I’m considering getting certified to teach English in Japan and would love to live/work somewhere that may be easier to make friends close to my age (34). Additionally, if you live in Japan and wanna try being friends let me know. I’m also trying to teach myself Japanese.
6 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
—
**34 Where’s a good place to live for young adults?**
I’m considering getting certified to teach English in Japan and would love to live/work somewhere that may be easier to make friends close to my age (34). Additionally, if you live in Japan and wanna try being friends let me know. I’m also trying to teach myself Japanese.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/movingtojapan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’m considering the same.
I’d say it really depends, Osaka seems like the local there are generally a lot more talkative towards foreigners (based on basic general online information).
I guess there’s young people everywhere, especially major cities, just depends where you look and go I suppose.
Rural Japan is likely mainly older people though due to the declining population.
Were you thinking of doing it through Eikawa or ALT dispatch? I used to do ALT work a long time ago speaking from experience, if you go the ALT route you unfortunately won’t have much guarantee you’ll be placed where you want to be. They often ask you for your top 3 but it’s common for the top 3 to be something like Sapporo Tokyo and Osaka. Still it could be possible and I’ve seen people get their desired placements. Just account for the fact that they don’t have an obligation to place you where you want to be. This you may find is a reoccurring theme in that industry
Others are placed in the countryside. The best advice would be if you’re dead set on doing this, come in as an English teacher to wherever and try and apply to a different company (maybe a smaller school) in the city of your preference.
You could totally directly apply to those schools but they might not be actively recruiting from abroad.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who considers 34 a young adult (because I’m 34 lol). I chose Saitama because I wanted to settle into a place that’s comfortable. I know it gets a bad rap for being “boring” but honestly as a dad and husband and teacher who works a lot, boring is totally fine. If I wanna explore I’ll get on the train with the fam and go somewhere. Plus the cost of living is pretty good for being so close to Tokyo.
I also considered Nagoya but all my friends from my other ESL adventures in China and the US are in Tokyo so I wanna stay close to them
Fukuoka is also a great place for young adults- the city is growing and there seems to be a fair amount of diversity.
Well.
1 – You don’t need any certificate to teach English in Japan. You just need to have 12 years of education in English for the ALT visa. You might be able to swing it without that if you do Eikaiwa but it’s a hit or miss. Of course you need to get hired too.
2 – Making friends past 30 in Japan is a huge challenge, especially if your Japanese isn’t even conversational yet. You can try to make friends with other English speaking foreigners which may be more receptive, and are more common in Tokyo and Osaka. Finding a job in these places might be harder as a lot of people want to teach there. Also cost of living is higher but wages are the same.
Finally, from my quick research about CIEE they don’t even have any positions in Japan, so not sure how you’re planning to go through them.
Check out r/teachinginjapan in case you haven’t yet.