Unlike those who want to learn Japanese because of cultural interests or simply because they like the language, if you’re like me and of Japanese descent, there can be something of an obligation to learn, especially if you have family members who speak to you only in Japanese. But this makes our motivation much different from those who are learning as a hobby. For me, there are times where there’s not a lot of fun to be had, or an inherent interest driving me. This makes the difficulty not only that which comes with language learning, but sometimes an intense emotional one as well. I am wondering how others deal with it.
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I’m not Nikkei but I was in a similar situation with Spanish and this question imo could be directed to any group of people whose family speak a foreign language. Basically I would get frustrated or even ashamed at my “embarrassingly” bad Spanish. Learning wasn’t that fun, especially when I kept messing up basic grammar points. What really worked for me was doing a lotttt of input (music, dramas and eventually reading) and then look up grammar points or words I didn’t understand as I went and plug them into Anki. I exclusively watched Spanish dramas, listened to Spanish music (and always looked up lyrics) etc for a year and now I’m basically fluent in Spanish. This also helped me culturally connect with my family too, two birds with one stone!
Depending on how much Japanese you knew just from your family, the above method can be super successful and rewarding since you’ve been absorbing a lot of input throughout your life. But if you’re like a 4th generation Nikkei and nobody speaks Japanese of course you’ll have a different experience but you mentioned you have family who only speaks to you in Japanese so I figured my experience could help.
I’m like you in terms of being Nikkei and feeling that family obligation, though I guess what helped was that I *also* developed a lot of cultural interests, kind of simultaneously with the language learning. And both types of study, linguistic and not, helped me to understand my family better and communicate with them better, so it kind of all felt like one nice sense-making package. I know that’s not going to be the case for everyone, but it’s a lot of what made it more rewarding for me, and I think is at least worth looking into!
For a second, I got my eyes crossed reading the title of your post and thought it was going to be about frustration trying to learn to read the 日経新聞 in Japanese. (I was all ready to suggest that you comfort yourself with the knowledge that many young Japanese natives do not read the 日経 and would probably struggle to understand it if they tried.)
I realize now that I’m blind, so I’ll defer to other people who might be in the same situation as you (or a similar one).
I will say, though, that while I suspect the increased pressure and demands put upon you must indeed be overwhelming at times, you can also (ideally) use all this to your advantage, as you will have both more focused goals and more opportunities to make use of your language skills as you develop them (compared to someone who is just learning as a hobby and/or has no Japanese native family members or friends to speak to).
Not really an obligation for me to learn, but I had this sort of embarrassment inside me whenever people ask whats the meaning of this and that and you don’t know the answer since they just assume you know how to speak because of your name. What’s more embarrassing for me before was seeing other people who didn’t have Japanese blood in them speak the language fluently and that sort of motivated me to study the language diligently.
At first, my goal was just to understand the context of what people are saying in movies/dramas, then it turned to understanding them without english subtitles until eventually got more curious on learning the native way of speaking the language. Of course, I’m still far from being a native speaker and there were some hiccups along the way, but as much as possible, I still try to immerse myself with different content and try to converse with native speakers that I get to meet.
For me, it’s not fun, but it’s a dying language in our family, as my great aunt is the only fluent one. If I hear Japanese, I can understand it, but I can only respond in English. I am frustrated that I can’t speak properly, but its more frustrating that I’m an introvert.
I’ll watch Japanese YouTubers, movies dubbed in Japanese, and even Japanese language shorts on instagram, but I know my real problem is speaking. I have to break out of my shell.
I had to put some distance, both geographical and temporal. Also making it my choice to learn, not being forced.
When I was really young, I went to Saturday Japanese school as a kid, as well as classes at our local Japanese church, and I actually didn’t mind it but when my father got a new job, we moved so I stopped going.
Eventually as I grew into my teen years, I started using English more at home when replying back to my parents. I avoided anything Japanese-related outside of the home, except when visiting family in Japan when I had no choice but to speak Japanese. I could tell my father wanted me to keep improving Japanese but I absolutely did not want to study it at all.
It wasn’t really until college, when I moved away from home, that I started to embrace being Japanese but I didn’t even realize I was doing it at first.
In some of my classes, I sometimes saw struggling foreign exchange students from Japan looking totally lost and dejected after every lecture, like in my film theory or philosophy classes. After class one day, I approached them, and offered to help, like meeting once a week so I could tutor them for free.
I was shocked by their reaction. They were so surprised that another student would be willing help them and they became emotional. One Japanese girl actually broke down and started crying, as she was the brink of quitting school and moving back to Japan.
Helping them with English, especially academic English, then sparked a desire for me to improve my Japanese so I could better communicate with them, so I started studying on my own as well as taking Japanese classes. Plus it was the first time I had made Japanese friends on my own, not someone related to me or other Nikkeijin.
While there were other Nikkeijin like me in the Japanese classes, it was actually being around non-Nikkeijin who were really excited about Japanese, that reinvigorated me. Their passion and enthusiasm rubbed off on me, and I made good friends with them. If it weren’t for the Japanese class, I would have never met them because they were outside of my major. I also started hanging out with my Japanese teachers during teacher office hours, and even visited them in Japan while backpacking on my own — which was the first time I had gone to Japan without my family, and which was really liberating in a way.
So I totally understand the emotional block you have. For me, I just needed time and space. It also started with empathy, seeing a Japanese person struggle with English. Then hanging out with Japanese natives and wanting to improve my janky-level of Japanese, and rekindling the joy of learning language by being around with other language learners. I often could provide some cultural context to help them learn better too.
Maybe you could do the same? Rather than think of Japanese as work, are there Japanese people you can befriend, so using Japanese starts to feel fun rather than an obligation?
If you live in a large city in the US, do they have a Japanese sister city exchange program? Often times host family in the US could appreciate the help to entertain their Japanese exchange students. Here’s a [list of sister cities](https://www.clair.or.jp/e/exchange/shimai/countries/detail/62).
You could also find friends virtually. At the time, I also started playing online video games in Japanese, and met people online, like in MMO games like Final Fantasy. I joined a Japanese guild and they were really accepting of the fact my Japanese wasn’t perfect, and actually liked the fact an outsider was in their guild, asking me a ton of questions about the US.