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You miss so much of Japan w/o knowing Japanese. Good thing that it's pretty easy to pick up and the JLPT N5 - N1 is really a great standard to compare against a

You miss so much of Japan w/o knowing Japanese. Good thing that it's pretty easy to pick up and the JLPT N5 - N1 is really a great standard to compare against and see where you land. I lived in Tokyo for a year and passed JLPT N3 with a breeze. Bars are private and intimate, if you know how to speak Japanese, a world really opens in front of you and you easily make friends. Especially if you enjoy Japanese music. Try it! Especially w/ some of your favorite Japanese songs. You'll be surprised how quickly you'll pick it up!

krackers 6y ago
>Good thing that it's pretty easy I think you're underselling the difficulty a bit considering that Japanese is in the hardest class of languages as ranked by FSI [1]. Granted this probably includes literacy as well; if you only want to learn the spoken aspects it's probably not much harder than the category III languages. [1] https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/ https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/
- toyg 6y ago
  The spoken aspect is really easy, by European standards, but you need a ton of practice to re-learn the entire vocabulary from scratch - no hints, no guesses. That requires a lot of patient effort, for our modern attention-deficit-by-default sensibilites.
spacechild1 6y ago
“it's pretty easy to pick up“ - “You'll be surprised how quickly you'll pick it“ - “passed JLPT N3 with a breeze.“ Good for you, but this doesn't quite match the experience of the average person trying to learn the language (like me) ;-)
lmiller1990 6y ago
I agree with the other responses to this comment. Many people who I know who passed N{1..5} say things like "It wasn't too bad", "It took me a few years"... I think a lot of people who have learned a second language to a high level of proficiency forget the struggle and difficulties. I passed N1 many years ago and am now very fluent, but the difficultly of transitioning to "real life" Japanese, even after passing N2, was very real. It took me around 5 years to pass N2 (without living in Japan, just studying and practising with whoever I found find). Even after passing N1, I still found it super tough to forge real friendships for quite some time after, since I would often struggle to say what I wanted to. I don't mean "haha, the weather is nice", but the actual interesting conversations you might want to have (for me this was mainly about software, for example). This pace of progression is probably not unusual. Learning a language is hard. To anyone else trying to learn Japanese who might be struggling, you can do it! I never experienced the "you'll pick it up", "it'll just click" moment - I just sucked for a long time, then progressively sucked less. I think the key is to accept you suck and put yourself out there anyway, and keep speaking and learning as much as you can. Oddly enough, I knew I was pretty fluent when people stop complementing or been impressed by your fluency. To the first line your comment, though, I definitely agree - without knowing the local language in most countries (especially somewhere like Japan with a very low level of English literacy) it is difficult to really experience culture.
RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 6y ago
I'm not trying to disparage OP's experience and accomplishment, but just trying to give a counter PoV for casual HN readers on the subject. As many sibling posts have already pointed out, passing JLPT is not trivial for many people. Also N3 level is (IMHO at best) intermediate[0] proficiency and still quite far from fluency. Here's an example of "random" Japanese grade schoolers solving JLPT N3 questions with ease. That said, just like any subject, language acquisition talents vary from person to person, and no doubt OP is among the more gifted. tl; dr: do not introduce yourself in Japanese with "waga na wa [name]"[2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese-Language_Proficiency_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese-Language_Proficiency_... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c_fgPh6eXo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c_fgPh6eXo [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P6gMZaqvPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P6gMZaqvPQ
- lmiller1990 6y ago
  I'd say the average 12-13 year old could comfortably pass N1; that said, the average 12-13 year old is fluent in Japanese. Not getting 100% of course... but you don't need 100% knowledge of a language to be fluent and communicate on an everyday basis. With N3 you might be able to introduce yourself and have a very basic conversation. I think different people have very working definitions of fluency.
spike021 6y ago
>You miss so much of Japan w/o knowing Japanese. For what it's worth, I've been to Japan twice now for a total of one month of time, don't know any Japanese beyond your typical easy phrases/words, and got by fine with Google Translate. I also was able to make several friends, many of whom can't really speak much English (probably on the same level as my incredibly basic phrase/wordset of Japanese). Not only that, but once I made those friends they took me to places/restaurants that tourists wouldn't know of/go to and only locals would. Of course on the other hand there were some areas where I would be by myself and it was clear that unless I could speak Japanese I wouldn't really be welcome- and that's alright too. But my main point is that it is certainly possible to not know Japanese and still see quite a lot of Japan; I suppose it just takes some effort and outgoingness to try communicating with the locals.
- osdiab 6y ago
  I do think you get a specific "tourist curated" version of Japan traveling this way - not that that's necessarily a bad thing, nor is it unique to Japan, but having spent my fair share of time both as a non-Japanese-speaking one-month-at-a-time tourist and as someone who can now speak the language continuously and lives here permanently, the people I knew, activities I'm aware of and understanding of the place then and now are pretty different.

krackers 6y ago

>Good thing that it's pretty easy I think you're underselling the difficulty a bit considering that Japanese is in the hardest class of languages as ranked by FSI [1]. Granted this probably includes literacy as well; if you only want to learn the spoken aspects it's probably not much harder than the category III languages. [1] https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/ https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/

toyg 6y ago
The spoken aspect is really easy, by European standards, but you need a ton of practice to re-learn the entire vocabulary from scratch - no hints, no guesses. That requires a lot of patient effort, for our modern attention-deficit-by-default sensibilites.

spacechild1 6y ago

“it's pretty easy to pick up“ - “You'll be surprised how quickly you'll pick it“ - “passed JLPT N3 with a breeze.“ Good for you, but this doesn't quite match the experience of the average person trying to learn the language (like me) ;-)

lmiller1990 6y ago

I agree with the other responses to this comment. Many people who I know who passed N{1..5} say things like "It wasn't too bad", "It took me a few years"... I think a lot of people who have learned a second language to a high level of proficiency forget the struggle and difficulties. I passed N1 many years ago and am now very fluent, but the difficultly of transitioning to "real life" Japanese, even after passing N2, was very real. It took me around 5 years to pass N2 (without living in Japan, just studying and practising with whoever I found find). Even after passing N1, I still found it super tough to forge real friendships for quite some time after, since I would often struggle to say what I wanted to. I don't mean "haha, the weather is nice", but the actual interesting conversations you might want to have (for me this was mainly about software, for example). This pace of progression is probably not unusual. Learning a language is hard. To anyone else trying to learn Japanese who might be struggling, you can do it! I never experienced the "you'll pick it up", "it'll just click" moment - I just sucked for a long time, then progressively sucked less. I think the key is to accept you suck and put yourself out there anyway, and keep speaking and learning as much as you can. Oddly enough, I knew I was pretty fluent when people stop complementing or been impressed by your fluency. To the first line your comment, though, I definitely agree - without knowing the local language in most countries (especially somewhere like Japan with a very low level of English literacy) it is difficult to really experience culture.

RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 6y ago

I'm not trying to disparage OP's experience and accomplishment, but just trying to give a counter PoV for casual HN readers on the subject. As many sibling posts have already pointed out, passing JLPT is not trivial for many people. Also N3 level is (IMHO at best) intermediate[0] proficiency and still quite far from fluency. Here's an example of "random" Japanese grade schoolers solving JLPT N3 questions with ease. That said, just like any subject, language acquisition talents vary from person to person, and no doubt OP is among the more gifted. tl; dr: do not introduce yourself in Japanese with "waga na wa [name]"[2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese-Language_Proficiency_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese-Language_Proficiency_... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c_fgPh6eXo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c_fgPh6eXo [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P6gMZaqvPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P6gMZaqvPQ

lmiller1990 6y ago
I'd say the average 12-13 year old could comfortably pass N1; that said, the average 12-13 year old is fluent in Japanese. Not getting 100% of course... but you don't need 100% knowledge of a language to be fluent and communicate on an everyday basis. With N3 you might be able to introduce yourself and have a very basic conversation. I think different people have very working definitions of fluency.

spike021 6y ago

>You miss so much of Japan w/o knowing Japanese. For what it's worth, I've been to Japan twice now for a total of one month of time, don't know any Japanese beyond your typical easy phrases/words, and got by fine with Google Translate. I also was able to make several friends, many of whom can't really speak much English (probably on the same level as my incredibly basic phrase/wordset of Japanese). Not only that, but once I made those friends they took me to places/restaurants that tourists wouldn't know of/go to and only locals would. Of course on the other hand there were some areas where I would be by myself and it was clear that unless I could speak Japanese I wouldn't really be welcome- and that's alright too. But my main point is that it is certainly possible to not know Japanese and still see quite a lot of Japan; I suppose it just takes some effort and outgoingness to try communicating with the locals.

osdiab 6y ago
I do think you get a specific "tourist curated" version of Japan traveling this way - not that that's necessarily a bad thing, nor is it unique to Japan, but having spent my fair share of time both as a non-Japanese-speaking one-month-at-a-time tourist and as someone who can now speak the language continuously and lives here permanently, the people I knew, activities I'm aware of and understanding of the place then and now are pretty different.