ABSTRACT
In 1991, Junko Edahiro was a psychologist and a stay-at-home mom when her husband was sent to study in the US for two years. She had an eight-month-old daughter, and a goal: to learn to speak English. Like most university-trained people in Japan, she had no trouble reading the language, but she was unable to speak it. She felt she should set an ambitious goal for herself, so she resolved to become a simultaneous translator – in two years. Using a special computer program, which she designed based on her knowledge of educational psychology (her husband did the programming), and homemade cassette tapes that she hired an American acquaintance to record for her, Junko accomplished her goal.
