Living in Japan. Which membership makes sense?

Again, I’m not the main breadwinner. My life is very different from my spouse’s. ESID is real. Depending on where you are (I’m in a city in Kansai) you could have a great time or a challenging one (but really, most likely both regardless). Either way, if you are coming here (or plan to) learning the language will be an immense help. I’m constantly amazed at how much I have to use it here. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for people who don’t know any English or Japanese.

But this is an incredible country that–for me anyway–seems to give back to you what you put into it. If one comes here with a good attitude and leaves those hard-earned expectations and assumptions at home one will thrive. If one is constantly wondering why passersby won’t make eye contact and there’s no small talk and "why on earth can’t they accommodate this small change in plans . . . " then it’s not exactly bound to be a good fit. I’m a white dude with a rudimentary knowledge of the language and I’ve definitely been turned away at restaurants because they just didn’t want to deal with me. It happens. And sure, I got mad at first, but I realized this isn’t my house and I didn’t make the rules. Plus, there were fifteen other restaurants on the same street willing to make a nice meal for me. :grinning:

This is all stuff that anyone could crib from reading the myriad blogs on the subject, but I’ve found it to be pretty spot on.

がんばって!

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Thanks for your encouragement. It’s true, I know about 250 kanji and 700 vocab words and lots of grammar. But in my classes they didn’t focus much on the onyomi. So this course has been a huge eye-opener for me, as there are so many compounds used everywhere for everything.

Side note, I found myself stumbling over words like ともだち and たべました in the vocab context sentences here because I’m so used to seeing them in kanji. I remember thinking “Why does every sentence have to have kanji! What do they have against hiragana?” So I see things like that and I realize the levels I’m climbing naturally.

So all that said, even knowing the kanji I know I will be learning roughly a whole other half of the picture moving forward.

I have about one day left of level 3 so I’ll most likely get a month and then blast into lifetime when the crabigator opens the hole in the heavens. :smile:

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I am a current teacher in Japan now, so if you have any specific questions or worries let me know.

How come you were turned down by a restaurant, what exactly made it hard to deal with you?

I’d highly suggest a lifetime membership, if you can afford it.

I can’t say exactly. They shooed me away. Said they were full and when I asked if I could come back later they said it would still be full. I took that as “please find another Okonomiyaki place”.

Happens a lot here (not necessarily to me but it’s well documented).

People just don’t want to have to deal with foreigners for any number of reasons. Maybe they don’t have an English menu. Maybe they have had bad experiences with foreigners before. Not sure.

Like I said, it stung but I’m over it.

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I definitely know that feel. I’m still a little miffed at a restaurant down in Taiji that did that to me.

Just for sake of closure, I took the leap. Lifetime, baby! ー代よ!

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