I’m doing a trip to Fukuoka later this year for two months and the language school i’ll be going to has suggested some share houses for accommodations. Apparently its a mix of foreigners and Japanese but the last thing I want is to wind up in a situation where english is being spoken all the time. Does anyone have any experiences they can share? Would love to know if my fears are unfounded or not 😅
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While I don’t think it’s unfounded but you assume that all the foreigners speak english. A friend of mine went to a language school and everyone there was a foreigner but many came from other asian countries and couldn’t speak any english, so the school language was still the only way to communicate.
And if they are able to speak english, living in fukuoka if you go out of your way a bit you will have no problem looking for japanese only situations. I went to Japan and lived in a dorm with european students and I still had enough good chances to have my japanese immersion
If you live in foreigner-allowed share house in a big city it is actually unfortunately going to be very difficult to avoid a situation where English or other non-Japanese languages is not being spoken a lot. Because most foreign people who are living in the share house are living there because they are not settled in Japan and most of people like that have only basic Japanese skills at the best.
There is no such type of a forigner-allowed share house where Japanese is spoken a lot since it is just a matter of luck. And I think if you did arrive in your share house and find that Japanese is spoken as a main language you must consider yourself very lucky indeed.
I recommend either to Make alternative arrangements for accommodation if this aspect is important for you or just accept that English may be spoken a lot and find other ways to use Japanese outside of the people you are living with.
In my humbleopinion you may be better to rent a normal apartment for your stay and just find other ways to connect with Japanese people. But only if this is possible since I do not know if you already have friends in Fukuoka or not
I lived in a lot of sharehouses in Tokyo so Fukuoka may be much different.
One sharehouse I lived in had only Japanese residents. It was terrifying for the first month or two. But the best boost to my speaking and listening skills. That was a highly lucky and unusual experience.
A lot of the Tokyo sharehouses are exclusively for foreigners so Japanese people don’t live there. The foreigners I met were principally westerners; I didn’t have much time to socialize with them but I got along with virtually everyone fine.
The sharehouse “concept” became more popular for young Japanese people say a decade ago so there are places that had 100% or a high percentage of Japanese people living there. Terrace House was a “reality” TV show that tried to ride that trend (it was “scripted” drama TV so does not represent the sharehouse experience in Japan or anywhere else for that matter).
Following the global pandemic, my Japanese friends that lived in sharehouses left to live alone for health & safety purposes. I don’t know if the sharehouse “concept” for Japanese people has rebounded. I would speculate that the Japanese people who left sharehouses would not return (comfortable living alone, long-term rental contracts, ageing…)
I stayed in a share house in Tokyo for 6 months. The house could have 6 residents total. The company had a policy that you couldn’t let non-residents inside. There was a Taiwanese person staying there who spoke English. The two Japanese people there were very sociable but did not speak much English. Apart from those three people, everyone else came and went. Some were quiet and not sociable. Among the sociable people, I spoke decent Japanese, so we all got along. If I hadn’t spoken Japanese it would have been harder to coordinate events like going to dinner/karaoke/izakaya together. I had to interpret for the Taiwanese person as well because she didn’t speak much Japanese.