Blue skies and fair weather ahead気象予報士の福岡良子さん

気象予報士の福岡良子さんは、ニュース番組のお天気コーナーで日本各地を巡り、地域ごとの気候を生かした暮らしの知恵を紹介する中で、自然の美しさや独自の文化を海外の人にも伝えたいという思いが芽生えたという。通訳案内士の資格取得に挑戦し、日本の魅力を世界に広める一歩を踏み出した。

Ryoko Fukuoka is a weather reporter who’s also a licensed Japan national guide. If you need an English-speaking weather forecaster to guide you through the many and varied phases of Japan’s four seasons, she is just the person to seek.

“I’ve always liked English classes,” says Fukuoka. “My junior high school teacher taught it so well and interestingly. He used to say to us: ‘If you’re just going to copy vocabulary in your notebooks, take a photo of the page and be done with it!’ Looking back, he was a teacher with very progressive methods. I think I owe a big part of my interest in the language to him.”

Fukuoka had aspired to focus on English in her career, but instead opted for meteorology. In Japan, becoming a licensed weather forecaster requires a lot of study and preparation. Fukuoka duly passed and then ended up doing weather forecasts for an NHK news program. “I traveled around Japan for a segment of the program and interviewed people on how they use the weather to enrich their lives.”

Incorporating weather and the seasons into daily life is a Japanese tradition. The more Fukuoka learned about Japan’s weather, the more she felt a desire to understand Japan’s geography and history, and to share this knowledge with people overseas. “I thought it would be great if I could let people overseas know how the Japanese adapt to the weather.” With this in mind, Fukuoka decided to try for the notoriously difficult National Government Licensed Guide Interpreter exam. “I knew I needed to study English in earnest, and to do that I needed a clear and tangible goal. Getting the national guide license was it.” Fukuoka says she hit the books and studied hard but she was also working full time. The goal remained elusive until her fourth try. “I had developed strong study habits in school, which helped a lot. I also shared my goal on social media to stay accountable.”

Fukuoka knew that speech, which is one of the requirements of the exam, was her Achilles’ heel. So every day, she recorded and uploaded a two-minute speech on social media. She also combed through past exam questions and when she hit a snag, posted them on Twitter, now called X, asking people in her feed what they thought were the answers. “I really made use of social media. In the morning, I would post the section I would study that day and in the evening, I would look back on the progress I made. The great thing was that I wasn’t alone in my studying – a lot of people joined me and we had a community going. Having like-minded study buddies in my corner proved invaluable.”

To many English learners, Japan’s national guide examinations may be an unreachable summit. Says Fukuoka: “Even though I was quite used to studying and test-taking, I quickly realized that the national guide exam was a different animal. This was something taken by people who were really, really good at English, not someone like me who had never studied abroad and was working full time to boot.” But Fukuoka didn’t give up. When she went on location, she took along a textbook to read in the spare moments when she wasn’t grappling with the weather.

“When I got my license, I felt that I had finally achieved something. But then I discovered that after all the studying, I couldn’t deploy the language like a native speaker. I couldn’t casually banter or talk about love and relationships – my vocabulary didn’t extend that far. I realized the range and depth of the English language.”

Fukuoka adds that good English speakers get that way because they keep on studying long after they pass the exam. “I want to be like that too, though once the exam is over it’s hard to secure the time.”

Currently, Fukuoka is caring for her toddler son while planning her next move. “The weather in Japan is really so nuanced and interesting. I would love to be able to inform inbound tourists how unique the weather here is – in English!” (Kaori Shoji)

Words to live by