Just a little background.
I studied college here and before my second year could start, COVID struck and it all went down hill from there. I was N3/N4 by the end of my first year and my level has stagnated since then. I couldn’t practice my Japanese because all my Japanese friends went home to the countryside during the peak of the pandemic and all classes became remote. Eventually went home because there was no purpose in just staying in my apartment paying loads of money when I can take my online classes back home and also depression from being alone in Tokyo. My Japanese classes lost its appeal as everything became memorize and repeat.
Fast forward to last year, I came back here to graduate. I took the JLPT N3 and passed but haven’t touched my studies since then because of job hunting. My reading and writing levels are okay but my conversational level is horrendous. I’m going to work full-time as an engineer and everyone speaks English in the office. I’m worried that my Japanese level is going to be worse. I really want to be fluent but considering I’m going to work full-time, I can’t think of an efficient way to improve.
To those who studied Japanese and became conversationally fluent while working full-time, how did you do it? I was thinking of a nighttime language school but I might die of exhaustion.
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I learned Japanese mostly by self-study. I did online courses from Rosetta Stone and Rocket Languages and I dabble in Duolingo these days. My husband is Japanese but fluent in English so he hasn’t been all that helpful in my Japanese progress. I watch Japanese TV shows and speak Japanese with the members of my temple when I go there. My progress has been slow but steady because I never give up.
I use Japanese at work because most of my colleagues are Japanese…well there are some foreigners as well, but all speak Japanese
Nobody speaks any English at my work. I make notes of work related words or phrases they use, revise them later on, and try to use them in my own words. I don’t have the free time or interest to spend hours every week studying and going for N1 or something. But that little bit at a time helps me a lot. I did study for about 5 years before I came to Japan, but didn’t really have a chance to speak. I’ve improved a lot faster since using every day.
Working in an all Japanese environment was the way to go
I know it sucks using the little free time you have to study, but there’s no way around it 🙁 If you keep at it and manage to give it at least 30 or 40 min. a day you should see improvement sooner or later.
Buy an N2 textbook and study through it at your own pace. Use flashcard apps to drill vocabulary on the train or after lunch. Go to Japanese kyōshitsu (I used to go to one near Asakusa in Tokyo, it was volunteers helping foreigners with their Japanese, it was really fun!) in your area.
It can be done!
Consistency is king. Doing SOMETHING is better than doing nothing – even if it’s just 30 minutes a day. My recommendations:
Learning:
1. Find a show you like and watch it in Japanese with Japanese subtitles. Any words you don’t know, look them up. I use Netflix with Language Reactor, and 10Reader extension for chrome. This makes it really easy to look up words. It will feel less like “studying”. Don’t be picky on the show. Just try anything. You’d be surprised what interests you.
2. Use a SRS like anki to reinforce your vocab.
Speaking
1. Self monologue. Just as you might “think outloud” in English. Doing so in Japanese will get you extra speaking time.
2. Shadowing a youtuber you like. Mimmick their intonation and mannerisms
3. Speak Japanese to your coworkers even if they respond in English. That or find a coworker who would be willing to converse with you in Japanese.
Most don’t.
If you are in Japan, the best way to get listening comprehension in is to watch the news and other TV shows. If you don’t have a TV, then go on to YouTube and search something you’re interested in, let’s say photography, and listen to the videos that are in Japanese. You don’t need to understand everything, make a habit of listening to Japanese as much as you can.
For reading, aside from JLPT texts, look for short news articles from Mainichi or whatever free ones are online. Look up the words you don’t know, read the article out loud, and what helped me was writing out the articles by hand. Short, one paragraph ones. I look at the sentence and then write it out. Look at the next sentence, write it out, and so on.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Make it your life. Watch movies or shows, read articles or books, play games, do a sport, talk with random people. You won’t feel it, but you will get better.
Because you’re not going to get better without doing anything. You can make the excuse ‘couldn’t practice’ all you want but that just means you didn’t use it. Japan isn’t going to wait for you.
For example, I watch shows when I run on the treadmill instead of staring at the wall. That’s a good 30-40 minutes used to its maximum potential. I read as much as I can on the train, especially in the mornings. Another good hour used instead of wasted. I find ways like this to use it wherever I can.
Never went to language school, worked since coming here, and somehow managed to pass N1. Still suck, but I suck less than most people. I guess people trust me at my job. Some of them only speak English to some of the foreigners, but when they talk to me they only speak Japanese. You look for these small wins and motivate yourself for the next hurdle.
Although, after all the good things it is quite a bit sad. I haven’t watched English shows or dramas in a really long time. People I started learning Japanese with all gave up. Whenever I feel like I learned something awesome I have nobody to share it to. But that is what it means to learn this language.