion of the course a certificate is issued.

Q. Could you tell us about the timings and days when these classes are on?
A.I take classes twice a week. It is either on Monday and Thursday or on Tuesday and Friday. The classes are of one and a half hour duration per day. I also take class on Wednesday mornings for some who cannot attend the other days. I supply all the materials to the student right from the pen to the study materials which includes Text books, cassettes, Kanji dictionary, Japnese-english / English-japanese dictionary and other useful study materials.

Q. What are the scope of jobs by learning this language?
A. There are three avenues available for those who learn this language. Mainly as an Interpretor, wherein one can improve speaking skills. Secondly as a Translator and thirdly as a Teacher.

Q. Any message to the people of Thane?
A. Those who want to take up any language for specialization, especially any foriegn language, one should throughly grasp grammar and study sentence construction in detail.

As told to Thaneweb.com