I recently moved to Japan, which was actually never the plan. My wife was supposed to move from Japan to live with me in Denmark, but danish immigration authorities made it so impossible for us that I had to be the one to pack my bags.
The problem is that I never had much time to prepare for a life in Japan, especially not the language.
I am currently working as a fullstack developer for a danish company that allow me to work remotely from Japan, but I have to stick with the danish time schedule, meaning I work from 16:00 to 00:00.
I thought this would be a great opportunity to take japanese classes, as most of them end before 16:00, and my goal is to learn the language and hopefully land a local job.
I am just worried, because with both studies and work I’m looking at a 16-15 hour daily schedule where I can’t really be there for my wife, and there is also my own health to think about.
My wife have suggested many times that I become a house-husband, but I simply won’t put that financial burden on her shoulders.
So I wanna ask those of you who studied Japanese while working in Japan, how did you manage it? Any useful tips?
21 comments
I had a similar schedule for a bit. I tried a few things but had the best results with online one-on-one lessons with a tutor who shared a similar time schedule. Had an hour-long lesson around work 3x a week and did writing/grammar activities in the middle or chatted with family/neighbors for practice. Eventually the split time zones got too tough for my family so I got a local job and switched to night group lessons. Progress for me was way slower when working, but if you focus on the listening/speaking skills life in general gets so much easier. Good luck!
Check in your city ward, they should have affordable Japanese courses. I went to shinagawa office and payed 7000¥ for 2 hrs/2 days a week.
My problem was different, I did not had much time to study by myself because of workload and being tired.
In my cases they had like 3 options for classes, one is from 10-12 or 12-2 I don’t remember.
2hr 2 days a week might not be much but is something.
I’ve always done private lessons; once a week working around my own schedule. I prefer that as I can get the material tailored to exactly what I need
I’m very lucky in that I can use my down time at work (both my at my previous and now current job) to study or work on homework, though I acknowledge that most people can’t get away with doing that
In my city, the local government has organized a free Nihonggo class twice a week for 2 hours composed of volunteer Japanese teachers. This is because there are a lot of foreigners here in my hometown. I suggest you should ask the city hall about it if they have any because it will save you money
I am currently working full time and learning Japanese; in a kinda similar situation in that I was never expecting to live here.
I would strongly recommend starting with self guided study and I assume your wife can help for speaking practise at least for the first few months.
Until you know your alphabets; your first hundred kanjis and basic grammar and vocab I don’t think a language school level commitment is worth it.
It’s not worth committing time and money to repeat Ka Ki Ku Ke Ko or Watashi Wa Bob Desu In front of an instructor.
Once you get the basics down then look at other paid options such as a private tutor or a class.
Hire a tutor via iTalki. Use Duolingo. Study hiragana, katakana, and kanji flashcards. Watch anime. There are so many ways to study!
I was in a similar situation as you. I came here to meet someone in person that I originally met online and ended up staying. I knew almost nothing about Japan prior to that and had no Japanese language skills at all. I started working almost as soon as I arrived, so my time was also limited. I did a lot of self-study at first but later found a small language school that gave lessons by appointment, so I could schedule lessons based on my work schedule. Between the private lessons and all the self-study courses I could find I managed to become functional in Japanese.
If you have the energy to do language school full time for a year or too your life in Japan will become significantly easier. As for the local job, do yourself a favour and aim for higher paying international firms. English + Japanese + hard skills is less common than what you might think.
Hire a tutor.
Many language schools are either very brutal as they just try to grind you out or too lax.
Study on your own following the normal methods on /r/LearnJapanese, Genki and Core and whatnot to start. Hire a tutor here and there to help guide you along and give advice.
But to be honest, as someone who works in a Japanese environment, if you’re starting from zero, it’ll take a long time to get to business-Japanese level. And there are plenty of companies out there looking for *experienced* devs who’ll place you in an English environment.
I learned Japanese from 0 in Japan while working full time. My advice is to start small then add on more study time as you feel you’re able to. Trying to jump straight into an intensive program/study schedule is a great way to burn yourself out.
If you haven’t already, take a couple days and cram hiragana and katakana into your brain. Most textbooks will expect you to learn them before you even start. It’ll also make your daily life so much easier
My advice would be to find a community based class that runs once or twice a week. Usually your local community center or international exchange group will run some for free or super cheap. If you’re feeling pretty good, try adding on some self studying. You can buy a different textbook from the one that you’re using in class to do more practice problems. Or you can use a program like WaniKani (or anki since everyone but me seems to like it lol) to work on kanji. If you’re still feeling good, you can add in a personal tutoring session. You can even do tutoring online via sites like italki
Since you’ll be working in an all Danish (or English?) enviornment, it’ll be important for you to get out of the house and get regular exposure to Japanese. Even just going to a Cafe and (in a not-creepy way) eavesdropping on the people around you. You won’t understand what they’re saying, but do you hear them using です? How about ending their sentences with ね or よ? Can you hear them say simple words that you do know like わたし、これ、コーヒー ect? This type of eavesdropping is a great way to practice learning to pick out key words from a string of complicated Japanese. That’s an important skill. When you get some basic conversation skills down, look into if there’s interest groups you can join, either alone or together with your wife
Generally you don’t want to use your spouse as a language teacher. People generally suck at teaching their native language and it can put strain on the relationship. However, something your wife can help you with is conversation practice. A simple thing you can do is when you talk to your wife, try to say the things you know how to say in Japanese. Say everything else in English (or Danish if you speak to each other in Danish). As you keep studying and improving, the things you know how to say will increase and the percentage what you say that’s in Japanese will also increase. I did this with a Japanese friend and over the course of a few years we went from conversations 100% in English to conversations 100% in Japanese
I mean like… it is quite easy. Especially while you take online courses. Apps are also useful as a additional complementary learning. I can recommend Bunpro (paid), ringotan (free) and wanikani (paid)
I personally did part time classes twice a week while working full time.
So my day would look like:
Work: 10:00 – 19:00
Quick dinner + head to school: 19:00 – 19:30ish
Japanese class: 19:40 – 20:30
Time was quite short in between. I was lucky that my Japanese school was really close to my place of work at the time, but the rush to transit to school on time was a bit stressful. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do full time language studies on top of a full time job since I valued my personal time quite a lot.
So yeah, part time or even weekend classes would be the way to go in my opinion. Also, it depends on how long your classes are each day. Maybe an hour class every day would be more doable, or multi hour long classes only a few times a week?
Pickup on of the major textbooks like Genki. There are YouTube channels that will walk you through the chapters. iTalki is a great way to find a tutor/teacher that will give you additional instruction or review the textbook with you. Get out and talk to people. This is a marathon my friend and the rewards are sweet.
Have you considered a tutor? That will let you do it on your own time and still have a teacher
I worked the overnight shift and attended graduate school in the afternoons years ago: worked from 21:00 to 04:00 (US hours), moved closer to work so I could bicycle home, then slept until 14:00 or 15:00 and took classes in the afternoons. I had a very quiet job, so it was perfect.
You have the *ideal* schedule for this kind of thing: mornings *and* early afternoons free! Study Japanese in the middle of the day, come home to your wife and talk about the things you learned (and listen to her advice and pointers), then go do your job.
I think you’ll enjoy that kind of life; far more than if you had to get up early in the morning and work all day, then try to focus on Japanese in the evenings. Your wife will be really happy to see your Japanese make progress, too.
If you are starting from zero, why not limit your in-person/in-class sessions to one a week and do self study?
Others have described methods for self-study and picking one is maybe a separate discussion. But I think that self study might be best your stage (the other stage when it is suitable is at the opposite end of the skill spectrum, imo).
Edit: I think since it debuted Wanikani is popular for self-study from zero. Pair with a good anki routine and you can get reading. Listening practice can be done solo as well.
The other skills need output. Speaking needs a partner and writing requires you to write, write, and write more (by hand, with paper and pencil). For both the input of a native speaker and trained educator is necessary so it’s here that you might focus your in-person/in-classroom aims.
If you can sell study, udemy has courses that go on sale every so often. I got some N3 and N2 courses for ¥1500 each recently but right now they’re like ¥20k full price
I’d get a private tutor. Might be slightly more expensive, but it’s faster and better. If you’re in Kyoto, I have a great tutor I can put you in touch with.
With your hours, if you are very disciplined, you could attend a full-on university language school. When I went to the Nanzan Bekka program, the hours were from 8 to noon, I think. You’ll need another four hours to study at home. You’ll be doing nothing but work, study and sleep for two years, but gosh, it’ll set you up. Do it before you have kids.
Really invest in quality weekends with your wife, and maybe she can help you study for an hour (which would give you an hour of not-so-quality time during the week, but may help you cut the studying by an hour because you have help).
You could look into your local language schools. While I was working, I went to language school a couple days per week. I went to a no-frills school that was more geared toward students who were looking to enter university or work internationally as managers at Japanese factories overseas. It was a tough curriculum, but well worth the money. I felt like I learned more there than in several years of studying, especially since they had a lot of topics to learn from. They were also super flexible with my work schedule, that would fluctuate during busy seasons.
I would make sure to stay away from the schools that are more catered to “fun Japan”, since I have heard that they do not focus as much on studies.
I already know Japanese, but I study Chinese on my lunch breaks using italki. You can adjust the time for your schedule, as well as how long.
If you go for one hour a couple times a week, it’ll take a long time to learn Japanese, but it’s best to study your materials well rather than try to cram it in all at once.
I work full time and can honestly only mentally handle 2 1 hour sessions a week. Try to experiment and see what works for you. Good luck!
Edit: also don’t give up! I think people underestimate how long it takes to get high proficiency in a language. It took me ten years of study to get a translation job I wanted.