Today, Alexander's fond memories of his NSF-sponsored visit are still very much alive. Indeed, about his life in the city of Fukuoka, where Kyushu University is located, he says: "A part of me feels most at home there. I love the experience I had in Japan." Alexander continues to study the Japanese language, he writes in Japanese to friends he made there, and he plans to make annual visits to the country he now considers a second home.
Craig Van Degrift, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, has turned a life-long interest in the Japanese language into a small business. It's all part of his attempt to help his native country remain on top in science. Several years ago, Van Degrift joined a small Japanese language study group at NIST, which used as its text the University of Wisconsin's Comprehending Technical Japanese, a book especially suited ...
