Hey everyone, I'm having a slight problem with dealing with people around me when it comes to studying a language. I love to spend my time studying and doing things in another language, but I don't like doing it around other people. It feels like they're slightly annoyed that I'm spending so much time devoted to it. I'm a little embarrassed with bringing books or papers in another language around other people, because they automatically assume I know the language. This is almost always followed up by them trying to test me, like "Read to me what your book says" or "How do you say ____?", which I usually don't know, so I don't tell them.

I know how one could learn so fast if they're surrounded by a language all the time, but not everyone around that person wants to deal with hearing a language they don't care about every time they go within 10 meters of him. This is noticeable with the people living in my house, they have pretty much another country in 25% of the house, and they're forced to deal with it all the time. I'm more worried about them getting sick of the language.

Another thing is a lot of people recommend listening to a language as much as possible, but I've always found having headphones in during meals/around family/shopping/in public areas to be a little rude or embarrassing, so I usually end up listening only during the few times I have completely to myself. I'm also less aware of my surroundings with headphones on, and therefore feel more self-conscious and uneasy.

So basically, how do you bring yourself to feel "comfortable" with studying in public, around friends, or anyone who may not be that "supportive"? Also, are there any interesting stories of people reacting to your language studying?

Hey Jombo, I've certainly had problems dealing with the people around me in the past.

When I'm in public I usually have two headsets that I use depending on what I'm doing. One of them have almost no sound isolation so I can easily hear what is going on around me if I just keep the volume sufficiently low, I usually use these while riding the bike so I can hear what's going on around me in the traffic. The other headset is a fairly sound isolated headset, which ensures that all the other people won't know what I'm listening to, I tend to use them when walking around in a mall or something like that. At first I felt fairly uncommon wearing headsets in public because walking around with a headset sends an image I didn't really like. What I did was, that I would walk around in fairly remote areas first where there weren't many other people and then gradually get used to wearing them around many people. Where I live it's pretty common for people to walk around with headsets on, I'd guess about 20% of the youth does it, it's just that it's the 20% I wouldn't want people to identify me with. I guess one just has to learn to deal with the feeling of being judged by people you don't know though. To be honest, after always wearing a headset in public for four months now, I have yet to be confronted with it by anybody, so I might have been overly scared of what they thought about me in public, and I guess this might be your problem as well. As for friends and family I found things to be slightly different.

My family and friends alike were not pleased with the amount of time I spent on Japanese. The first month or so it went pretty smooth, probably because they thought I would quickly give up. When I didn't, they started turning against me. My friends were mostly annoyed by the fact that the time I spent playing computer games with them were steadily declining (I used to play a lot of computer games), while my family seemed to be bothered by a combination of fear that I would prioritize Japanese over the university and also that they couldn't show my room forth to the rest of the family anymore because it was "inappropriate" that I had kanji posters hanging all over the room. I didn't really do much to deal with the situation except from convincing my parents that I wasn't slacking off on my studies. In the end most of my friends just came to term with my new passion while a few of the people I didn't know all that well decided to sever all contact with me. My family also eventually came to terms with my room having kanjis all over it. xP

TL;DR: Consistency and determination seems to be the most important things from my experience. Once people realize they can't sway you from your studies with their endless complaints they'll just give up and accept it. At the very least that's what has happened to me.

Jombo Wrote:Another thing is a lot of people recommend listening to a language as much as possible, but I've always found having headphones in during meals/around family/shopping/in public areas to be a little rude or embarrassing, so I usually end up listening only during the few times I have completely to myself. I'm also less aware of my surroundings with headphones on, and therefore feel more self-conscious and uneasy.

One thing is, you really don't need to listen to the language 100% of the time in order to learn it or anything. So, you probably shouldn't go out of your way to do things that really are rude, like having headphones in at mealtimes.

I don't know whether you can completely get rid of every annoyance for your family, but as long as you set aside time to spend with them where you can give them your complete attention, it's really not so bad.

One thing i did was find things in Japanese my mum might be interested in and find funny too, and spend some time watching things with her (with English subs on).

About walking around... are your shops within walking distance of your house? If they are, you could try walking to the shops rather than using your car. It's not like you have to pay much attention to your surroundings while walking anyway (if you know the route), so it's a nice time to listen to stuff. It's also good for the environment Then, when you get to the shops you can turn it off if you want to concentrate on what you need to get. (obviously doesn't work if you're getting a month's worth of food shopping though lol)

About people asking you things, just tell them right off that you haven't been learning that long, then say you don't know if you don't. It's no big deal, really. They're just trying to make conversation...

[ファブリス]

The key is whether you are feeling authentic about what you are doing. Inauthenticity arises in thought, and creates self-consciousness, discomfort and ensuing drama.

Putting headphones during meals and around family is definitely looking for drama (unless you already told them that you need some time for study).

OP Wrote:because they automatically assume I know the language

Do they, really? I used to think like that. But then I saw I project all my fears onto everyone. And thus everyone does the same onto you. So then... do they really mean that you know the language? Or are they afraid of their own perceived lack of knowledge, or lack of passions, or instead projecting onto you an image of intellectual superiority, or image of someone "out of the group" which threatens their insecurity and so on?

"It's not that hard, did you know all these thousands of characters are made of just two hundred parts?"

"Well, I can't read it yet, but it's fun because you see there that part means 'sun' and that part means 'flower' and that one is 'day' and when they're together it's the word for ..."

That's authentic, and people react well to that. Whereas shutting yourself off and filling every "boring" moment of the day with Japanese audio is not.