The Abacus Competion For English-lovers (Video)

The above video is a news report about a national abacus competition that was recently held in Tokyo. Unlike other abacus competitions, the math problems the contestants had to calculate were announced in English! Over 250 people between the ages of 5 and 62 took part in the competition, and a 19-year-old college student was crowned champion. Abacus training remains a popular method for training kids’ brains to do math in Japan, and I’ve certainly been impressed by how fast abacus-using kids can solve math problems.

4 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - February 26, 2007 at 6:28 pm

Categories: Japanese TV, Teaching English Tags:

Claytonian

abacuses seem to have still been used into the late 80s for many transactions, like buying bus tickets. I remember seeing it in “Yan-san and the Japanese People”
WujouMao

maybe i should get one to improve my maths
Heading Out

The teller at my local post office uses one to double check the computer’s calculations! Cracks me up!

Anyone else think Mr Kobayashi looked like an unlikely abacus champ?
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The Abacus Competion For English-lovers (Video)

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