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The two things I love the most are computer programming and Japanese. I more or less stopped programming since I came to Japan to fully dedicate to the language and went from 0 to fluent in less than 3 years, but I didn't gain any new programming knowledge and I am now very slowly getting back in track because I need to resume my career and get a new job, however I feel my Japanese is hurting or will hurt somehow. I am trying to do as much as I can in Japanese, all my programming books are in Japanese, I watch tutorials in Japanese, etc., but they aren't just as many resources as they are in English, and I am slowly starting to rely more and more in English again and sort of neglecting Japanese, and that makes me feel like as if I was cheating on the thing I love the most or something like that.
There has to be more than a handful of people in the same boat here, like you came to Japan to teach English, but really hoping to do programming later on when your Japanese improved and now 2 or 3 years later this I just described.
What did you or/what do you advice? What am I missing by falling on this perhaps pointless frustration?
Joined: Mar 2011
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My suggestion is to become satisfied with moderateness. A balanced life is filled with many things to love. Each of them deserve your attention (in moderation).
Edited: 2013-12-10, 5:17 am
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Get a job at a Japanese company. Problem solved.
Joined: Apr 2008
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If you have the skills you should find a programming job immediately. Age without experience isn't gong to help considering companies get flooded with new recruit applicants every fall.
I wouldn't necessarily take this as advice, but for me my programming job and my Japanese activities are completely separate. My first job was at a Japanese office, but not a Japanese company, which was enough for me to decide to split the two. My reward for separating the two is slightly better pay.
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Just use English for study and Japanese for everything else. Trying to kill two birds with one stone is misguided. I attended math lectures in Japanese for a year. It did next to nothing for my Japanese ability apart from learning a few new related expressions. If you're at the point of language comprehension where the Japanese isn't a problem then it's too easy language study-wise. Alternatively, if you're struggling to understand the Japanese then you're not going to learn much (programming in this case).
If you're living in Japan and are worried about forgetting Japanese it kind of screams that your environment/lifestyle isn't native enough.
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Don't limit yourself by chaining yourself to japanese books only. Think of it as maintaining your english lol. there's language atrophy which is sorta frustrating
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Yeah, I'm in Tokyo. I'm currently focused/interested in Objective-C and iOS/OSX game/app/software development.
Edited: 2013-12-10, 12:35 pm
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@NightSky Dude, :lol: he asked me what languages or industry I was interested in, I just answered in the same fashion... I took the one interview you are probably talking about, there were like 10 people the same day, but it had little to do with programming honestly and the aptitude test was insanely difficult. It can't be that ridiculously difficult to get a job that pays less than teaching Tomoko about her favorite food and requires twice the hours.
Edited: 2013-12-10, 12:34 pm
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@tokyostyle Thanks! I will try that. You know, what I hate the most is when a company rejects you and doesn't give you any advice/feedback, so you are left wondering, what went wrong exactly!
)
