2023/11/24

Professor Manuel JOBERT (Vice President in charge of Europe, International Relations and Francophoni), Professor Prof. Julien BOUVARD (Japanese Studies Department of Foreign Language Faculty),Dr. Xiao Lucien YANG (Asia International Cooperation Officer) paid a courtesy visit to the university from the University of Lyon III, France, which is our partner university, and met with President Takahiro Ono and others on Monday, November 20.

“Although it has been many years since we became a partner university,” Professor Manuel JOBERT, who was visiting Japan for the first time, said, “it has been difficult for us to visit due to the impact of the COVIT-19. I am happy to finally be able to come to Japan and Kyoto University of Foreign Studies.” Also, he introduced a message from the President of the University of Lyon III, saying “I would like President Ono to come to Lyon. Lyon is accessible and we recommend visiting in the spring."

President Ono and Dean, Faculty of Foreign Studies Shinichi Funasugi talked about the program "simultaneous dual language learning" run by them, in which students learned about the cultures of English and French using the movie "Harry Potter" as a theme. It evolved into a conversation about idioms. They had a chat about Japanese and French idioms. They introduced a story that some students said that they did not actually use idiom even though students might learn them at school. There was an opinion that interaction such as study abroad were essential in order to learn a “living foreign language.” It was a fruitful meeting.

Back