Hi,
So I was wondering how those of you that are fluent or a high level, but don’t live in Japan remain so?
Reaching fluency is an achievement I want to continuously strive for, as well as living in Japan, though as time goes on, I think the latter is becoming a tale of fantasy, and one that will never become a reality sadly.
This doesn’t affect my enjoyment of studying Japanese, but it does make me wonder if I’d eventually forget everything I’ve learnt if there isn’t ample opportunity to use it.
What are your thoughts? I assume that people who are N2 and above are either living in Japan already or on their way.
I’d love to retain my skills even if I never get to Japan again.
Thanks.
9 comments
I haven’t done JLPT but I am conversationally fluent anyway, and I have never been to Japan. First I would start by saying fluent is a bit of a broad term,
If you have enough exposure you won’t have problems staying fluent in terms of input. You might have to make an effort to speak/write Japanese a bit to maintain fluency in output though
Personally I just consume a lot of Japanese media– I include news channels, variety shows, anime, radio shows, video games, youtube channels, reading manga and more. This keeps the language fresh by being exposed to it every day. Speaking has always been the easiest part of Japanese for me, so I’ve never struggled with keeping that up- but there was a time when I joined a discord for studying Japanese and was able to voice chat a bit. Also maybe you could volunteer/join any local Japanese communities you have nearby. They’re usually looking for native/fluent speakers.
One more thing I did was I got a job in the Japan sphere despite no longer living in Japan, and while I wouldn’t exactly recommend that path (Japan sure is good at underpaying their employees) it definitely kept my Japanese sharper than it would’ve been otherwise.
I work as a translator for Japanese media, which is something I’ve been doing for the last five years. Before this, I also worked in customer service for a Travel Accommodation Website That Shall Not Be Named, catering to Japanese-speaking customers, but I quickly burned out of that when the pandemic started (and it took me a year and a half to start working again).
In my free time, I play Genshin Impact with Japanese audio, watch gaming livestreams and 声優番組 (radio/TV programs featuring voice actors as hosts) in Japanese, and occasionally read news articles and manga in Japanese. I’ve never actually been to Japan since I started studying Japanese, and all of the things I mentioned before were also how I got fluent in the first place.
Sorry if you wanted answer from n2/N1 in japanese.
I’m not fluent in japanese but in English that is my second language. I will probably do the same thing when I reach a good lvl in japanese. Read books, watch movies, read news and search for information in japanese and so on.
I’ve been living in Japan for a long time now, but I was able to reach and maintain the level you speak of before I came here to live for good.
Anyway, the answer is: the same way people living in Japan do — by speaking, reading, writing, and listening to lots of Japanese.
Living in Japan surrounded by the language makes it *easier* to do these things, of course, but especially with the internet nowadays it’s hardly impossible to immerse yourself in the language to a significant degree without necessarily being physically present here.
VTubers
N1 is actually a really low level all things considered, you can keep it by reading some manga, some books, some websites etc every now and then.
About actual fluency, especially writing and speaking, I don’t know.
I’m not fluent, but have studied up through N2 materials and am slowly working my way through N1 test prep (just losing interest in textbooks at the moment and also started studying another language). Upper-intermediate territory. I just make sure to [read a lot](https://puroh.it/reading-for-a-fine-vocabulary/).
I do try to integrate my target languages into my daily life through media immersion, but the most time-efficient way for me to maintain what I’ve learned is to just read regularly and keep up with my Anki flashcards. (I do the bare minimum, like 10 new cards a day total across all my languages)
Reading lot of manga and novels. And watch anime.