NEWS
Second Tokyo-Frankfurt Phonology-Phonetics Colloquium was Held
Update: February 26, 2026
On February 6, 2026, ICU and Goethe University Frankfurt hosted the second edition of the Tokyo-Frankfurt Phonetics-Phonology Colloquium, which aims to bring together early career researchers to share linguistics research. In the colloquium, led by Professor Seunghun Lee and Professor Frank Kügler, there were 4 presenters from ICU and 2 presenters from Goethe University of Frankfurt. In total, 20 people participated online. This colloquium served as an opportunity for undergraduate students to present their senior thesis research projects on Niigata Japanese (Haruka Yatabe, 26) and Yaeyaman Yonaguni (Sotaro Arakaki, 26). Master students shared a completed MA thesis (Ren Hasegawa, MA 26) and an ongoing research project (Yeonjun Jung, MA 27). The colloquium was initiated so that linguistics students at ICU and Frankfurt build experiences on international exchanges in a friendly setting.
The following comments were made by the participants:
- The insightful comments and questions I received were valuable for further developing my work. (Yatabe)
- The international discussion was an interesting experience where we shared our knowledge despite living in distant places. It motivated me to think more deeply about my topic. (Hasegawa)
- The Colloquium gave me a great opportunity to present my research and receive valuable feedback from participants at Frankfurt University! (Arakaki)
- I really enjoyed listening to the presentations by the German students at this meeting, and I was also happy to have the chance to present my own work, ... The questions I received from different viewpoints helped me think about how I can improve my research in the future. (Jung)
The next colloquium is planned for February 2027. Both Prof. Kügler and Prof. Lee support the continuation of this student exchange.