As a person I like to think of myself as fairly ambitious. For 2 years now my main ambition, the thing I’ve been looking forward to, working towards, and ultimately doing everything I could do to achieve has been to live in Japan.
As of October 14th 2012 I achieved that mission. As my plane landed in Narita Airport, the inconveniently located gateway to Japan, and immigration happily handed over my residency card I became an official resident of Japan. Less than 2 months on I am very happily living, working and breathing Japan, but despite being deliriously happy at my situation there was something niggling away at me.
What’s next?
This question is pretty devastating for me, as what’s next has always meant what country next? I am always planning the next adventure the next road to travel, but in two months I’ve hardly touched on Japan, I’ve seen Tokyo , Fukuoka, my little city of Saga, but really I’ve not seen a raindrop in the great ocean of Japan, and even with plans in December and January to see Okinawa, Hiroshima and Osaka, I’m still hardly scratching the surface, there’s the old city of Kyoto, there’s summer in Sapporo, despite it only being down the road I’m yet to see the harbours of Nagasaki, no I won’t be done with Japan for quite some time.
And asides from all that I don’t want to leave I really am truly happy here. I have a job I enjoy immensely, new friends, and a flat that’s so covered in pink it looks like a unicorn has been sick on it. Everything is falling into place here for me.
So that just left me thinking what do I want?
The answer was so blatantly in front of my face, I can’t believe I hadn’t realised it sooner. When the cashier at Seiyu doesn’t understand that no, I don’t want a carrier bag, when I accidently buy a kilo of barley instead of porridge, when people try to talk to me, to be my friend and I just have to give an exasperated look back, eyes wide, expression blank.
I want to speak Japanese.
They say that the more languages you speak the easier it becomes for you to learn one. However, after 11 years of learning and finally actually being able to use the German language I have to admit that it is no easier the second time around. Looking back on half my life spent studying that complex and disheartening language I realised that I had spent the first 10 years learning approximately nothing and the last year something suddenly clicked and I could actually SPEAK German, to adults, and they knew what I was talking about.
I sat for a while thinking about what I did so differently in that last year that meant that I was suddenly so proficient in a language that I had been floundering in for so long, and maybe it was the impending doom of failing my degree that actually set my arse in motion to mastering the language, but I think it was something else.
Using it.
In my last year I did 2 things which I had never done before, not even when I lived in Germany itself. The first was that I began SPEAKING to my German class/roommate in German at least a few times a week. The second was that I spent hours on end WRITING essay after essay on seemingly random topics (for the topics themselves never really mattered) and those essays eventually began to make sense, I was actually learning something.
That’s not to say that I miraculously went from deep down at the bottom of the pile to the star pupil at my University. Far from it. But what I did do, is go from consistently the worst pupil (My language teacher of 4 years once commented in my final year that my grammar was painful to her ears, hand actions included) to being distinctly average. For once in my life I was actually average at German, and that felt good.
Which brings me to Japanese. It’s not that I haven’t been studying Japanese, it’s just that I have been studying it in the way I had been for the first 10 years of my German learning career, I had been studying but not absorbing anything. And so a campaign has begun, it seems so simple I’m actually going to start USING Japanese. That may sounds stupid, but despite my appalling errors, and basic sentences, I’m now writing to my Japanese friends IN Japanese, and hopefully I’ll be using Japanese everyday, along side the text books and internet pages.
Wish me luck. Ganbatte.
Any language learning tips are GREATLY appreciated. I am pants at learning languages.
George On The Go 
The desire to learn is the most significant learning tool, but how about trying some media in the relevant language too, like movies and music? I have some tips here: http://www.theworldswaiting.com/2011/08/just-how-do-you-learn-language.html
Thanks for the tips, much appreciated. I’ve always been an anime fan so I’m keeping that up and getting into some more Japanese music. I’ve also found some good free websites to use such a memrise. I’m going to write a post soon about good free websites etc to use.
If you have an android phone, I highly recommend the apps JED (a Japanese/English Dictionary) and Obenkyo (Good for learning Kanji)
If you listen to Japanese music, look up the lyrics, you’ll likely be singing it anyway so it’ll be memorized easier once you know what they’re saying.
Great thanks for the tips. Sadly technology scares me and I don’t have a smart phone but I’ll defo look into that lyrics one. It sounds like a great idea 🙂
I don’t think anime or lyrics help with actual spoken Japanese. Anime are using a limited, and unrealistic kind of language (too simple and often downright impolite!), and similarly, lyrics have very little to do with spoken, everyday, modern Japanese (too complicated and poetic).
For me the trick was not to freak out too much about kanji and just start speaking… eventually you’ll need those for a broader vocabulary unfortunately
I really like the podcasts at JapanesePod 101, not free but cheap and highly recommendable for everyday spoken Japanese.
Saga is also tricky because people in Kyushuu tend to have pretty strong accents… I have no remedy for this and myself have come to accept that I speak Osaka-ben, which Japanese people elsewhere think is hilarious for a foreigner.
It’s a fair point about media I don’t know how much you really do absorb. I tried Japanesepod101.com admittedly only the free stuff but I really wasn’t impressed. I found it to be mainly some American just talking about himself, or how you should check out everything else on the website, in English of course and little actual japanese learning. But everyone has different styles.
When people talk to me they tend to try and talk in high Japanese depending on who they are. An old woman started a conversation the other day and I might have picked up like 2 words as she mumbled through. But I think they understand that I’m trying 🙂
I agree with the movie idea mentioned above, but with live action instead of anime. I have been trying to learn French fluently for pretty much a decade now (and I think I am only getting worse) but I do love watching movies in French. Especially with English subtitles.
I watch live action as well but far more anime. Studio Ghibli being a particular fave. Ah French the language of surrender. I don’t know how much help the media stuff is doing seeing as I hear real people speaking Japanese roughly 10 hours a day anyway but every little helps.
I enjoyed this a lot, good luck with the japanese learning!
cheers Kasia, really loving the wit on your blog too 🙂