Japan learns English from Obama speech textbook

[Starbucks Anarchist]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090120/od_nm/us_usa_obama_textbook

TOKYO (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama's speeches are proving a best-seller in Japan -- as an aid to learning English.

An English-language textbook, "The Speeches of Barack Obama," has sold more than 400,000 copies in two months, a big hit in a country where few hit novels sell more than a million copies a year.

Japanese have a fervor for learning English and many bookstores have a corner dedicated to dozens of journals in the language, many of them now featuring the new U.S. leader's face.

"Speeches by presidents and presidential candidates are excellent as listening tools to learn English, because their contents are good and their words are easy to catch," said Yuzo Yamamoto of Asahi Press, which produced the best-selling text book.

(more at link)

[Posteritatis]

1. Hm, wonder if speeches are to spoken English as newspapers are to written?

Both designed for the widest possible audience, etc. Of course, Obama's speech bar is considerably higher than Bush's, but that's all the better if people are going to use them to learn a language.

[baldguy]

2. Bush and Palin must've given them fits.