May 27, 2023: Studying Maths in English, Warawanai Suugaku (a Comedian’s Maths TV Show with No Laughs)（数学を英語で勉強、笑わない数学）

It has been five months since I started to study maths. When I was at school, maths classes were nothing but a pain. I could hardly understand what the teachers were explaining in their classes and I was always bored. They were so boring that I often looked out of a school window at vehicles going and coming on a road near the school. Sometimes I met the eye of a truck driver and exchanged greetings with him.
Maths was so boring that I never dreamed of studying it again until last year. But, at the age of over sixty, I started to study it in English, though I still do not know what made me do it. Once I actually did it, I found it very interesting and have been doing it almost every day. It has been showing and exciting me what I had never experienced in the past few decades.
It changed my interest in TV programmes, too. It has motivated me to watch the programmes about mathematics. It is 'Warawanai Suugaku’ that I have lately watched. I expected it to be not so difficult as it was hosted by a comedian. But it is very difficult and hard to keep watching to the end. It is a thirty-minute program but makes me feel much longer. I could not finish watching it in one sitting and needed three days to finish it. I could only watch it for ten minutes at a time and stopped in the middle. The next day I tried again and stopped it after ten minutes. Eventually, I had to repeat it three times to finish watching the programme. It means that I still have to learn a lot about maths to enjoy it from my heart.

　英語で数学の勉強を始めて５か月が経過しました。学生時代は、数学の授業は苦痛でした。先生の説明がまったく理解できず、授業がめちゃくちゃ退屈で、長く感じたものです。あまりに退屈で、よく教室の窓越しに学校の脇にある道を行き来する車を眺めえていました。たまに、大型トラックのドライバーと目が合って、挨拶をするときなどもありました。
　昨年まで、これほど退屈だった数学をまた勉強するとは夢にも思っていませんでした。ところが何を思ったのかわかりませんが、60歳を過ぎて数学を英語で勉強し始めたのです。いざ勉強してみると、めちゃくちゃ楽しいです。この数十年間触れたことのなかった世界に触れてワクワクしています。
　そのおかげで、数学に関するテレビ番組に興味を持つようになりました。今見ているのが、「笑わない数学」です。司会がお笑い芸人さんだったので、易しい番組かと思い見だしました。でも、めちゃくちゃ難しいです。30分の番組ですが、30分間見続けるのがつらいほど難しいです。見終えるのに3日くらいかかりました。10分くらいみては止めて、翌日、その続きを見ることを繰り返しました。数学を本当に楽しめるようになるにはまだまだ勉強が必要のようです。

Studying Maths｜MisaTK｜note