Edit: Thanks you for advice. I was at the university twice, and only managed to last one year each time. I lost a lot of money because of that and I’m not so eager to try again. Also, in my country there are no four years universities, it’s either three or five. Currently I’m also working full-time with a weird schedule, sometimes my shifts are 6 hours, sometimes 11 hours so I physically can’t manage both job and uni. I plan to get a work&travel visa next year to experience living in Japan in terms of costs of food, housing and I’ll try to get some part time job, naively hoping for getting one and even maybe getting working visa if my employer likes me.
What languages are in high demand in Japan but not many people there can speak them? I plan to move to Japan but I’m feeling unsure about possibilities of getting a job here, as a foreigner especially. I have no skills that can help me, I can’t also get an IT job. What’s worst I didn’t graduate from college and I’m not a native English speaker – these two I see the most often as a requirements for job offers. ATM I speak obviously English (I think I’m somewhat fluent, but I also feel like that’s too strong of a word), my native language (one of the Slavic group) and kind of middle level Japanese (I understand, I can read, write a little bit, but Im awful at carrying on a conversation). I want to have something more up my sleeve.
Also, do I really need to graduate from university to become a language teacher? And are the international language certificates of any good? I plan to get Japanese one and English one. Can that help too?
12 comments
To answer the question in your first sentence, other than English….chinese. however, if you aren’t a citizen of the country that’s considered “native” of that language, getting a visa to teach will be hard
>I didn’t graduate from college
I’m gonna stop you right there. Without a college degree, you have basically no chance.
The way I see it…
– Native level fluency in Japanese is assumed knowledge for most jobs (even ones that pay very little).
– For business, English and Mandarin are probably gonna be useful. Woulda said Russian too (at least in my town – on the Japan Sea side with big ports) before they went and invaded Ukraine. Korean maybe?
– Without native-level Japanese and some sorta qualification, your range of jobs is gonna be pretty limited unless (for example) you can get a job overseas, then get a transfer/posting to Japan. As an example one friend is an IT recruiter (hired in the USA & quite senior before being transferred) and another owns a restaurant (met his Japanese wife abroad, married and then they took-over her family’s restaurant). There’s also US soldiers and the like (most would be ‘untrained’ from a university perspective but I’m guessing to you’d have to achieve a fair bit & get a few promotions before getting posted to Japan). The Russians that I’ve met mostly own shipping / logistics companies if that’s of any help.
Where there’s a will, there’s always a way. Good luck!
No degree, no work experience? No chance of getting a visa.
Unless you are eligible for working holiday visa. Or get married.
You might be able to come as a student.
You need a 4 year university degree to get a visa for Japan.
Unless:
-you marry a Japanese national
-can come on a “short” term working holiday visa program
-have some kind of skill with enough experience that a company would then hire and sponsor you
Otherwise its going to be pretty dang tough.
I agree with what others have said. May I ask why you’re planning to move to Japan? As for other languages, I have a little side-gig teaching a few students Korean, but that came through getting to know parents in my town and finding out their kids were interested in learning the language. It wouldn’t be nearly enough to live on.
I see you’ve edited your post heavily, but it doesn’t change the problem at hand; the bachelors degree is a must. No ifs, no buts. It’s not an employer issue, it’s an immigration office issue; immigration doesn’t see bachelors (or specialised qualifications, in the case of the engineering/humanities visa)? Immigration doesn’t issue a visa. End of story.
International language certificates, TEFL etc. aren’t worth squat. They’re certainly not worth enough to match a bachelors.
Now, there is one option, but it will cost far more money than going to uni in your country, and is *far* riskier. Coming as a student, naturally, doesn’t require a bachelors degree. This is true as well for long term language schools. And you can transfer. Meaning that you can spend two years at a language school, and then go to uni in Japan.
Yet even in that scenario, you can’t bypass the uni stage, so you’ll have to go sooner or later. So if I’m being honest, either suck it up and go to uni in your own country (or somewhere cheaper. I hear Romania is nice and the tuition is a fraction of the UK/US prices) or accept that you don’t fulfill the visa requirements.
edit: added to visa requirements. Not relevant to the education visa, which doesn’t have that option listed, and isn’t really a shortcut, but it’s there.
[deleted]
Chinese or spanish but you need a degree..
Your update says you hope your work and travel visa can lead to a work visa. It literally CANT unless you have a bachelor/college degree. It’s hard coded into 99% of their working visas.
The “four year degree” is not actually correct. It depends on the country. I was accepted with an Australian Bachelors degree which is 24 units. These are three year degrees in Oz.
You just need an accepted university degree.
Degrees don’t normally show the time it took – just the units completed to gain it.
My advice. Work towards your goal of getting a degree.
I did while working full time with four kids.
But – don’t focus on ALT. Look to other maybe better options such as business start up options.
Keep in mind that Japan does not want immigrants. They are content with a homogeneous non changing society so you will always be the outsider. You need to be accepting of this.
Good luck.