Japanese learning failure story

7 comments

1. ~~Hey can you edit the post and add some paragraphs? Hitting return a couple of times will make it easier to read.~~

   “Can Do” is an interesting thing. Some people say they “can do” something and that means they can barely do it. Others say they “can’t do” something but they are actually really good at it. I’m guessing you are in the later category.

   anyway the only thing left to do is pick yourself up and get back in the race. You aren’t a total beginner and can probably hit N3 if you start working it, and you probably also have a chunk of N2 floating around somewhere in your head.

2. It sounds like you need to regain your interest in Japan and Japanese culture before you’ll be able to successfully resume your studies. Most people don’t do the kind of stuff they majored in in college, and there’s no shame in that.

   Maybe your life needs to go in a different direction, and maybe you’ll eventually regain your desire to learn Japanese. You’ve been through a lot in the past few years. It’s okay to be in a different place than you were when you picked your major.

3. GL OP, hope you either rediscover your interest in Japan culture again or move on to a new chapter in your life because there is certainly no shame in that. As far as college, I left my own bachelors behind about 5 years ago after being disillusioned beyond belief with it and am carving a totally different life now and just starting to see the rewards in it and I’m so glad I switched.

4. The missing puzzle piece is that you simply haven’t heard and read enough. Your university did a bang-up job of teaching you how to think your way through Japanese, but mastery means you don’t even need to do that. It just happens.

   It’s like the difference between breathing consciously and not having to notice it at all. Or someone who can pass a survival swimming test, vs someone who spends a couple hours a week in the water and has since they were a kid.

   It’s very normal for life stresses to put a temporary stop to cross-culture interests and exploration in general. Humans *need* a zone of safety to return to – that’s a lifelong thing and nothing to be ashamed of.

   All cultures have crappy parts that people don’t like – whether those people are outsiders or insiders. But the fact that this is true doesn’t make it any less painful to discover. Again and again and again, actually.

   For what it’s worth I also find Terrace House unwatchable. Reality shows are reality shows, it doesn’t matter *that* much that the drama simmers under a tighter lid. Anime… anime has been shoveling a lot of trash for the past decade or so. (It didn’t start then but the quantity and intensity have increased.) If you don’t like what’s on the catering menu it can be tough, but the classics are still there. I enjoyed Gundam 0080 recently.

   Not sure I can sell you on anime though – it *is* a ton of adults acting like children or children having to deal with adult stuff and very rarely seeming authentic about that….. actually 地球外少年少女 *did* achieve that imo. I like how the young adults feel like young adults in SHIROBAKO or Re:CREATORS (the latter is *not* realistic, it’s more like “what if a half dozen speculative fiction light novels that don’t exist had a giant crossover and it was *very* splashy. But at least it’s not “High School Story #1205-93209265”).

   But adult stories with adult characters? I’m still mourning the passing of Kon Satoshi.

   You have to know yourself and find your niche, which is true of Japanese culture in general, maybe even more so than others. And maybe that niche is too hard to find to be worth the effort.

5. Sorry, this doesn’t come across as a failure story! But sorry to hear it all feels like a waste to you. From where I sit, going from zero to living and studying in Japan in a year and a half looks impressive. The sort of fluency you feel frustrated at not yet achieving I couldn’t imagine inside a decade, let alone in one or two years.

   But you seem fluent enough to experience a culture in its unvarnished human reality. I hope you can come to appreciate what an adventurous thing you’ve achieved, even if you put the language aside to pursue other things. For that cultural education alone it’s not a waste, but it will also sit there as a foundation to build on later.

   Maybe in time your other interests will bring you back to the language with renewed enthusiasm, to connect with those Japanese speakers and writers who push back against the mainstream conservatism, sexism and racism.

6. I have also had highs and lows in my japanese learning journey though it has been quite different from your own. Sometimes we just need a bit of motivation to kick the dedication back on.

   You said your goals were to watch anime and speak with people. However most of what your studying focused on was not that, so I would suggest do more of your goals! The JLPT doesn’t focus on speaking and most of the knowledge you will acquire during studying for it will not help with watching TV.

   So here is a good alternative path that helped me; sit down and watch some anime! Put on japanese subtitles with japanese audio and start immersing. If you like Anki then start making Anki cards of sentences that have a single common (I like using the Netflix frequency list for determining this) word you don’t know (i+1/1t). When you feel down watch something easier! Watch a few episodes of japanese kids shows like Peppa Pig or Shimajiro (both free on YouTube). Obviously they won’t be fun based off of content but you’ll be so happy to understand stuff that it will be fun.

   Start talking to japanese people. Get an italki account and sign up for a lesson a week just focusing on conversation. Get a hellotalk account and make some japanese friends with similar interests. Have fun and use the language. Start with text conversations and then move to voice ones to ease the process and work some of your strong skills into your weak skills.

   You are capable of doing this, you might just need to realign your study methods with your goals. As someone who has an N2 and watches anime every day I can say that the skills do overlap but not as much as you would think. 頑張って。

7. I’m in a similar situation, I’m learning Japanese for university but I almost don’t actually see this learning going anywhere because I don’t want to go to a country so conservative and conformist.

   However, I’m trying to stay positive that if I get to an advanced enough level and go to Japan I can make friends. After all, not every Japanese is conservative, there is counterculture there.

   There are many Japanese who also don’t like the way media portrays women and all the other stereotypes, and who are not afraid to go against whats societally expected. I’ve heard many success stories recently about gaijin being able to make real friends with Japanese, not just acquaintances.

   There’s animes and other media that doesn’t have creepy or objectifiying things towards women or girls if you seek them out. Most of them do but there’s really good ones that don’t.

   In many ways Japan is still very behind other countries socially, but I also think each day people become more open-minded.