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I spent about half my year in Japan and half my year in Sweden and I speak both languages. It's always shocked me how many expats feel it's not necessary to spe

I spent about half my year in Japan and half my year in Sweden and I speak both languages. It's always shocked me how many expats feel it's not necessary to speak the language but the justifications are totally different. In Sweden they say "Everyone here speaks English anyway" In Japan they say "All of my friends are expats anyway" I think if people don't want to learn a language they will come up with any excuse.

f5ve 4y ago
you spent half a year in japan and speak the language?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
junofan 4y ago
N1? You mastered 敬語 in 6 months?
- FredPret 4y ago
  I think he spent half a year every year
- marci 4y ago
  I think they meant for the past x years, they've been spending half of it in Sweden, the other half in JApan, in chunks of 6 months. edit: and you can be fluent in one or more languages without knowing how to read/write them.
savanaly 4y ago
>I think if people don't want to learn a language they will come up with any excuse. In a world where it was actually true that you don't have to learn the language wouldn't it appear that they always have an excuse not to? So how does your experience give evidence we're not in that world?
petodo 4y ago
> I spent about half my year in Japan and half my year in Sweden and I speak both languages. Yeah, I really doubt that you can move to Japan with zero Japanese and in half year learn enough to hold normal conversation and be able to read/write Japanese, all that while working full time and not being immersed every day in Japanese language course.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  It's perfectly possible to learn a language in 6 months if you spend a lot of your time conversing in it, avoiding English as much as possible. They also said "speak", not "write". It's possible and even natural to learn one and not the other.
  - petodo 4y ago
    Almost anything is possible, even time travel, it's just not very realistic under certain circumstances. In case of learning Japanese in 6 months while working full time in English speaking enviroment with 0 Japanese foundations to start with.
- lmm 4y ago
  > Yeah, I really doubt that you can move to Japan with zero Japanese and in half year learn enough to hold normal conversation and be able to read/write Japanese, all that while working full time and not being immersed every day in Japanese language course. If you're working full time in Japanese you could absolutely get conversational Japanese within half a year. Indeed I suspect that's the most practical way.
  - petodo 4y ago
    > If you're working full time in Japanese you could absolutely get conversational Japanese within half a year. I fail to imagine scenario where Japanese company hire non-japanese speaker who will then be working full time in Japanese language to learn it.
    - 4y ago
rockbruno 4y ago
Weird way to generalize the problem. The difficulty of learning Swedish is not the language itself, but because Swedes default to speaking English with you if they see you struggling. If you want to truly become fluent in Swedish you have to constantly ask them not to do that, and most expats get sick of it by the 10th or so time. (First point) https://www.thelocal.se/20180817/the-signs-youve-mastered-the-swedish-language-learning-fluency/ https://www.thelocal.se/20180817/the-signs-youve-mastered-th...

f5ve 4y ago

you spent half a year in japan and speak the language?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

junofan 4y ago

N1? You mastered 敬語 in 6 months?

FredPret 4y ago
I think he spent half a year every year
marci 4y ago
I think they meant for the past x years, they've been spending half of it in Sweden, the other half in JApan, in chunks of 6 months. edit: and you can be fluent in one or more languages without knowing how to read/write them.

savanaly 4y ago

>I think if people don't want to learn a language they will come up with any excuse. In a world where it was actually true that you don't have to learn the language wouldn't it appear that they always have an excuse not to? So how does your experience give evidence we're not in that world?

petodo 4y ago

> I spent about half my year in Japan and half my year in Sweden and I speak both languages. Yeah, I really doubt that you can move to Japan with zero Japanese and in half year learn enough to hold normal conversation and be able to read/write Japanese, all that while working full time and not being immersed every day in Japanese language course.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
It's perfectly possible to learn a language in 6 months if you spend a lot of your time conversing in it, avoiding English as much as possible. They also said "speak", not "write". It's possible and even natural to learn one and not the other.
- petodo 4y ago
  Almost anything is possible, even time travel, it's just not very realistic under certain circumstances. In case of learning Japanese in 6 months while working full time in English speaking enviroment with 0 Japanese foundations to start with.
lmm 4y ago
> Yeah, I really doubt that you can move to Japan with zero Japanese and in half year learn enough to hold normal conversation and be able to read/write Japanese, all that while working full time and not being immersed every day in Japanese language course. If you're working full time in Japanese you could absolutely get conversational Japanese within half a year. Indeed I suspect that's the most practical way.
- petodo 4y ago
  > If you're working full time in Japanese you could absolutely get conversational Japanese within half a year. I fail to imagine scenario where Japanese company hire non-japanese speaker who will then be working full time in Japanese language to learn it.
  - 4y ago

rockbruno 4y ago

Weird way to generalize the problem. The difficulty of learning Swedish is not the language itself, but because Swedes default to speaking English with you if they see you struggling. If you want to truly become fluent in Swedish you have to constantly ask them not to do that, and most expats get sick of it by the 10th or so time. (First point) https://www.thelocal.se/20180817/the-signs-youve-mastered-the-swedish-language-learning-fluency/ https://www.thelocal.se/20180817/the-signs-youve-mastered-th...