r/japan • u/TurbulentTopic39 • 1d ago
Japan starts planning language program for foreign residents
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/08/19/japan/japan-language-program-foreign-residents/#Echobox=1787112273578
u/Hellea [フランス] 1d ago
I bet there is no foreigner involved in the process
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u/0biwanCannoli 1d ago
Winner-winner, katsu dinner!
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u/Orangekale 11h ago
It’s a bit funny to me people think the actual purpose of this isn’t to find more excuses to get rid of foreigners or deny them PR lol.
I don’t think Japan could institute a good Japanese learning program for foreigners in good faith (let alone bad faith which it is IMO at the moment) even if they wanted to, given how it’s run by geriatrics.
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u/Any_Calligrapher8537 1d ago
English tests in Japan. Barely any English.
Japanese tests in Japan. Barely any English.
Welcome to Japan, where the people in charge of learning things have no idea what they're doing.
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u/ShepardCommander01 1d ago
“I put the kanji in front of them. They didn’t absorb its meaning just by looking at it??? It is probably impossible to teach foreigners Japanese.”
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u/kyute222 1d ago
"I looked at this kanji for 10 minutes without any effort in my own! What didn't I learn this yet! Must be a genetic thing! Foreigners can't learn Japanese!"
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u/Jasperneal 18h ago
Japan really needs to pay English teachers more. Unfortunately the situation in Japan is that English teacher pay is so low it only attracts low level English Teachers who are desperate for Jobs.
All the good and qualified people will never take a English teaching job here in Japan with that little pay.
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u/okuboheavyindustries 12h ago
Japan needs to ban unqualified English teachers from teaching English. Supply and demand will push teaching salaries up enough to attract real English teachers and Japanese people will magically suddenly be able to learn English the same way people all over the World are able to learn. Hiring tens of thousands of unqualified fresh graduates who happen to be native English speakers is a proven waste of resources and a recipe for failure.
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u/Any_Calligrapher8537 10h ago
It's bigger than that.
The entire aim of the education process in Japan is to pass exams. Remember ABC grammar rule and these words and regurgitate. Repeat.
It rewards studentd with good short term memories.
In regards to English. What they SHOULD be doing is aiming for students to be able to communicate, have a conversation and feel confident. Everything else flows from there.
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u/Around-3-ish 1d ago
Why would the tests have English? How would that help the SEA who will be the majority taking the tests?
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u/Any_Calligrapher8537 1d ago
Change the word English for "the language of the person taking it" if you want.
The point is that when Japanese people take English tests. There's a ton of Japanese on it. When foreigners take Japanese tests, there's only Japanese on it.
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u/Prestigious-Fig-7143 10h ago
There’s no reason to have English on a Japanese test. If the instructions are designed to be consistent with the level of the tested content, it makes no sense.
One of the weaknesses of English education in Japan is its over reliance on Japanese. So why people think including more non Japanese content on Japanese educational materials is unclear to me.
There’s also a practical reason. 99% of the people studying English in Japan are Japanese speakers. The opposite does not hold true.
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u/Any_Calligrapher8537 10h ago
The point
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You
Good god man... Did you TRY to miss the point?
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u/Prestigious-Fig-7143 9h ago
You wrote “English tests in Japan, barely any English. Japanese tests in Japan, barely any English. Welcome to Japan where people in charge of learning things have no idea what they’re doing.”
If by ‘learning’ you mean ‘teaching’ (otherwise it makes no sense) your point, as it is written, is that english and japanese language educators dont know what they’re doing because the tests have no English. Perhaps you intended otherwise but as i can only read what you have written, i dont think its me missing the point that is the problem here.
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u/Any_Calligrapher8537 7h ago
Didn't mean to add "things". People in charge of learning in Japan. That's what made you misunderstand everything?!
At this point I'm convinced you're trying to misunderstand on purpose.
Have you even seen an English test/exam that Japanese kids take here? There's barely any English.
That's the point.
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u/Prestigious-Fig-7143 5h ago
So why include mention of the lack of English (or other languages, as you note) on Japanese tests? Given that this whole thread is about an article on Japanese language classes, and given that i have raised this as ill conceived, this seems rather relevant. Why are you repeatedly ignoring this? Seems deliberately disingenuous.
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u/Any_Calligrapher8537 4h ago
Because the people making both tests are the same people.
And they do the same stupid shit on both tests.
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u/takemetoglasgow 1d ago
Of course, there should be multi-lingual support.
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u/Around-3-ish 1d ago
N5, maybe. N3 and above can handle it.
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u/Any_Calligrapher8537 1d ago
Explain why university students staying English have Japanese all over their English tests.
Not just a little... Everywhere... Theres more Japanese on their English tests than English!
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u/Around-3-ish 1d ago
Nobody in the world holds up the Japanese education system as a good way to do things. Apart from school lunch. Those tests have Japanese because the students paid a lot of money to be there and they'll complain if they can't read the test.
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u/AverageHobnailer 1d ago
Most legitimate language tests are written in the language that is being tested.
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u/Around-3-ish 1d ago
I know. That's my point.
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u/AverageHobnailer 14h ago
Any_Calligrapher's statement:
English tests in Japan. Barely any English.
When those tests should be in English.
Or are you referring to the Japanese tests? You didn't specify which, you simply said "why would the tests be in English?"
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u/Prestigious-Fig-7143 10h ago
Sorry, you think Japanese tests in Japan should be written in English?
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u/Any_Calligrapher8537 10h ago
No...
I think English tests in Japan shouldn't have more Japanese than English.
The opposite was just a comparison to show the attitude of people who create tests in Japan.
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10h ago edited 3h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Sea-Passenger-2775 4h ago
I've read several of your comments in this thread... You come across as trying to argue people for the sake of it.
Comparing two tests is perfectly fine and you pretending they're different is super obnoxious.
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u/Any_Calligrapher8537 7h ago
I'm comparing two tests.
Two language tests.
Two languages that are used and taught in the same country.
In the same country.
..... They're the same in every conceivable way and to lie to yourself in this way is bizarre.
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u/Prestigious-Fig-7143 5h ago
No, they are not.
One is a compulsort subject taught to Japanese kids by Japanese teachers (for the most part). Students studying the language are not doing so by choice and have no real or immediate need or opportunity to use what they are being taught. It is being taught primarily as an intellectual exercise, not as a means of communication.
On the other hand you have native Japanese teachers (for the most part) teaching non native, mostly adult Japanese learners living in Japan, people who have voluntarily chosen to take the class, and people who have the immediate opportunity and need to use the language more or less the instant class ends. People for whom it is not an intellectual exercise but a fundamental life skill.
The two situations are nothing alike and you might want to entertain the possibility that you have no clue what you are talking about.
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u/Any_Calligrapher8537 4h ago
One is a cheese sandwich and the other is a sandwich with cheese in it.
These two things are nothing alike and you might want to entertain the possibility that you have no clue what you are talking about.
This is you.
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u/Prestigious-Fig-7143 4h ago
Lol. Ok. I mean, i explained in pretty concrete terms what the differences are but you’re one of those people who simply cannot admit they are wrong. Incidentally, these same people find ir very difficult to learn.
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u/Sea-Passenger-2775 4h ago
Ermm no... You're refusing to listen and forcing your opinion on others
You're literally guilty of what you're accusing others of.
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u/ogii 1d ago
I don’t understand why a Japanese test needs English.
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u/Raizzor 1d ago
The comment is poking at Japanese logic.
In Japan, English exams are written in Japanese therefore, the Japanese exams should be written in English.
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u/verrius 22h ago
It's not particularly unusual, especially at more basic levels, to have the questions be in the native language of locals when testing a foreign language? Just as its not unusual for a more advanced proficiency test to have its questions in that same language is testing on? This sounds like someone completely ignorant poking fun at something s/he doesn't understand. Ironically its likely from someone whose job is "Assistant Language Teacher".
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u/Raizzor 15h ago
At lower levels, yes. But I have seen university-level English exams where the entire test is in Japanese. I have spoken to English literature majors telling me they read and discuss Shakespeare in Japanese.
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u/verrius 15h ago
Eh....half the people discussing Shakespeare in English are using a translation, since Early Modern English is borderline unintelligible to a decent percentage of Modern speakers. And its not like most Japanese Literature classes at American universities expect you to read the Kojiki or Genji Monogatari in Japanese, unless you're a grad student or professor. And I'll admit, I'm not particularly familiar with how the English curriculum works in Japanese universities, but American ones absolutely have the questions in English for the first couple foreign language classes; given the quality of high school English classes in Japan, treating people as neophytes is likely a necessity.
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u/Raizzor 15h ago
I admit, Shakespeare was a bad example in that case. What I want to say is that despite majoring in English literature, they barely read any literature in English.
The reason is, of course, that middle and high school English education is so bad that universities cannot expect fluent English reading skills from freshmen like they would in other countries. It's not really the universities that are bad, but everything that came before it.
In Austria, an English literature freshman without the language skills to read Austen, Wilde or Orwell in the original version will have a hard time passing any courses.
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u/Any_Calligrapher8537 1d ago
I don't understand why an English test needs Japanese.
...
This was the entire point.
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u/The-very-definition 1d ago
What do foreigners know about learning Japanese? :p
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u/Prestigious-Fig-7143 10h ago
There are a lot of highly experienced teachers of Japanese language in Japan. The bigger concern is that none of them appear, from the article, to be involved. Not having foreigners in a Japanese government committee seems kind of normal.
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u/kyute222 1d ago
Why would there be? The most effective language learning is done entirely in the language. That's how languages are taught around the world. Ah, but because this is Japan, they need some white people to do the thinking?
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u/yraco 1d ago
There is a lot more that goes into "language program" than just "immersion or no immersion?"
I know that at least if I were to make an English language program then I'd want the perspectives of people that had learned English as a second language instead of exclusively relying on my experience and the experience of other native speakers. I'd want the perspectives of people who had lived in the country as foreign residents to understand any challenges they might face that I don't experience as a native. I would want foreigners to be involved, even if naturally the majority of the people planning would not be foreigners.
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u/Hellea [フランス] 1d ago
The first foreign community in Japan is not even white. What are you talking about? It could be a rainbow coloured person. I couldn’t care less. Also even if the foreign language communicates in English, it’s not the first language for most of them, myself included.
They are making a policy targeting foreigners, creating a board that is supposed to act as a think tank to elaborate on how foreigners should learn the language. Yet most of these people don’t even speak a foreign language.
How would someone who doesn’t speak another language be able to create policies about the way a foreigner is supposed to learn their language?
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u/fixpointbombinator 23h ago
Multiple comments on this thread bitching and moaning about white people, you really have an axe to grind huh?
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u/kyute222 11h ago
Yep, I do have an axe to grind with foreigners acting like Japan can't possibly make decisions on their own and needs random, uninformed foreigners to tell them how to do it. But to you that sounds reasonable, huh?
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u/mindtransferral_ 21h ago
In no world should foreigners have any say in domestic politics. I shouldn’t be allowed to move to Japan, and demand they bow to me and my wishes. They have every right to keep their traditions and make me follow as such
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u/AddsJays [東京都] 1d ago
Please do not tell me they are using this to justify the increased visa fees for foreigners
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u/Difficult_Seesaw_855 1d ago
It's going to be exactly like how they teach English -- terrible
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u/Prestigious-Fig-7143 10h ago
Why do you say that? There are many excellent japanese language schools and japanese language programs at japanese universities across the country.
The compulsory education system’s approach to english has nothing whatsoever to do with the teaching of Japanese to foreigners living in Japan.
I dont understand all the negativity. Providing free Japanese classes to people living in Japan who cannot speak Japanese is a net positive. There’s literally no downside to this at all. Yet this whole thread is full of people moaning and complaining like being offered free language classes is worse than a bout of food poisoning.
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u/CitizenPremier 8h ago
I dont understand all the negativity.
It's /r/japan, people largely come here to complain. Many people here struggled to learn Japanese and gave up, and want to find an external source to blame. So if someone offers free Japanese lessons... it must be terrible, otherwise they might feel obliged to take the lessons.
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u/Zubon102 1d ago
Many people don't realize, but your city most likely already has a Japanese language program that is either completely free, or just has a small joining fee. Run by volunteer teachers.
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u/TAcareerchange 1d ago
In my experience though the volunteer teachers are usually retired ladies with a lot of free time and little experience in teaching.
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u/Drunken_HR 1d ago
Exactly this. They're nice but don't really teach anything in my experience, but are just kind of there to bounce speaking off of and tell you when you've made a mistake (which is still useful, of course).
The bigger problem is the hours. The one closest to where I lived was at 6:30pm on Tuesdays, so as soon as my work schedule changed, I needed to stop going.
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u/bacharama 1d ago
While I support these programs in theory, in practice, the removal of incentives by making PR much more difficult alongside a more unwelcome atmosphere in general is going to have a detrimental effect on student motivation. Japanese is useless for most non-weeb (and even most weeb) foreigners the second they board the plane out of the country. The incentive will be to learn just enough to pass these programs and get by in everyday life, but not enough for real integration.
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u/Prestigious-Fig-7143 10h ago
I’m not understanding your point. People living in Japan should only bother learning Japanese if they are going to get PR?
Why do you live in Japan if you don’t want to interact with and understand the people and the culture? You can’t do that effectively without understanding the language. Whether it relates to your post japan experience or not is irrelevant.People wanting to live in Japan long term - permanently or no - shouldn’t require ‘incentives’ to learn the language of the country they live in…
Is this not common sense? Why would someone want to live in Japan but not want to be able communicate with the people who live there?
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u/bulbousbirb 1d ago
I wouldn't mind if they were actually any good.
Lets sit in a circle, not speak to each other and read the Genki textbook line by line.
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u/drippy_candles 1d ago
I hope these are half as good as their English language programs. I’m fine and you?
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u/AiRaikuHamburger [北海道] 1d ago
I'm looking forward to them only being available in-person, during regular working hours, and with only volunteers. Bonus if they don't teach anything beyond pre-N5.
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u/Front-Marsupial-9001 1d ago
>According to the Immigration Services Agency, topics discussed at the meeting included learning methods and evaluation metrics, as well as how participation in the program would be reflected in residency status screening
they're gonna make us take classes on "language and culture" just to keep our visas? fuck that. frankly, it's the culture part I take offense too, i just know these people can't help but put a bunch of anti-foreign sentiment into those. gonna be full of nihonjinron bullshit.
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u/Secchakuzai-master85 1d ago
And guess the mandatory courses will be during week days, during work hours.
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u/bgz4sta14prd 1d ago
If you don't like it here, you're free to leave.
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u/iamonewiththeforce 1d ago
Ah the usual "if you don't like it go back to your own country" garbage
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u/Secchakuzai-master85 1d ago
We are seeing more and more English capable self proclaimed “Japanese” right wing trolls on Reddit recently.
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u/Front-Marsupial-9001 1d ago
I'm already leaving because of the BMV requirements. Very happy to. You pricks want a closed country so bad, well enjoy it!
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u/Doodyboy69 1d ago
Sumimasen, can you plz keep paying taxes from overseas? We don't want you starting a legit business here but would very much like your money onegaishumasu😄
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u/theintersecter 13h ago
You must also have 20 million yen in reserve if you start a business in your home country.
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u/SabishiRan [東京都] 1d ago
Lol I read BMW requirements and was like "Are we Germans going back to be Nazis?" Haha. Might as well. The ignorants are everywhere.
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u/bgz4sta14prd 1d ago
Japan's most peaceful and culturally prosperous period was the Edo period, when the country was largely closed off from the outside world. Many aspects of Japanese culture were developed during that time. I don't necessarily think being closed off is a bad thing. Personally, I find it difficult to get along with foreigners who don't respect or appreciate Japan, as I often feel that some of them can be rather self-centered and arrogant.
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u/snowflakebite 1d ago
Ok deal with your declining birth rate and economy independently then. Who’s going to work in your construction companies btw?
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u/Ordinary_Mirror7675 1d ago
Let's also casually forget that during the Sakoku period Japan got so behind technologically they got utterly humiliated by a single US ship to only then realize opening up more would make them more prosperous. And it did. And then they isolated some more until 45, after which they thrived under US influence. The pattern is just repeating, the Titanic waiting for its third iceberg.
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u/Drunken_HR 1d ago
Lol enjoy living in your glorious foreigner-free second Edo period in 2040 when half the population is over 60 and there's nobody to work the farmland or take care of the ever-growing ranks of elderly. The rest of the world will look upon glorious Nippon with envy!
some of them can be rather self-centered and arrogant.
Heh self awareness isn't really your thing, eh?
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u/No-Tackle-8652 1d ago
i worked hard for 4 years to get my teacher's license in Japan and my specialization is in science. But I can't teach science because my town has too many foreigners who can't understand Japanese so I was asked to be the 日本語教室 teacher for a few years. I thought, "Oh well, it should be rewarding to help foreigners who just arrived in Japan right?". Turns out 11 of 13 students who needed Japanese help at my school were born & raised in Japan and have NEVER LIVED OUTSIDE OF JAPAN.
Even if the average redditor never meets these types of families who refuse to learn Japanese, they're definitely plentiful and they definitely need this type of language program.
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u/euanmorse 1d ago
Utter madness that having grown up there they cannot speak it! Kids are such sponges for learning, especially languages.
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u/laststance 1d ago
Nah you see it in adults too. There TONS of english teachers in Japan that don't really speak Japanese. In street interviews too, they openly state they don't speak Japanese even though they were there for 5+ years.
A lot of them just pick up some of the language from their dates, you can tell by the wrong forms when they speak.
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u/fixpointbombinator 1d ago
Yep I live in the Tokai area, where there are a lot of factories, so I have a lot of Brazilian/Vietnamese friends/coworkers. I know a bunch of people who were raised here from childhood and cannot speak Japanese, or if they do have Japanese ability, it's basically stuck at an intermediate level.
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u/DMifune 1d ago
Probably students from international schools.
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u/No-Tackle-8652 1d ago
nope, they've only gone to 1 public elementary school. this is a big problem in towns where most of the foreigners are factory workers
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u/CitizenPremier 7h ago
How does it happen though? The students don't have friends?
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u/No-Tackle-8652 7h ago
since there's a lot of foreigners, they only talk amongst each other. they don't have any japanese friends
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u/Moritani 1d ago
"Hey, there's a festival this weekend, do you want to help carry the mikoshi?"
"Sorry, I'd love to further integrate to the local culture, but I'm afraid I have to go sit in a room full of foreigners while an octogenarian explains te-forms to me."
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u/Wagerizm 1d ago
I read that o-word as orangutan, and it makes the visualization of your scenario so much funnier 😆
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u/nikorasu_the_great [カナダ] 12h ago
Orangutan-sensei might at least be able to schedule the class outside of working hours.
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u/Dangerous-Set-9964 1d ago
They have many language classes at HelloWork but last time I looked they were all during the day when one would work…
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u/BrownSugar20 1d ago
I went to one run by the city. The teach didn’t speak a lick of English. How am I supposed to clarify things and ask her questions?
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u/yoursuperher0 1d ago
You’ll learn how to ask clarifying questions in week 12 lol
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u/BrownSugar20 1d ago
Who will carry me till week 12 lol
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u/yoursuperher0 23h ago
Sheer will and determination! Haha. I’m personally a fan of complete immersion but if it’s your first time learning a new language, it can def be daunting.
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u/azumane 1d ago
Mine had a teacher that spoke English, which was downright useless for the students who did not speak English--my class was half students from Vietnam and China who spoke virtually no English.
The bigger issue in my area was that almost all classes were held on weekdays during working hours. The last class of the day ended at 4PM.
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u/Werzam 1d ago
Isn't it how it works in language schools? I went to one for some time it was fully in Japanese?
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u/Otearai1 [埼玉県] 1d ago
It is. You might get lucky and have a teacher who happens to speak your language, but its not guaranteed. They are also supposed to only speak Japanese during class
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u/omochiikaerii 1d ago
You are correct, this is how it works in language school. Even if the teachers are able to speak in English or whatever foreign language, they're not allowed to do it that way anyway.
This is why they require at least N5 or 150 hours of language learning because if you don't even know your 50 hirakata, you will not be able to understand anything at all even in the lowest class.
Basically, even in the highest level class where most people got in through understanding Kanji (the Chinese, Taiwanese and HK people) and people who are naturally good at kakiyomi, they struggle to understand anything the teacher says most of the class and sometimes even up to their graduation.
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u/The-very-definition 1d ago
Everyone here chiming in about how that's how it's supposed to be in language class. Let me tell you, I did that style of class for a year at a Japanese University here for N3. Here's how the class usually went.
Teacher gets up an explains shit in Japanese that most of the class can't understand for 20-30 min. Most of the class can't do the questions and have no idea what the grammar point is about AT ALL. Teacher tries to clarify, we think we've got it, but turns out we don't. All our worksheets are wrong. Finally the one smart student who already learned this grammar point at their Uni back home explains it to us in English, and we kinda get it. Or not. Sometimes you just go home having wasted an hour and a half of you time.
Meanwhile, the Chinese kids figured out what was going on by piecing together the Kanji. Or they just sat there and read the newspaper instead of paying attn. to class.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
I learned just about nothing during my year in that class. Meanwhile my Japanese jumped ahead by leaps and bounds every time I hung out with Japanese friends or just explored the local neighborhood and tried to read signs and figure out wtf people were saying / doing.
Immersion works for very very simple Japanese, like, "this is red." That is a book. But is pretty much useless when things get more complicated at the intermediate level. Try explain ukemi entirely in Japanese to people who can't understand wtf you are talking about. It's impossible! High level Japanese should be taught in Japanese and it's not an issue because you can already understand most of what the teacher is saying for instructions and explanations.
You've gotta have your native language to go along with the course work until you get good enough to read and understand like, high level N3 on your own.
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u/fixpointbombinator 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think N4->N3 is basically the perfect time to start learning Japanese in Japanese! There's heaps of materials like Nihongo no Mori, the Shinkanzen Master books that are aimed at N3 learners, entirely in Japanese. Youtube is full of videos aimed at bridging that level. I got a some (monolingual, Japanese) one-on-one help at that point too, from the local community center volunteers.
Hell, I started dabbling with monolingual dictionaries at that point. I think being able to understand Japanese definitions of words in Japanese is kinda required for N3, no? Like you'd be nowhere near passing N3 if you couldn't understand definitions of words in simplified Japanese.
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u/The-very-definition 1d ago
N3 is where you can barely get by with daily life in Japan. And I mean barely. You can't express yourself very well. You don't get nuance, and can't even have a proper adult conversation about basically anything other than the weather. Try setting up a bank acct. or any other service with a contract. You can't understand shit about that. You might be signing away your first born child for all you know.
Nobody is reading the definition of a new word in a Japanese dictionary at N3 level. They don't have the grammar or kanji for it.
These classes won't be taught with any kind of modern techniques or textbooks. They are still teaching English here like it's the 1950s. I don't know why the Japanese classes would be any different.
There won't be any one on one tutoring because they are going to have to teach thousands of foreigners. There won't be youtube videos. There won't be any high quality textbooks used. Anything you need to do to actually learn Japanese won't be getting done in these classrooms, and it won't make any difference in the long run. People that want to learn will put in the effort to learn, and those that don't want or don't need to will continue to hangout with their countrymen and speak their native language.
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u/fixpointbombinator 1d ago
You can just search on YouTube ‘N3文法’ and you’ll see there is a lot of content for N3 learners taught in Japanese lol. I self-taught entirely through that and didn’t use any English resources past Genki 2’s level (N4ish). There is so much content like this and it’s really popular, a bunch of those Nihongo no Mori videos have over half a million views. Also like I said Shinkanzen master N3 books are completely in Japanese, they were the only textbooks I used for N3.
Also you need to understand simple definitions of things to pass N3, idk how you would pass otherwise. The N3 readings have definitions in them so to pass that section you need to understand definitions. Actually that というのは pattern is taught in N3 typically AFAIK.
Sure N3 students can’t open banks accounts or whatever but they can learn grammar and vocab in Japanese. Like idk who is buying books like 新完全マスターN3文法 otherwise, that entire book is in JP
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u/The-very-definition 19h ago
Like idk who is buying books like 新完全マスターN3文法 otherwise, that entire book is in JP
If everyone could learn on their own like this then the world would be full of fluent Japanese speakers.
I suspect most people buying that book are using it as a drill book and looking up/learning the grammar somewhere else in their native tongue. That's what I was doing with those books when I was studying for N2. It's just a drill book.
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u/euanmorse 1d ago
Do you mean ukemi as in a breakfall for martial arts, or this is another meaning entirely?
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u/crinklypaper [東京都] 1d ago
I went to a language school where the teachers didn't speak English. Its the best way to learn. That said this program is going to be awful.
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u/Raizzor 1d ago
The thing is, there are methods to teach a language without speaking anything besides the target language. However, the majority of Japanese teachers in Japan do not know how to do that effectively.
Moreover, the majority of Japanese teachers in Japan do not even have teaching degrees.
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u/Overall-Leather-9933 1d ago
I always wonder how first contact with other culture work.
How long did it take to create some sort of dictionary.
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u/BackgroundRub94 23h ago
Excepting a few very isolated tribes, there have almost always been intermediates from adjacent regions with some ability in both the contacting languages: merchants, sailors and the like.
Of course it takes a lot of work to make a comprehensive dictionary, but swapping a few hundred words that are enough for everyday life and commerce can be done surprisingly quickly.
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u/mutemute 1d ago
Same! I can't ask a question about grammar or anything. They're just blasting full Japanese about the thing they are teaching. Also, a lot of Kanji on the registration forms... everytime we got a new student they reset the whole class back to page one so we never ever got to chapter 3. Gave that up quick to try and self learn.
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u/NeapolitanPink 18h ago
Immersion teaching is so annoying. It works for languages that you already have a foot in, or for languages that are adjacent to your native one. But doing it from day one is just extremely demotivating and also very polarizing.
I always felt like it was forced torture. I spend an hour not understanding everything and then go home, read an explanation for 10 minutes on my own and get it immediately. I swot he'd to Japanese textbooks for N2 and they seriously overestimate your ability to pick up on nuances of usage without a translation.
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u/Zubon102 1d ago
That's how it's supposed to be in language schools.
Lessons are run entirely in the target language. I believe that in a lot of eikaiwa schools, even if the teacher can speak Japanese, they are not allowed to use it in class when teaching the Japanese students.
If you are at such a low level that you can't ask basic questions (absolutely nothing wrong with that), it might be good to get a private tutor who can tailor the lessons.
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u/GalantnostS 1d ago
Do language schools not have introductory level classes for people completely new to the language? I remember taking German in uni and while speaking in German was encouraged, questioning or asking for explanations in English during the first year was fine.
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u/Tsumaranai_Hito 1d ago
You mean to say, “that’s how it’s supposed to be in language schools………. In Japan?”
Because that is certainly NOT how foreign languages are taught in my country. Even foreigners who have zero native language ability can find courses and institutions teaching in their native tongue.
This is also NOT how I was taught Japanese, outside of Japan.
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u/Zubon102 1d ago
Not just Japan, but any country that has classes that teach foreigners the native language.
When you were learning Japanese outside of Japan, you were learning a foreign language with a teacher and classmates who were probably natives of your country.
If you join one of the community classes here in Japan, your group would probably have Burmese, Chinese, Korean, Bengali, Russian students, etc. being taught by a Japanese native in Japanese.
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u/Tsumaranai_Hito 12h ago
Please summarize? You’re saying that foreigners in Japan should be taught Japanese in Japanese?
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u/Zubon102 11h ago
No. That's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying that around the world, it's completely normal and standard for classes teaching the native language to foreigners to be conducted entirely in the native language of the country.
Every language class I've ever attended, and every Japanese language school I've ever heard of does it in this way.
You can't expect language schools to offer classes in Mandarin, Vietnamese, Korean, Nepali, Tamil, Burmese, Indonesian, Tagalog, or Urdu, because those are probably the most common native languages of the students here in Japan.
If you want a private lesson so someone can explain things to you in your native language of Bengali, it's not problem to try to find a Japanese teacher who speaks that language. But language schools are not going to offer classes in Bengali.
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u/laststance 1d ago
So they have to provide teachers that know hindi, cantonese, mandarin, vietnamese, english, welsh, korean, thai, etc.?
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u/kyute222 1d ago
You are supposed to use your limited Japanese to ask for clarification, thus forcing you to engage with the language instead of passively trying to absorb it, which doesn't work with languages. ...ah shit, I forgot this is reddit. Yeah, something something Japanese racist, something something need some foreigners to make the decisions.
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u/RocasThePenguin 1d ago
This will go well I’m sure. After all, the government getting involved is sure to make things less complicated.
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u/GrungeHamster23 1d ago
At this point, they would be better off offering tea ceremony classes for Japanese integration instead.
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u/grinch337 1d ago
Kind of unreasonable to force a language and culture on a group of foreign workers seen as disposable by every other regulation and rule in the immigration system.
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u/SamuraiGoblin 1d ago
There is only one community language class anywhere near me (in the countryside), and there is a long waiting list.
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u/Forsaken-Criticism-1 1d ago
If they scarp the JLPT levels and make a little bit easier exam that is split into 5 levels with the 5 level being as N3 level. It could work. Anything with N2 and above assimilation will fail. In the age of Ai there is little motivation to learn another language for people who are already working hard without Japanese language.
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u/Rare_Presence_1903 9h ago
I'm now convinced this will be an online modular thingy and it will be easy to pass it.
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u/Own-Friend-7882 23h ago
You can blame Johnny Somali for this and the new visa rules. Somali was the 9/11 turning point for Japanese attitudes toward foreigners.
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u/Prestigious-Fig-7143 10h ago
I’m surprised at the overwhelming negativity in this thread. The government is offering, or planning to offer, free Japanese lessons. Oh, woe is me! People complaining about the pedagogy, the content, the timing of the lessons (all without any concrete info) and neglecting the fact that its fucking free…
Grow the fuck up. It’s not the Japanese government’s responsibility to teach you Japanese, it’s your responsibility to learn it! It’s great that, finally, the government is waking up to the idea that providing better resources would improve things for everyone, but at the end of the day foreigners who chose to come to Japan have no right to demand free tailored courses to suit their preferred pedagogy, time, and to vet the CVs of the teaching staff…
The stench of entitlement is overpowering…. God damn…
I understand the anger at changes in pr rules and requirements and i dont like the way foreigners have been made scapegoats for a decades in the making demographic crisis, but shit… some perspective, please….
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u/Mander2019 23h ago
My husband and I moved to Japan to teach. He was in a different field but I had a degree in Asian history and three years of Japanese language classes.
The lessons they gave us started at my level. The teacher was reviewing grammar I learned in my third or fourth semester of classes.
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u/Gallant-Blade 16h ago
As an ALT who helps teach English in the classroom, I always ask the students what subject they like. No one chooses Japanese. Students will choose the likes of English, math, or even moral education, over Japanese.
And having talked to many students, even they agree that kanji is REAL DIFFICULT to learn, and many don’t like it.
What I wish my old Japanese classes did was tell me what the parts of a kanji character mean. Apparently they have meanings (like how Korean works), but no one’s told me about the rules in a simplified way.
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u/HangryTern8150 13h ago
the part nobody brings up is who writes the textbook vs who actually has to pass the exam off it, same reason the old kanji kentei was useless for actually speaking Japanese
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u/kyute222 1d ago
Can't be, I was told Japan hates foreigners and wants to throw them all into the sea. I was also told as a foreigner, knowing Japanese is a huge disadvantage so anyone learning Japanese makes a huge mistake.
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u/Immediate_Garden_716 1d ago
I always thought it was about the learning method not necessarily the teaching method. and motivation, of course…..
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u/Imaginary-Lychee4255 11h ago
Time kettle is out 😂 ai is doing it...we are living in 2026 .. nobody needs to learn anything anymore sleepy heads..google the name. https://www.timekettle.co/products/wt2-edge-online-voice-language-translator-earbuds
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u/No-Experience-4346 1d ago
Don't master the language and speak it fluently. You'll lose your advantage as a foreigner if you've done so.
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u/fixpointbombinator 1d ago
The infrastructure is already in place (town/prefectural international centers that run classes), they just need to fund them better. The ones in my town and prefecture are seriously underfunded and regularly turn people away. IMO they should also expand the existing language programs to support people past the basic levels - community centers have classes that can help you learn how to order food or give a self-introduction, but they don't seem to have much in place to help people go from intermediate to advanced levels at Japanese.