Hi all.

I'm looking for advice from people that have moved to Japan to acquire the language.

I'm been studying in my spare time for a few years but still struggle with basic speaking although my comprehension is improving (I've completed Assimil's "Japanese With Ease" volumes I and II, and RTK Volume I. I have around 2000 sentence cards in Anki).

Anyway I've been thinking of just dropping myself in Japan for a year and seeing how it goes. This is also the unanimous advice of all my monolingual friends. *However* I can see logic to the argument that getting to at least basic conversational level before going would be far more beneficial, otherwise you'll be relying on English to survive at least to some level for a good chunk of the early days. If I implement this "get to basic communication" before going plan, I'd find more time to learn to improve on my currently slow pace.

So what are your experiences? Is it better to get to a certain level before making the move, or will being in the environment be more valuable even with only basic speaking ability? Personally I'm leaning towards the latter but the former is giving me doubts.

Thanks!

Based on my experience - definitely learn as much as possible BEFORE moving. This way you'll get much more out of your stay. I've met people who have live 10+ years in Japan still struggling with basic stuff. On the other hand I've met amazingly fluent people who haven't lived there for more than 6 months - they just worked their ass off before they went, and then got really good really fast after arriving.
At least get your basics down.

Based on my own experience, you won't "learn" Japanese just by being here. Of course you will naturally be provided lots of reinforcing context for stuff you already know, but just like living back in your own country, you will have to actually study in order to improve your Japanese.

How are you planning on "dropping yourself in Japan for a year"?

Thanks for the feedback so far. :-)

Zorlee Wrote:At least get your basics down.

Nice to have one reinforcement to this line of thinking already!

ktcgx Wrote:Based on my own experience, you won't "learn" Japanese just by being here. Of course you will naturally be provided lots of reinforcing context for stuff you already know, but just like living back in your own country, you will have to actually study in order to improve your Japanese.

I had taken that as a given, my assumption was that the benefits of readily available reinforcements by being in the country would be a huge boost. Of course if I'm considering the upheaval of moving to Japan to learn more, I could also make some life changes here to give myself more time to study, which might have equal (or better?) better benefits at this stage.

yudantaiteki Wrote:How are you planning on "dropping yourself in Japan for a year"?

I have a number of options available, including volunteering, working holiday, or company transfer. Working holiday is my preferred one.

I moved to Japan with roughly zero Japanese ability and was assured 'oh yeah, you'll pick it up'. In retrospect that idea is obviously retarded.
Simply being in Japan gives you easy access to Japanese media and Japanese people, but if your Japanese level is low that has limited benefits. It's very easy to survive in Japan without Japanese unless you've put yourself in a situation where you have to use it to get by, but that's not so easy.

Obviously, it's still better than not being in Japan.

The lady who wrote the textbook I studied with in college used to quip that "You can learn more Japanese in a closet in Idaho than in Japan."

One reason she said this might be because at the end of the day, you really need to sit down at a desk and study a lot to get good in Japanese. Going to Japan won't change that, and if you want to improve in Japan you're going to have to spend a lot of time alone in your apartment studying. You can get a lot of that out of the way by doing it before you come to Japan, and spending more time in Japan interacting with people and having fun.

There are also some things that make it a bit harder than you might expect to learn Japanese in Japan. One reason is that it can be hard to meet people. I'm an American, but I quickly discovered that the ways I would usually meet new people just didn't work in Japan, and it took me a while to figure out how to go about it. Another reason is that you can get by easily with just English, and a lot of people who will want to befriend you will be able to speak English. Yet another reason will be that, if you are not Asian, people will automatically assume you don't speak Japanese and treat you accordingly.

It takes a little while to establish a friend group and way of acting that will allow you to really be speaking Japanese regularly... so a year actually isn't so long.

On a lighter note though, you don't really need to worry about it. Whether your know Japanese or not, living in Japan will be an awesome experience, and that's more important than how efficient your Japanese learning will be. Don't miss out on a great life experience waiting for your Japanese to get good enough to go.

I agree with Tzadeck, but I'll add my own personal anecdote.

I came to Japan on study abroad in 09-10 for a year. My first 6 months I wrongly assumed simply being here would give me Japanese by osmosis and via "simply taking classes" but I came to realize that wasn't true. Japan hones certain skills that were weak such as listening comprehension in conversations and fluidity in my speaking; however, it didn't really make my Japanese all that much better in terms of content. The last 6 months I had the revelation that really it was all on me. The classes weren't proving useful to me on a day to day basis but at the same time I realized learning was something I had to force my self to do. So I started Core. In retrospect I didn't get very far in those last 6 months but I felt I accomplished more and had a better time by moving my time to socializing more and studying on my own vs letting the class tell me what I needed.

Then I came back to Japan to work and took what I had learned from that study abroad experience and ran with it. I picked Core back up and finished all 6k. This was quite possibly the single greatest thing that took my Japanese further than anything else. I basically went from weak N3 to shy of a few points of passing N2. My ability to read and understand speech greatly improved too. Still, it was all because I had to put my nose "in a book" so to speak.

The point is the same as what everyone else has said. Being here might hone what you have, but it won't give you major leaps in your skill. To achieve those major jumps in skill you will have to study and keep at it.

That said, you should come to Japan for the experience. Its easier the younger you are, so I wouldn't miss the opportunity.

Eight years ago I decided to move to Japan for one year to study Japanese and to experience living abroad and thus my opinion is much like that of Tzadeck and vix86. Your first year here you won't learn very much Japanese because you probably won't have that much time to actually study.

However that shouldn't stop you because the life experience far outweighs not having ever done it at all and it will either motivate you to study harder, motivate you to stay or quite possibly both.

short answer: it depends.

If you are able to devote a respectable amount of time to studying Japanese, stay really motivated and progress a lot, then I'd say that it would probably be worth it to at least learn the basics while still at home.

However, if you have trouble to allocate time for studying, or find it hard to motivate yourself, or in general feel that you are hardly progressing at all, then I'd say just head to Japan.

There is the risk that you initially craft yourself an environment where you can get by only using English, have mainly other foreigners as friends etc (and this risk increases the less Japanese you know initially). So essentially, you could end up robbing yourself of the urgency to learn Japanese. In my opinion this is one of the main reasons why there are so many foreigners who have been living in Japan for years and can hardly do more than order a beer. Some initial knowledge of Japanese will make it easier to avoid this trap, but is not strictly required (just substitute more conscious effort instead).

And as others have said, merely being in Japan won't guarantee any progress. But it will greatly multiply the outcome of your efforts!

The final point to consider is that while it is easily doable to pick up the basics on your own and at home, I'd say that it gets progressively more difficult the more advanced your level of Japanese is. So theoretically you'd be able to get more out of being in Japan if you start at a more advanced level. But I wouldn't focus too much on this aspect, because it is only valid if your time in Japan is strictly limited.

My personal experience:
I basically decided to go to Japan on a whim to take some time off university after finishing my Bachelor's degree. Therefore, I only knew for sure that I'd go about 3 months before departing. As I still had my final exams and a thesis to complete, I ended up arriving in Japan with close to zero knowledge of Japanese.
However, once I arrived I went to language school for 6 months and really studied a lot. I was also careful to craft an environment where I'd be required to use Japanese and tried to avoid English as much as possible. The end result was passing N2 after a bit less than a year in Japan. So I don't feel like starting from zero hurt myself particularly.

Before going to Japan, I felt kind of bad because I knew close to no Japanese (especially because the scholarship that I received kind of required some previous knowledge). However, in retrospect I'd do it the same way again (under the same constraints). My line of reasoning would be something like this:
With limited time and commitment, I could only have learned very little at home, so the meager amount of Japanese that I could have learned at home could have been learned much quicker in Japan and wouldn't have lasted for a very long time anyways (maybe 1-2 weeks at language school).

How did you create an environment where you were required to use Japanese?

Tzadeck Wrote:it can be hard to meet people. I'm an American, but I quickly discovered that the ways I would usually meet new people just didn't work in Japan, and it took me a while to figure out how to go about it.

If you feel like it will you please expand on this, Tzadeck? どうも。

I find that the things I've been learning in Japan that I couldn't learn at home are only really useful in Japan - dealing with shop staff, office lingo, bureaucratic stuff, customs and holidays, food and drink etc. You don't need any of this to speak great Japanese outside of Japan, and if you're not comfortable with basic conversation, it'll be harder than it has to be to learn it anyway.

The benefit of being here is the opportunity available. If you're not prepared or willing to take advantage of it, I don't think you'll get much out of your trip (other than a great life experience of course). I'm talking about meetups, daily interactions, working in Japanese, language exchange, ¥105 manga/books in Book Off, TV, free lessons, making friends etc. A fun, productive and convenient learning environment is there if you can take advantage of it.

I agree with others that being a higher level will allow you to get more out of coming here, since you won't need to spend time doing things that can be done at home (kanji, grammar and such). However, if you can cram as much as you can and maybe get used to speaking a bit on http://www.sharedtalk.com/ in the meantime, I'd say a bit of confidence and willingness to get out and meet people will get you much further than a JLPT certificate.

The only person I talk to regularly is my girlfriend but that's been very helpful. If she weren't around I'd just have ended up always in my room reading books, playing games and watching anime, occasionally going to university like any native shut-in otaku.

Wow, thanks again for all the detailed replies. It's been interesting to read your experiences.

There seems to be a vague theme: Yes, learning as much as I can before moving to Japan will allow me to get the most of it, but I shouldn't delay going for that purpose.

I think I can agree with this. Yes I could take a few months to find more time to improve before going, or I could just go, use my pigeon Japanese (at least to start), and enjoy the time there and learn as much as I can. I'm leaning towards this, especially if I find a welcoming environment that'll allow me to use English to get by with the basics, but will promote Japanese where possible and give me time for self-study too.

Aikynaro Wrote:How did you create an environment where you were required to use Japanese?

There are a lot of options, so I'll just list some:
-Organize a homestay
-Stay at a guest house (if you don't just click on the first link of the English version of Google you'll discover that guest houses are not only targeted at foreigners)
-Join some club/circle. E.g. universities usually have a ton of them and some of them don't really care if you are actually a student or not and might still let you join.
-Make an effort to find Japanese friends (or at least Chinese/Korean ones where the strongest common language ends up being Japanese ).

E.g. amongst other things I decided to join an ice hockey team as that was always my childhood dream. Luckily I found a team that was willing to take me, so I suddenly found myself with ~20 like-minded Japanese people on the ice. As most of them couldn't really speak English, every bit of Japanese that I learned was really helpful. So with practices, league games, nomikai, bounenkai, shinnenkai etc. there were suddenly a lot of activities where using Japanese was required. And because all the organizing was done with a terribly inefficient everybody-receives-everything mailing list I picked up a lot of ways to tell how terribly sorry I am about not being able to make it to practice.

Like a few others here, I also moved to Japan with zero Japanese and expected to pick it up by ear. Despite having ample opportunity for immersion (I teach at a small school, just me and a small class, no other teacher to help me out, and the kids use their native language as much as possible because second languages are, as we know, Damned Hard), I saw zero improvement.

In my first year and a half without studying I learned literally nothing. Maybe a couple hundred words related to classroom materials (pencil, eraser), discipline (sit down, shut up), and food. A Uni 101 course would have taught me more, and more useful words at that.

I started properly studying Japanese for the first time in my life 8 months ago. I went from scratch to JLPT3+/conversational in that time. Not because I'm in Japan, not because of immersion, but because I studied my ass off. Of course my speaking and listening ability greatly benefited from listening/speaking all day, but that wasn't until I hit a level of proficiency in the language that allowed me to improve/built off what I know.

I still don't know enough Japanese that I easily learn new words based off conversation alone. My girlfriend is there in English, but she's fluent in the language. It takes a metric crap-ton of work to get to a point where language improvement comes naturally.

Come to Japan to have a good time, just don't expect much more than that.

Just a quick update.

I got a 1-year working holiday visa on Monday. :-) So it's all looking good! I have a lease on my flat until April and I've got to finish up some things with work and get my personal life sorted out, but there's basically nothing stopping me from going now!

I'm going to quit my job and give myself a month of full-time study before I go, doing JALUP's J-J Bridge thing (http://japaneselevelup.com/using-anki-ma...-j-bridge/), plus immersion and trying to increase my output.

Once in Japan I'm going to initially try WWOOFing as a way to immerse myself, and supplement it with self-study. After that I'll see how things are going. If the language isn't improving I'll have to rethink my strategy.

Anyway, exciting! Thanks everyone for your experiences and encouragement.

I've been to countries without speaking the language, and it's less than optimal. I suggest you spend the time you have left to study well.

[Zgarbas]

Offtopic: Woot, zorlee is back

Ontopic: You really should rush to learn at least basic hiragana/katakana/kanji/grammar. A month should be enough for that. The more you know, the better you pick up =p. You'll have plently of immersion once you're in Japan, try to stick with basic theory for now.

Tzadeck Wrote:The lady who wrote the textbook I studied with in college used to quip that "You can learn more Japanese in a closet in Idaho than in Japan."

What textbook is that?

Another update:

I got to Japan mid-May, and did about a month of WWOOFing (volunteering on farms in exchange for food and bed). However I found it wasn't really as immersive as I'd hoped because I was working alone for most of the day - I *did* get to see some amazing countryside in Nagano prefecture though, and met some interesting people that stayed in the guesthouses I was staying in. I think as people suggested before, if my Japanese was better before I started, I could have got a lot more out of it language-wise.

Since my language didn't improve (perceptibly, at least) during that month, and I was starting to get a bit lonely, I moved to Fukuoka (I came here last year for a holiday, and know and like the city) where I'm currently 3 weeks into a 3 month language course. It's going really well so far - the self-study beforehand definitely helped for making the classes go smoothly, since nothing is really new - actually a lot of the answers I can answer intuitively without too much thinking (for example て and た forms of verbs, although having someone explain the formal structure is also really great and now I don't just make it up when I'm not sure). I've been seeking out chances to meet locals and practice what I'm learning, as I've noticed the academic understanding and actually being able to speak are two different things (most of the time in real conversation the grammar study goes out the window). So far I can bumble through casual conversations - my main observation is that I really need to improve my vocabulary. Sometimes you can get the meaning across without knowing how to form a sentence by just saying the key words - although obviously I want to be able to form correct sentences :-) Without the words to say want you mean, it's pretty hard to communicate - or understand!

Another issue I've encountered since I stopped the volunteering is that it's expensive. With volunteering I had almost no expenses, although I was working for "free" for 6-10 hours a day. Now I am *paying* for accommodation and education and entertainment and socialising and I have no income. My next step is to work out how to start the money coming in as well as out to make use of my work permit with before my savings run out.

Anyway I've had a few "why am I doing this?" moments but so far it's going pretty well. :-)

That sounds great, amillerchip! I really wish I could go now, though I'm planning to go on a Kudan Japanese School summer course (and awesome sightseeing and homestay) if I can save up enough. I'm hoping I can get N3 before I go and then get N2 with a little help from my trip and actually having a proper teacher. Anyway, I hope you learn loads and get a cool job in Japan!

Thanks for the update. I always appreciate getting to know how things actually turned out and being able to compare that to the way people thought things would turn out. Also, congrats for taking the plunge.

One thing I'd be interested in is your judgment about language school. It seems to me that for various reasons people on this forum have mixed opinions about attending school (and I can see why). However, looking back, I'd say that starting learning Japanese by attending a full-time language school in Japan for one term is probably the best thing I could have done at the time. What's your take on the matter? As you just got started, I guess it's still a bit too early to answer confidently, so you might want to answer at a later time with the benefit of hindsight.

amillerchip Wrote:My next step is to work out how to start the money coming in as well as out to make use of my work permit with before my savings run out.

Part time eikaiwa. Seriously.

Also look around for a guesthouse, cheaper than hotels, hostels, and regular apartments.