It has been 4 years since I became self-employed and began my freelance career. I decided to start “alescunna” on the 29th of February 2020 in Japan (28 Feb. 2020 in the UK).
The 28th was the fourth anniversary of my new career, while the 29th is one of the days called “Ichiryumanbaibi”（一粒万倍日）in Japan, which means it’s a good day to start new things because it literally translates to “one small grain can bring 10000 more grains.”
The brand name “alescunna” is a coined word which combines the Latin “ala” (wing) and “alesco” (grow up/increase), and “cunnan” (origins of know and can). The word represents my passion of spreading my wings, going out into the world, learning new experiences and sharing them with others. Thus, it also describes my will to help people.
I became interested in “languages” when I was little since my family had to move and live in several prefectures, where people speak in different dialects. On top of Japanese dialects, English classes at school increased my interest in languages and that led me to a major in ‘German language and culture’ at university.
While I was a BA student, I began thinking about a career as a language teacher, since I believed that this was the best way to apply my newly gained knowledge of foreign languages. To support this, I also passed the Japanese Language Teaching Competency Test during my MA.
In addition, thanks to a part-time job and an internship during the MA, I could put my German knowledge to use as a translator and interpreter. Through these, I realized that there are different types of jobs that require knowledge of foreign languages, but they are few full-time opportunities. Therefore, I started to think more about different ways to apply the knowledge of foreign languages in our society, as opposed to how to teach and learn languages. This led me to pursue non-teaching options in the business field as my first career.
So, I stopped concentrating on foreign language education for a while and instead focused on my job as a business strategy consultant at a global firm for almost three years. However, since I remained interested in education (at this point not only in foreign language education but also in general), I started to work for educational institutions/organizations as a freelance worker.
Thus, as I’ve said, to mark the fourth anniversary, I created my own brand and opened this website so that I can publish more information about my work.
Lastly, I would like to warmly thank everyone who continuously supports my work!
