Hi everyone! Quick background for this trip:
I am a second dan black belt in Uechi Ryu Karate and got the chance to come to Okinawa with my senpais for 2 weeks. This was my first time in Japan after spending 7 months studying for almost every single day for about 1-2 hours before I went to work in the morning.
Background: I am Asian-American and am Bilingual in my English and my Mother Tongue. I went to an international school and had some Japanese friends that taught me a little bit but we spoke English virtually all the time. I took 2 semesters of Japanese in college but I didn’t understand how to learn a language outside a classroom setting. I ended up getting frustrated I couldn’t understand most content after those classes and gave up.
Seven years later, my Karate sensei asked me if I wanted to go train in Okinawa. I decided to restart my Japanese learning journey so that I could make friends with my senpai/senseis in Japan without a language barrier and did a ton of research on learning methods. After watching channels like Matt vs. Japan, I found out about AJATT, Refold, and the concept of immersion learning.
Methods:
I started with using Lingodeer just to catch up on the basic grammar and vocabulary I learned a long time ago while refreshing my memory of kana.
Eventually I settled on a combination of:
Wanikani – Now level 5, I take it slow
Bunpro – 1/4 through N3, about 2000 words learned
Miku’s Real Japanese Shadowing Course
italki/vrchat – once a week
Immersion – Terrace House, Podcasts, vlogs, slice of life anime, Satori Reader (as much as I could watch or listen to while multitasking, did a Satori reader chapter before bed)
All my studying was done early in the morning before work, while my immersion was podcasts while driving, and video content while multitasking. I left afternoons and evenings open to spend time with loved ones and do other hobbies.
The Trip:
Having been grinding for a while I was very excited to have been able to see how everything would pay off. Here are my results.
Reading: I can read Hiragana almost as well as I can read English, while Katakana can take me a bit of time depending on the word. I was able to read a lot of basic kanji but don’t know enough to be literate. I expect that will take awhile but I knew enough to get by comfortably as a foreigner.
Listening: Initially I struggled listening to Japanese that wasn’t from a tv show. Konbini conversations were also very difficult because I wasn’t used to people talking to me in straight keigo or extremely quickly. But after a few days of adjusting to listening to Japanese I started comprehending basic things people were telling me. In conversations with my senpais at the dojo I was able to understand maybe 40-50% of what was said to me and piece together what the rest meant in my head based on context. Since I only know about 2000 words thats understandable and my goal when I visit next is to have at least 5k vocab to catch other common words I didn’t understand.
Words used in context I wasn’t used to threw me off as well. For example when the word 閉める (to close) was first mentioned I didn’t realize it could be used to describe actions outside of closing doors.
Speaking:
Arriving in Okinawa I initially struggled and had intense anxiety over saying things wrong, but after I settled into the atmosphere of the country, speaking is probably where I excelled the most.
Miku’s Audio Course made my pronunciation really native sounding. Practicing on iTalki and VRChat also helped me practice in a live setting before I arrived. In the Okinawan dojos we visited, I got to speak a lot with various senpai and senseis and while we didn’t necessarily have super deep or meaningful conversations, we were able to share simple stories and facts about eachother. Receiving technical instruction was a little difficult at first, but as I quickly learned new words, I got by. When there was no one bilingual around to translate I was asked to translate for my American senpais. This was very difficult because of my limited vocabulary but I was able to spin the words I knew around to be understood.
Later during the trip, one my friends asked me to help teach english for a day in an elementary school and that was very fun. Japanese kids are incredibly sweet and genuinely curious about life overseas. After class, I got to each lunch with them in their class room, talk and ask questions. While kids use a lot of slang, for the most part they were very easy to understand and it felt like I was talking to my little cousins back home. When the kids found out I was a dinosaur illustrator, a bunch of them asked me to sign a bunch of their stuff and draw a dinosaur on it. I guess no matter where you are, kids really really love dinosaurs! (some even asked me to sign their foreheads lol)
During my trip I was expecting to hear a lot of 日本語上手, but while I did hear it, it also felt very genuine. The other common responses I’d get were:
- ああ、日本語できる？- And then they would speak straight Japanese to me
- 日系ですか？
- 日本語きれいですね！- Happened when I would speak very properly when first meeting new senpai at different dojos.
- Nothing. They’d just talk to me in Japanese.
While it felt good, it was also a double edged sword because people immediately assumed I knew way way WAYYYY more than I actually did. But hearing such great feedback and making genuine connections has been very motivating and I plan to continue pursuing my language studies!
by dinosaurcomics