Considering it is hard to define real fluency in a language, I presume I became somewhat fluent (daily conversational level) after 1 year of studying Japanese full-time while living here. I took classes Monday through Friday, for about 4 hours each day and, apart from using it at work, I refrained from speaking in English as much as I could (I was working at an Eikaiwa in the evening at the time). Since I was also living with my Japanese ex back then, using Nihongo at home also helped speed up the language acquisition process.
Within 2 years of Japan, I could naturally converse in a variety of topics in Japanese—ranging from politics to pop-culture, religion and video-games, human relationships and sports—without much trouble (if any at all). It was always difficult to handle topics in the field of the sciences back then; especially discussing things like systems engineering, robotics, physics and so on. What forced me to learn the language to discuss these topics was the extra translation duty I was handed by the university I started working at after my 4th year of Japan.
Once I started interpreting visiting professors and also taking teams from our university on conferences overseas, I was forced into an in-depth vocabulary work to have the terminology necessary to properly take care of my interpretation duties. In fact, most of the reading on language interpretation I have done indicates the need for further language study once you begin to interpret topics that are away from your field of expertise (Valerie T-Bouladon “Conference Interpreting” 3rd Edition 2011).
How does one become an interpreter in Japan?
Therefore, if you want to become an interpreter of the Japanese language, it is important to take into consideration not only being fluent in Japanese, you must also know your mother-tongue very well and you also need to be able to use the most current and proper vocabulary/terminology geared toward the topic(s) you are interpreting so that your interpretation sounds as natural as the source language it’s being interpreted from.
For that reason, I can honestly say that it took me at least 5 years in total to enable myself to become an interpreter of Japanese~English (and vice versa). In this first stage of my interpretation career, I could interpret topics related to general pedagogy and academia, business, sociology, tourism and systems engineering. It took me another 3 years on top of that to become a consecutive interpreter in the field of sports (and I am still learning it because sports is more fluid than other industries and constantly new terminology is being devised every tournament season). So you could say that it takes at least 8 years of living in Japan, 7 of these being fluent in the language, in order to be confident enough to call oneself a professional interpreter.
I could most likely handle simultaneous interpretation as well (sports interpretation is definitely more simultaneous than regular consecutive interpretation work), but that would take another few years of experience to develop the skills and confidence needed to do the job within the code of integrity professional interpreters must observe.
Please do not be discouraged by this answer if you are pursuing a career as an interpreter. It is a phenomenal field to work in with plenty of amazing perks, too many to count here in a Quora post. All I am trying to convey is that you must be serious about being an interpreter—just being fluent in both Japanese and English can’t make you a good interpreter. Yes, maybe fluency alone is enough to volunteer as a migrant translator at city hall or to do interpretation at the nearby international church (these are great ways to start acquiring experience interpreting BTW). However, if you want to be really serious about it, you need a strong combination of study, experience and a dedication to constant language improvement in order to really do well as an interpreter.
This is a very interesting question and as someone that has left Japan once, I would like to deposit my 2 cents to everyone’s experiences here in the Quora community, while also sharing a very personal side of my life.
I arrived in Japan in 2007 and couldn’t be happier then. At the time, I found work at Berlitz teaching business English to a large variety of salarymen and office-ladies. Pay-per-lesson work was busy but rewarding—giving me the flexibility I needed to take time off to travel around this wonderful country, as well as study Japanese on a full-time basis.
Things in Japan started heading down south for me when I started getting greedy. Back then (especially prior to the Lehman-shock recession), working at Berlitz paid well. You could easily be banking circa 320,000 yen -take home- on a busy month (teaching only evenings and Saturdays). That was plenty of money to pay the bills and to enjoy the hobbies while leaving between 60,000~100,000 in the bank for savings. However, once the Lehman shock hit our economy with a vengeance—and NOVA decided to go all scandalous on the EIKAIWA industry, crushing the trust we had built for decades with the Japanese English learning clientele—the amount of pay-per-lesson work we could do went constantly down, hitting a bottom 190,000 yen for me—which led me to seek work elsewhere: and that was the beginning of my sorrows.
In my years with Berlitz, I had been able to create some life-changing connections with famous university professors; thanks to the out-service system that Berlitz offers to businesses and academic institutions. Out-services basically comprises of sending Berlitz instructors to teach courses in several universities and/or businesses in the area. I was able to be part of the Berlitz out-service team which granted me the opportunity to make such connections. Thanks to these connections and to the hard-work I placed in preparing my lessons, my teaching style soon caught the attention of many professors in the universities I was teaching then, and some of these professors recommended me to institutions that needed part-time English instruction—which allowed me to get my very first few direct-hire contracts with universities in Japan—all at the youthful age of 24!
Things seemed to be going really well, the smaller Berlitz salary was now being complemented by 3 other part-time jobs at the university level and another junior/senior high school gig I had acquired along the way. Being young allowed me to have the energy to handle all of these 5 different jobs plus another job at an internet café I was doing in the mornings, 4 times a week, from 4 am to 8 am—just to help me master keigo Japanese. Overall, my total take home salary had increased to a whopping 580,000 yen, and, at the time, I thought such financial success was making me happy—little did I know that working so many hours in so many different jobs would burn me out so hard that all the love that I had for this country would soon turn into pure disdain.
Fast-forward to Japan year 7, and handling this kind of schedule had brought upon me constant diarrhea, overweight from bad eating habits, constant stress due to overwork and a lack of time to properly prepare my lessons, a social life that circled around playing online games with my gaijin friends, a myriad of human relationship problems AND constant fatigue coupled with a career that was going nowhere! These gave birth to a version of myself that I was really disgusted with. I was constantly wearing a mask in front of my students—pretending that everything was all good—while in the inside, I was literally dying from a lack of purpose and fatigue. Work became work for work’s sake. The sense of mission/purpose I once had of bringing positivity and a tint of Brazilian passion to the hearts of young Japanese people had vanished, which led me to develop some terrible habits to cope with the demoralization of my career: constantly drinking and smoking shisha, seeking one-night stands, wasting too many of my very few hours playing video-games were all things I decided to do in order to run away from my new workaholic self.
At the same time, my salary had actually gone down substantially from the previous number mentioned—all because I was not able to handle all the jobs I was doing anymore and had to cut at least 2 of them in order to mentally cope with all the workaholism. In the end, I found myself working 4 part-time jobs, in a field with no prospects for personal growth and without a career path. Life at university level had been all too merciless, no matter how hard I tried to write books/research…in the end, the time I had allocated to study was too small due to the 80 hours + of work I was putting out every week, my personal bad choices in selecting how I was to spend my free time and, at least in my case, the wall the Japanese seniority system would always place between me and a tenured position at a university. Seniority would always take priority and the older guy waiting in line to get that tenure-track job would always be the one getting ahead.
Being fair though, I could have done more research and worked harder on getting published in order to build a solid academic record—had I had 15 publications instead of 7, perhaps, I would have made it…who knows? All I know is that my desire to increase my income was my downfall here in Japan—and when it comes to my work addiction, this is one of the worst countries to be in. Trust me, Japan will hand it to you when it comes to doing all them extra overtime hours of “service zangyo” unpaid, sleeping in the office in order to get work done, useless meetings that go nowhere—all designed to keep you away from home and the people you care/should be caring about. I don’t blame Japan alone for the mistakes I made in the past—I just point the fact that, if perhaps I was in another country, there would have been people or systems in place to keep me from doing what I was doing to myself—always saying “yes” to work that I really didn’t have the time to complete. People here always praised me when I declared that I was working nearly 100 hours a week at a point. No one Japanese came to me and tried to warn me that perhaps, going down the track I was going was not going to lead me to a life truly fulfilling.
This led me to seek rehab for my workaholism in New Zealand. I went there on a working holiday for 1 year—away from the bustling city life in Japan, to the quiet town of Christchurch. I actually thought that Christchurch and I had a lot in common—both under reconstruction after having to handle a disaster that both were not really prepared for.
I know I am drifting away from the topic a bit, but for those interested in knowing, my days in CC were peaceful and it allowed me to make the changes in life that were necessary for me to be able to return to Japan with the mindset I currently have—work and money-making are not the most important things in life! I am currently back in Japan and I work only ONE job as an interpreter for a rugby team. Christchurch also introduced me to this amazing sport—since I was there during the last rugby world cup—and, thanks to that, now I can work only at one place and have enough time for my family and me.
To wrap-up, although all the problems I mentioned above could’ve been avoided if I had taken the necessary precautions (i.e.: made some better life choices), I think these experiences can still serve as a warning sign for those who are too industrious and predisposed to prioritizing work too much. If you plan on coming to Japan, make sure you got your thoughts sorted on work-life balance: the Japanese work vortex can easily suck you into developing an overworking life-style and you may unexpectedly become the next victim of karou-shi. Trust me when I say this. I would have never thought that I, being a laid-back Brazilian native, would almost die of workaholism—but life here proved to me that this is easily achievable when your priorities and your mindset around work are not well organized before you start your life in the land of the Rising Sun.
Many people, once they decide to come to Japan, try to use some of the conventional ways of doing that: for those coming from English speaking countries, that would mean either coming to Japan while in college—as an exchange student—or through the JET program.
In this blog post, I would like to share some other ways in which a successful arrival and survival in Japan could be accomplished. For many, coming to Japan might be a dream: but teaching English as a second language all their life isn’t. So, through this post, I hope to give all my readers a few different approaches on handling Japan to allow it to give you the opportunities needed for you to do what you really want in your stay here. That way, you don’t have to become a long-term eikaiwa teacher by default.
Before moving forward with the writing, I would like to point out that I am not against becoming a full-time English instructor in Japan. I have, obviously, chosen that as my major career path and believe it is a very honorable and rewarding trade. This blog is just to assist those interested in doing something different than teaching get started here in J-land.
A quick look at the challenges facing those foreigners willing to do something different in Japan
The very first barrier foreigners trying to do something different in Japan will find is that of acquiring a VISA. Though there seems to be a movement in Japan toward changing laws to make the entry of newcomers more feasible in the Land of the Rising Sun, it is still one of the toughest countries to acquire the documents needed to do any kind of work. The easiest way to get a VISA—that is, if you are somehow illegible to come here under a Working Holiday VISA scheme (http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/w_holiday/index.html click here for details)—is to find sponsorship through work in Japan. For that reason, coming through programs like the JET program, or an eikaiwa school like GABA, become the easiest doorway into Japan.
Having dedicated so many years of my career to full-time teaching, I don’t think coming here through those doors is a bad idea. However, for those interested in doing something unique in Japan (and for those whose first/natural language is not English and are, therefore, unable to come to Japan through the eikaiwa system), having only this pathway becomes quite restrictive: what if you are an Indonesian person with a fantastic skill set and a passion for Japan, but, simply because of VISA related bureaucracy, you must give up on your dreams of living here? That would mean a loss not only to the person who is unable to come but to Japan also who could greatly benefit from your qualifications.
To overcome this barrier, I have developed a set of steps that could help you in your quest to come to Japan. These steps apply, independently of the country you are from and independently of your age/gender (which can be crucial for those of you who are 31 and above and not willing to go back to university, just to become exchange students in Japan).
Please notice that there are many other different approaches than this one—I plan to write some of them in this very same blog in the near future. This is just to serve to give you a way to get things started by providing you guys the basics of finding ways to come to Japan.
STEP 1: Start by studying the language
If you have some money saved, I strongly recommend investing some of that in studying Japanese. Many of the people I have helped settle in Japan acquired both the language and the VISA by applying to a Japanese language program (which grants student VISAs that can be later changed into a work VISA for those who are able to find a job after completing their studies—2 birds with one stone type of deal). Depending on how old you are and of your willingness to put in the hours needed to learn the language, you can most likely master spoken Japanese in about 6 months to a year of full-time study. Here is the breakdown of what to do:
ECC photo credit to the ECC homepage
Apply to study Japanese at a JSL school near the place where you want to live in Japan. If you are coming to Kansai—I recommend living in Kobe and studying in Osaka. ECC Gaikokugo Semongaku in Umeda is a fantastic school—very serious about their language teaching and it is the place responsible for making me fluent in 4 months’ time! Teachers were very professional—the classes were so very difficult—but it was worth every penny invested. It is about $7000 (US) for the year of study and they also provide very affordable housing so, why not check their website and give it a thought? (http://japan.ecc.ac.jp/en/)
Start studying the lingo and go really hard at it—full-time commitment—no English while in school and with friends and there are plenty of ways of making Japanese friends at the same school. Since ECC is a “Polytech” institution (like a 2-year college in the US), there are many Japanese students there as well. Hangout at their facilities after hours looking for like-minded Japanese people to befriend. This will help you create that very first circle of local allies who will, in turn, assist you in the process of assimilation one must go through in order to become 1 with Japan.
STEP 2: Find some work to get used to Japanese working culture
If you are from an English-speaking country, the easiest work to find will be doing some teaching assistance at the very same school where you study Japanese at. Many of these schools also offer English classes to Japanese people, so teaching there while you learn Japanese can be a way to quickly acquire some capital flow while studying. Many of these part-time positions usually have jobs that you can do with a student VISA (just make sure you acquire the right permits at the Japanese immigration that allow you to work up to 20 hours as a student—once again, immigration laws tend to vary depending on the country you are coming from—but most will still give you some opportunity to work here as a student. The money you make here will probably only be enough to pay utilities and your food–but it’s a start.
Now, I don’t mean to contradict myself here. If you start teaching English, yes, you will begin speaking English during the hours you are working and that goes against what I just said about “Japanese only” while studying. However, making an exception only for work is still acceptable. When I first started, I used to teach English part-time at Berlitz and as soon as my work was finished I was using Japanese, even with students and staff. I was ruthless in my mastering of the language and did not care how “forcing” other to use Japanese with me would make them feel. I didn’t even care if it was some sort of accepted cultural norm to use English with students after teaching hours! That’s how serious I was about the language! Thanks to that tenacity in studying Japanese, many of my students acquired a certain level of respect for my efforts and, believe it or not, would gladly use Japanese with me if we met after class for a dinner or something.
In saying all of this, I do hear of people that get hurt/burned with this kind of mentality—some Japanese people, unfortunately, see most foreigners as incapable of speaking Japanese no matter how good they are at it. For that reason, they will speak English only to you, no matter how fluent you sound. Some want to show off and will use English when they see you out of pride. Some will even reject your friendship and/or complain about you to the school because of your use of Japanese after school hours. For these reasons, you must be really confident and comfortable with this level of boldness in using Japanese before you decide to put this advice into effect—therefore, do take this piece of advice with a grain of salt.
Finally, finding part-time work at a restaurant, bar, internet café among other similar places will not only help you make some money, they will also help you learn how to provide customer service like a hospitable Japanese person. Moreover, this line of work can assist you in the mastering of keigo (or polite Japanese) which you will need in order to work for prominent Japanese companies in the future.
I worked at Kaikatsu Club (http://www.kaikatsu.jp/) internet café for about 8 months after my first 6 months of Japan. In all honesty, it was a really hard job to do because there is so much explanation you have to do to customers who come to the café for the first time—and all must be done in proper keigo. I still have recollections of being scolded by our tencho so many times for not speaking politely to our guests. However, by putting myself under so much pressure, this experience did help me speak Japanese more naturally and at a level of politeness that has granted me praise from many Japanese people—even those in the higher echelons of society—as well as the ability of speaking in hundreds of different occasions in Japanese to a varied audience of academics during University conferences and the like.
STEP 3: Find your dream in Japan! The job hunting process
Once your studies are about to complete, you can ask your school to help you with the job hunting process. If your Japanese is really good (N1 level), companies have recently become more and more keen to hire foreign staff with strong communication ability and fluency in 1 or more languages besides Japanese. Especially trading companies and companies in the IT sector seem to be searching for the globalized human resources they need to tackle overseas markets.
If things don’t work out with the school, there are a few job-seeking Facebook groups that will help in the process as well. Jobs in Kansai/Kanto (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1436901939886293/), are a few good places to get started. If you find it hard to get a job that will provide VISA sponsorship, applying for the eikaiwa jobs first will grant you the VISA extension you need to get the extra time necessary to find your dream job here. I have met foreigners who started with schools like BERLITZ and moved on to work for major corporations like Marubeni and Itochu. Others, eventually, started their own companies here and are currently very successful. Do everything you can to extend your stay until you can get permanent citizenship. Once you have that and the Japanese fluency, the doors will open and you will be able to work in the field of your choice.
I hope this helps—The ideas above are hard to follow and it takes time, sometimes years, to see them blossom. But everything worth doing in life should take time to build so go ahead, start planning and make sure once you come to Japan you come with the drive needed to make your Japanese life come to fruition.
From ESOL instructor to Salary-man: hacks that will make it easier for you to reach the top at any industry in Japan – an introduction
By Hyuga Higuchi
A quick overview of how some foreigners end up here in Japan
So there you are! Just finished with your BA in English Literature and carrying a 50K plus large backpack of debt that needs to be paid at all costs. Things at the local economy don’t look very promising for educators within your English speaking country and you have decided to travel for a while, acquire some experience and that much-needed cash flow while enjoying the pleasures of mastering a new culture and language. You, being a geeky hardcore anime fan, conducted a thoroughly biased search for jobs within Asia and felt like the heavens were pointing you to the land Ninjas and cute maid cafés, the legendary island of the Rising Sun.
You quickly started applying for ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) jobs online through the famous JET program, or through the to-go-to website for foreigners looking for jobs in Japan: gaijinpot.com (or was it daijob.com?) Regardless of the tools you used, you were successful in your quest for work in Japan, packed your things, got the tickets, worked out the VISA, followed what Tim Ferris taught you at that masterpiece of a book “The 4-hour work week,” took action and followed your heart.
You felt awesome for having accomplished a feat that, perhaps, less than 10% of those who graduated from the same class as you were able to accomplish: that of venturing into the unknown; of living in a land far from home and loved ones. Everything seemed to be going really well for the first couple of weeks. You have made some English-speaking Japanese and/or expat-friends, and you are settled at your tiny but clean apartment near the train station at a very convenient location somewhere in Osaka.
Salary seems promising, the booze is cheaper than back at home, Japanese people seem to worship you for the good looks you never thought you had and the first month feels pretty much like you are Chris Hemsworth in his first Marvel standalone movie, “Mighty Thor:” you literally feel like a demi-god who just fell from Asgard, enjoying the extra level of attention people all around you have to give you.
And very much like that same “Thor” figure, you notice that you do not have your
Mjölnir with ya. Yes, you got your GPS tracking app and can get around just fine, but you still kind of feel lost in translation: relationships take longer to build and to keep; it’s hard to know exactly how to impress people in a way that allows them to see you for who you are. Back home, the ins-and-outs of basic communication felt a lot more natural to conduct. You were able to handle your communication “weapon,” your Mjölnir, to your greatest advantage and with a great deal of ease.
Unfortunately, for many people in Japan, they arrive here without knowing the language and, even when they do understand it, they are incapable of utilizing it to the same degree they would their native tongue (in other words, they have Mjölnir, but seem unable to “lift it”).
What the lack of language adaptation can cause
The consequences of this inability to fully integrate in Japanese society can be tough on the heart, although, for some, it does not really bother them that much in the beginning: they are able to work an English teaching job without any problems, they might have built a circle of faithful friends who will keep them company in times of trouble, etc. But in reality, they miss on all the other opportunities they would have if they were able to speak the lingo with a high level of fluency. Furthermore, these non-Japanese speakers tend to fall prey to them gaijin-hunters, & free-English-practice riders who are a group of “dark side” Japanese opportunists seeking to befriend foreigners simply for the sake of leeching out on their foreign-like attributes (physical, mental, emotional), and English speaking capabilities. Simply put, the gaikoku-jin who does not aspire to become fluent in Japanese will have a hard(er) time building relationships that are profound and truly meaningful.
How I can help
Within this blog series, I hope to give you tips on how to quickly master the Japanese Language, while making proper use of the same to navigate the culture in a way that will assist you in becoming anything you want to be in Japan: not only the default ESOL instructor that many English speaking foreigners do here for lack of options.
Here you will learn how to:
1. Choose the right school and courses to attend in order to learn Japanese quickly—on a full-time basis—while maintaining the ability to work full-time hours: granting you the income you need to study and enjoy your life here at the same time.
2. Practice the language and places where you can go to in order meet the people that will help you master Japanese while avoiding to encounter people who are just after you because of your native English speaking ability and your different looks.
3. Get jobs in Japanese companies without the need of a JLPT.
4. Navigate within the world of Japanese indirect communication to improve your ability to handle communication mishaps and increase your chances of building long-lasting and genuine relationships with the Japanese people.
5. Find love/an ideal partner in the Land of the Rising Sun for those interested in building their “nest” here.
About the author
Currently going by Hyuga Higuchi, I am originally a Brazilian born, American raised immigrant to Japan that has had to adapt many times to a variety of different cultural situations. After spending most of my childhood in Brazil, my mother, being divorced and with very little job prospects available in her home country decided to look for employment opportunities elsewhere and chose the United States as the most viable option. She was able to climb through the ranks of the house-cleaning industry in the US and that finally granted her the chance of bringing my younger brother and
me into our new home up north. We fell in love with the US instantly but were always faced with struggles to understand American culture and how it applied to our daily lives as we grew to eventually become full-fledged Americans.
After completing my undergraduate degree in New York, I felt like it was time to search for new adventures elsewhere and decided to come to Japan and a quasi-Working Holiday scheme, where I found employment teaching English at Berlitz Japan one month after my arrival in 2007. I have since taught children classes, Junior and Senior high school classes, classes for the elderly, and at 5 different universities here in the Kansai region of Japan. Since arriving here, my ability to master Japanese quickly has granted me the ability to quickly climb through the ranks within the real of Japanese university education, where, for the most part, I was able to teach for there for about 5 years without having an MA (through this blog, I hope to assist you in doing the same).
Acquisition of the Japanese language has also helped me visit 10 different countries on business, acquire positions that range from working within the IT industry in Japan to translating Australian & Kiwi coaches at a professional Rugby team.
Knowing the language has helped me find the love of my life, my wife whom I love, who is the most wonderful woman in the world. She was not interested in being with a foreign man and has had me as her very first international guy. The fact that she was into me because of who I am and not because of my “uniqueness” here is one of the many things I love about her and our relationship. Moreover, knowing Japanese has also helped me teach classes fully in Japanese, and within these, I felt I had a greater chance of truly being a force of positive influence on my students.
I can speak 4 languages fluently and have lived in 4 different countries. Let me share how some of my cultural know-how can help you be more successful in your current, or future, Japanese endeavors.
Observations and limitations of the ideas in this blog
**This blog doesn’t, in any way, aim at downplaying the roles of ESOL instructors in Japan, nor is its aim to diminish the value and importance of being an English teacher in Japan. I personally have built my entire career on the ESL industry and I still see ESOL education as one of my passions. All the ideas here contained are aimed at assisting people who actually want to or at least try to, do something different than teaching English but, at the same time, they feel that, as foreigners, teaching is the only thing they can do in Japan.
**Unfortunately some of the advice here contained can better benefit individuals who are just starting their career, rather than the latter. I believe that people from all walks of life can find something beneficial in the contents of this blog. However, since Japan is a country very much concerned about age and its role in the development of work-related relationships here, some of the advice might be more helpful to those fresh of the plane in Japan.
From ESOL instructor to Salary-man: hacks that will make it easier for you to reach the top at any industry in Japan – an introduction
By Hyuga Higuchi
A quick overview of how some foreigners end up here in Japan
So there you are! Just finished with your BA in English Literature and carrying a 50K plus large backpack of debt that needs to be paid at all costs. Things at the local economy don’t look very promising for educators within your English speaking country and you have decided to travel for a while, acquire some experience and that much-needed cash flow while enjoying the pleasures of mastering a new culture and language. You, being a geeky hardcore anime fan, conducted a thoroughly biased search for jobs within Asia and felt like the heavens were pointing you to the land Ninjas and cute maid cafés, the legendary island of the Rising Sun.
You quickly started applying for ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) jobs online through the famous JET program, or through the to-go-to website for foreigners looking for jobs in Japan: gaijinpot.com (or was it daijob.com?) Regardless of the tools you used, you were successful in your quest for work in Japan, packed your things, got the tickets, worked out the VISA, followed what Tim Ferris taught you at that masterpiece of a book “The 4-hour work week,” took action and followed your heart.
You felt awesome for having accomplished a feat that, perhaps, less than 10% of those who graduated from the same class as you were able to accomplish: that of venturing into the unknown; of living in a land far from home and loved ones. Everything seemed to be going really well for the first couple of weeks. You have made some English-speaking Japanese and/or expat-friends, and you are settled at your tiny but clean apartment near the train station at a very convenient location somewhere in Osaka.
Salary seems promising, the booze is cheaper than back at home, Japanese people seem to worship you for the good looks you never thought you had and the first month feels pretty much like you are Chris Hemsworth in his first Marvel standalone movie, “Mighty Thor:” you literally feel like a demi-god who just fell from Asgard, enjoying the extra level of attention people all around you have to give you.
And very much like that same “Thor” figure, you notice that you do not have your
Mjölnir with ya. Yes, you got your GPS tracking app and can get around just fine, but you still kind of feel lost in translation: relationships take longer to build and to keep; it’s hard to know exactly how to impress people in a way that allows them to see you for who you are. Back home, the ins-and-outs of basic communication felt a lot more natural to conduct. You were able to handle your communication “weapon,” your Mjölnir, to your greatest advantage and with a great deal of ease.
Unfortunately, for many people in Japan, they arrive here without knowing the language and, even when they do understand it, they are incapable of utilizing it to the same degree they would their native tongue (in other words, they have Mjölnir, but seem unable to “lift it”).
What the lack of language adaptation can cause
The consequences of this inability to fully integrate in Japanese society can be tough on the heart, although, for some, it does not really bother them that much in the beginning: they are able to work an English teaching job without any problems, they might have built a circle of faithful friends who will keep them company in times of trouble, etc. But in reality, they miss on all the other opportunities they would have if they were able to speak the lingo with a high level of fluency. Furthermore, these non-Japanese speakers tend to fall prey to them gaijin-hunters, & free-English-practice riders who are a group of “dark side” Japanese opportunists seeking to befriend foreigners simply for the sake of leeching out on their foreign-like attributes (physical, mental, emotional), and English speaking capabilities. Simply put, the gaikoku-jin who does not aspire to become fluent in Japanese will have a hard(er) time building relationships that are profound and truly meaningful.
How I can help
Within this blog series, I hope to give you tips on how to quickly master the Japanese Language, while making proper use of the same to navigate the culture in a way that will assist you in becoming anything you want to be in Japan: not only the default ESOL instructor that many English speaking foreigners do here for lack of options.
Here you will learn how to:
1. Choose the right school and courses to attend in order to learn Japanese quickly—on a full-time basis—while maintaining the ability to work full-time hours: granting you the income you need to study and enjoy your life here at the same time.
2. Practice the language and places where you can go to in order meet the people that will help you master Japanese while avoiding to encounter people who are just after you because of your native English speaking ability and your different looks.
3. Get jobs in Japanese companies without the need of a JLPT.
4. Navigate within the world of Japanese indirect communication to improve your ability to handle communication mishaps and increase your chances of building long-lasting and genuine relationships with the Japanese people.
5. Find love/an ideal partner in the Land of the Rising Sun for those interested in building their “nest” here.
About the author
Currently going by Hyuga Higuchi, I am originally a Brazilian born, American raised immigrant to Japan that has had to adapt many times to a variety of different cultural situations. After spending most of my childhood in Brazil, my mother, being divorced and with very little job prospects available in her home country decided to look for employment opportunities elsewhere and chose the United States as the most viable option. She was able to climb through the ranks of the house-cleaning industry in the US and that finally granted her the chance of bringing my younger brother and
me into our new home up north. We fell in love with the US instantly but were always faced with struggles to understand American culture and how it applied to our daily lives as we grew to eventually become full-fledged Americans.
After completing my undergraduate degree in New York, I felt like it was time to search for new adventures elsewhere and decided to come to Japan and a quasi-Working Holiday scheme, where I found employment teaching English at Berlitz Japan one month after my arrival in 2007. I have since taught children classes, Junior and Senior high school classes, classes for the elderly, and at 5 different universities here in the Kansai region of Japan. Since arriving here, my ability to master Japanese quickly has granted me the ability to quickly climb through the ranks within the real of Japanese university education, where, for the most part, I was able to teach for there for about 5 years without having an MA (through this blog, I hope to assist you in doing the same).
Acquisition of the Japanese language has also helped me visit 10 different countries on business, acquire positions that range from working within the IT industry in Japan to translating Australian & Kiwi coaches at a professional Rugby team.
Knowing the language has helped me find the love of my life, my wife whom I love, who is the most wonderful woman in the world. She was not interested in being with a foreign man and has had me as her very first international guy. The fact that she was into me because of who I am and not because of my “uniqueness” here is one of the many things I love about her and our relationship. Moreover, knowing Japanese has also helped me teach classes fully in Japanese, and within these, I felt I had a greater chance of truly being a force of positive influence on my students.
I can speak 4 languages fluently and have lived in 4 different countries. Let me share how some of my cultural know-how can help you be more successful in your current, or future, Japanese endeavors.
Observations and limitations of the ideas in this blog
**This blog doesn’t, in any way, aim at downplaying the roles of ESOL instructors in Japan, nor is its aim to diminish the value and importance of being an English teacher in Japan. I personally have built my entire career on the ESL industry and I still see ESOL education as one of my passions. All the ideas here contained are aimed at assisting people who actually want to or at least try to, do something different than teaching English but, at the same time, they feel that, as foreigners, teaching is the only thing they can do in Japan.
**Unfortunately some of the advice here contained can better benefit individuals who are just starting their career, rather than the latter. I believe that people from all walks of life can find something beneficial in the contents of this blog. However, since Japan is a country very much concerned about age and its role in the development of work-related relationships here, some of the advice might be more helpful to those fresh of the plane in Japan.
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