I’ve been working in Japan for a year and I thought that being immersed in the language in the office will help a lot… it does on reading but not much on conversational skills. Everyone is heavily focused on their computers the whole day that we only get to talk once every week during the weekly meeting and the occassional nomikais. Outside work is helpful though but still insufficient and that is why I recently subscribed to italki to fill that gap.
I’m a fellow Canada-dweller interested in your experience going to grad school in Japan. I’m also a Poli Sci student and I’m beginning to consider different graduate schools. While I feel the top schools here or in the US are likely more fulfilling career-wise, I’m curious about what it was like studying Poli Sci in Japan, and if you think it makes sense for a career in Japan in academia?
Thank you for sharing your experience!
This is making me feel much better about my lack of language ability since coming here in March. My first 6 weeks of work were all with gaijin too, so I spent more time speaking French than I did studying Japanese!
Pushing through the discomfort has been really difficult. Nowadays I only work 3 hours a day and I’m tired all the time. I’m slowly slowly slowly getting more comfortable speaking but I still can barely express myself. Now that I’ve got a bike and discovered the glory that is my local library, I’m going to be able to study more (no wifi in my current place 
)
As for non-Japanese speaking work, there’s always the good old immigrant fall back of dishwashing 
Hi. Simply put, its not worth coming here if you want to pursue a career in academia. I feel the level of post-grad education is much higher in Canada, USA, and Europe. Plus unless you’re a native level speaker its very unlikely you’ll get offered to teach any classes other than university level English.
My mother tounge is Serbian. I continued to speak exclusively Serbian at home and went back to Serbia every year for 2 months during the summer from the age of 15.
While I have no recollection of how I acquired the language, I would imagine complete immersion had a lot to do with it. Combine that with an easy to understand alphabet (26 characters as opposed to 2000+ in Japanese), similar word order, an undeveloped ability to express everything in Serbian, amazing TV shows with subtitles (Fresh Prince, Seinfeld, etc) and a motivation to communicate with those around me, I think its easy to imagine it happening in 6 months (over 1000 hours).
That being, I am now completely fluent in both Serbian and English.
Well, I don’t know how lucky I was with that, but I have a stable position in academia and I’m teaching classes both in Japanese and English in computer science. So, unlikely or not, it’s non-zero.
In terms of education, I have had post-graduate classes in the US, France and Japan. I felt classes in the US were the most demanding in terms of personal work, but were the most in-depth. Classes I had in France were very good at introducing different fields, so you got a great overview, but leaving to you the task of going deeper. Japan… was neither of those things. First of all, there was no particular vision in terms of cursus. Basically every professor is teaching a couple of classes related to their research and that’s it. That being said, that’s because the emphasis in Japan is on your own research project. Most of your learning is supposed to come from hands-on experience, with classes just giving you some general knowledge about other things.
So, yeah, I don’t think classes in Japan are worth it on their own. However, having a degree from a Japanese university opens a lot of doors here, much more than a degree from a foreign university despite its (in my experience) objectively better classes.
Thank you for sharing your story! There’s a lot to learn from experiences of others because often the gravity of learning in Japan gets underestimated.
I’d like to add that necessity brings about the need to learn. Being in a large city working as an English teacher, makes utilizing what you learn difficult. Compound that with people inadvertently stealing your opportunities to speak in Japanese by purposefully interacting with you in English when you go out because they were trying to be accommodating. It can be quite frustrating.
I believe that working out in a small countryside city was a godsend for me because I had to learn Japanese. The many people in my city couldn’t engage with me in English beyond very rudimentary communication. I can’t recommend my experience for everyone because it was tough and isolating for a good chunk of time. And as the OP says it takes a remarkable amount of discipline dedicate oneself to studying. Some of my former colleagues are a testament to being stunted in their communicating ability despite living in the same city.
Yeah this is a big issue. I’m trapped in the foreigner bubble right now. You have to go out of your way to escape it.
@CapeSmasher My experience as well. I’ve been doing a Masters student research exchange and the whole laboratory/research thing here is a joke. Same goes for the degree studies. Much more difficult and fulfilling in Europe.
Hi there! This topic is very interesting, thank you all for your contributions !
As a lot of you have did, I come to Tokyo in september to study in an exchange programm at the university. I would be happy to use your knowledge to benefit from this experience! Do you have some advice for escaping the foreigner bubble, since I will be studying with other foreigner ? I think that I will try to make japanese friends but I don’t know if it will be enough ?
morteasd, what was your field of study ? 
The easy way: find a hobby. Anything will do, since people you will be practicing with will be, statistically, mostly Japanese.
(Well, it will do as long as it involves going to a place where there are people. Manking gunpla all alone in your room won’t get you anywhere)
Joining some kind of club is a good idea. I thought it would take too much time but now I kind of regret it. Depending on your Japanese level it can be a pain to stay on top of the information (you get tons of emails), so it would be best if there are some people who can maybe take care of you. If it’s a martial arts club I don’t think it’s a problem. I joined the acapella club but I was so confused of all the info and activities I ended up not being that active and didn’t make that many good friends. You have to be active in reaching out, no-one is going to necessarily hold your hand all the way! Sometimes it can feel like you have to push socially bit but if you don’t it can be hard to get to know people.
It is a good idea to try to escape the foreigner bubble, but it’s important to make those connections, too. It is fun to have friends all over the world, and you have a lot in common so it can be a bonding experience.
I study computer science. Basically I have 50% research and 50% japanese and other classes. Oh wait make that research maybe 10%. Basically I have no idea what I have to do and neither has the professor, so I’m mostly just reading research papers ALONE. That’s I guess how the lab works here. There is a weekly meeting but it’s in Japanese and I still can’t follow at all, so I just doze off there for 2 hours xD I had to pick a topic in the beginning but both me and my professor ended up being very passive so I didn’t really do much. Even though I wanted to focus mostly on the culture experience, it would have been nice to do something of merit…
Thank you for your answer! I’ll try to pick a club if something interest me !
Otherwise I have a japanese penpal from when I was in highschool, we planned to meet again, I hope it will allow me to meet japanese as well!
I think I will have the same research thing as you have, are you at the Tokyo university or is it something that most japanese university do ?
I’m not in Tokyo, but I have friends who have been there as research students and their experience reflects mine. Depending on the professor, though, it can vary how many hours they expect you to be at the lab. Mine didn’t really care, but there is the concept of ‘facetime’. As in all my labmates stay really late at the lab to look good but in reality they are just watching anime or playing games 
Great post, thank you @neosim
I’ve been in Japan for about 8 years, abroad for well over 20, and yep, it’s true, it’s impossible to learn through osmosis. I have spent most of my adult life in Asia, in countries where I don’t speak the language, and I have become completely comfortable with that. Sometimes, on the rare times I go back to England, the biggest culture shock comes when I can actually understand what people are saying all around me! My brain just can’t cope! It’s both information overload, and feels all so shockingly intimate to understand what strangers are saying!
Well done you. I was an English teacher for over two decades and my brain now has totally rotted. I had to stop due to health issues a couple of years ago, and worked as a cleaner and then a tour guide. Now I’m back to part-time teaching and the brain rot continues. I started studying Japanese two years ago when I suddenly needed it for the first time in my life, but I have made very little progress. The brain really is damaged! Well done you on being much more sensible!
And while I’m talking about the many mistakes of marcusp…
That really is my main hobby! 
If by this you mean “hanging around natives and not putting any effort in learning the language” then yeah osmosis doesn’t work. But there’s definitely merit in being around natives and being forced to communicate in the target language. Combine that with some self-study and you are on your way to success. Of course if you just resort to using English it won’t get you far. I think most people who pickup English have even done most of their learning through just ‘osmosis’, whatever the definition is.
Oh yes, all true! By osmosis I meant, just hearing the language but making no effort to learn it.
Correction:
* won’t get you anywhere in terms of socializing with people (I assume).
This was a fantastic read. I would love to hear more about your time in Japan. I bet you have some amazing stories. Our levels are probably fairly similar, i grew upg up in a Japanese household… my father pretty much made it a priority. Lived In Tokyo on and off for a while, now in the states but still trying to study daily. I would say conversational as well. Anyway, hope to catch up sometime!