News in Easy English: Young man with Down syndrome uses English to welcome visitors at Expo 2025

WAKAYAMA -- Kenshi Nakanishi, 26, has Down syndrome. He is helping visitors from other countries in English at Expo 2025 in Osaka.

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At the Expo, Nakanishi smiles and waves his hand when he sees visitors from abroad. He answers their questions in English. He helps them find places at the big Expo.

Learning English words is not easy for him, and takes a lot of time. But Kenshi has worked very hard for many years to speak English. He likes to practice pronunciation. When he was a junior high student, he started thinking, "I want to talk with visitors from other countries someday."

Kenshi also entered an English speech contest in high school. He wanted to help people by using his English ability.

In 2021, Kenshi wanted to help visitors at the Tokyo Olympics. But because of COVID-19, visitors could not come. Kenshi felt sad, but he decided to try again at the Osaka Expo.

On his first day as an Expo volunteer on April 21, Kenshi saw many visitors were confused because there were not enough maps. So he studied the Expo map carefully and made his own easy-to-use map to help visitors.

He feels very happy when visitors say "Arigato" (thank you) after he helps them. Sometimes, there are difficult questions. For example, one visitor asked him about "Kura Sushi," a famous sushi restaurant, but Kenshi heard "cooler" by mistake. But even when mistakes like these happen, Kenshi still works hard and keeps getting better.

At first, he planned to volunteer five times during the Expo, which ends on Oct. 13. But Kenshi enjoys it so much that he now wants to help visitors 10 times.

Kenshi's mother said, "When he was young, he was sick often and went to hospital many times. I'm very happy to see him become so active and full of energy." Kenshi said, "Now, I want to study more about what tourists like. Then I can talk with visitors more."

(Japanese original by Rihi Anzai, Wakayama Bureau)

Vocabulary

Down syndrome: a health condition some people are born with, making learning and growth slower

visitor: a person who comes to see a place or event

abroad: other countries, not your own

pronunciation: how you say words or sounds

volunteer: a person who does helpful work without pay

confused: when you don't understand something clearly