Physics Prep
So, I’ll be teaching a physics class to a bunch of high school kids soon. They’ve never taken any physics course before, and they’ll be doing this one during “English Day” - so it’ll be in their second language. I’m not worried, though. I am confident that I will be able to successfully impart an intuitive (though not mathematical) understanding of the rudimentary physics of sound and the Doppler Effect. In order to help the JTE who will be assisting me in class, I started looking up vocabulary I might use. I was shocked at how much simpler it is to think of things in Japanese than they are in English when it comes to physics. The words mean exactly what they say. Brilliant! (I was inspired to write this after Alex posted about the etymology of the word “sesquipedalian” and how kanji, in these cases is “the layman’s best friend.”) So, so true. Here’s a list of scientific terms, and their co-parts in Japanese.
sound - 音 (おと)
sound wave - 音波 (おんぱ)
medium - 媒体 (ばいたい)
speed of sound - 音速 (おんそく)
pressure wave - 圧力波 (あつりょくは)
to vibrate / to oscillate - 振動する (しんどうする)
vibration / oscillation - 振動 (しんどう)
frequency - 振動数 (しんどうすう) 周波数 (しゅうはすう) [Thanks Bryan!]
period - 周期 (しゅうき)
hertz - ヘルツ
wavelength - 波長 (はちょう)
amplitude - 振幅 (しんぷく)
sine wave (sinusoidal wave) - 正弦曲線 (せいげんきょくせん)
Doppler Effect - ドップラー効果 (どっぷらーこうか)
I love it. “Frequency” is translated, in scientific terms, as “number of vibrations.” “Period” is “circuit time.” “Amplitude” is “shake breadth.” And then there are the obvious verbatim terms like “sound wave” (sound + wave), “speed of sound” (sound + speed), “wavelength” (wave + length). I guess part of the reason I’m feeling sure I can get the idea across is because the Japanese vocabulary is much easier to wrap your head around than the English. (At least, that’s true for me.) As long as they’ve got that working for them, they’ll be ok when we do attempt it all in English.