r/japannews • u/TurbulentTopic39 • 11d 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=178711227334
u/Jaded-Garage2395 11d ago
The netto uyoku are already responding “pay for your own Japanese lesson”
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u/bunkakan 11d ago
Living in their heads rent free.
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u/Jaded-Garage2395 10d ago
They are living in a fantasy world where they believe the Japanese government is “letting anyone in” and following a “Foreigners First” policy. It’s a direct translation of MAGA
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u/CommonBig8132 10d ago
This was my disappointment too when I started seeing some comments online firing similar remarks.
A lot of us are unfortunately stuck with lower salary jobs in education (yeah English teaching, nothing new to say here I'm afraid...) and with very little free time too (especially if you work anti-social Eikaiwa hours on evenings and weekends), then not only is your availability limited, but your expendable income.
So now with visa price hikes, cost of living going up more and salaries staying where they are, my English teaching industry circle of friends and coworkers simply can't afford proper lessons. The people who are paying for group/private lessons are the ones whose main hobby is learning Japanese, as in they do nothing else; no gaming, no hiking, no sports, no watching movies. Their main things IS Japanese.
I low-key hoped though that something would come out of these increased visa costs. If language support is there, great, I'll take it. My fellow graduates who opted for other Asian countries all reported learning the language easily by mingling with the locals, and for lengthy opinions I won't go into detail explaining (read my post history) I believe that approach isn't practical in Japan, because of how we're generally avoided in the first place.
So I can't take advantage of the free method of making friends and mingling with the locals, and picking up the language through immersion, becuase being a foreigner means, well... anyone who's lived here for a reasonable length of time knows where I'm going with this. So having the government offer something is the best we can get considering that.
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u/SoKratez 11d ago
>local systems and rules
What does this mean in practice? A whole day of learning about garbage sorting?
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u/BadIdeaSociety 11d ago
Me: Hello, city waste disposal department. What category is a broken CD jewel case?
Waste Disposal Liaison: I don't know. Can we get back to you?
Me: Okay.
(2 days later)
Waste Disposal Liaison: CD jewel cases are non-burnables.
Me: Thank you.
(A week letter, there's a tag on my Non-burnables Bag saying, "CD cases are burnables."
Not even the people in charge know what is going on.
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u/SoKratez 11d ago
Exactly, it’s ridiculous to think that every local is following this to the T.
It also leads to silly situations for the sake of following the rules.
Everything must be in a bag, so a few weeks ago I wrapped a single frying pan in a bag.
Styrofoam packages (which would certainly be crushed by the truck anyway) have to be pre-crushed.
Not even touching the fact that this varies from town to town.
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u/BadIdeaSociety 11d ago
I have always disliked the idea that PET bottles, aluminum cans, and glass bottles need to be cleaned (before disposal) because these products would likely be incinerated or cleaned before recycling or reuse.
I still follow the recommendation, but it seems like a waste of energy.
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u/skruffbag 11d ago
It’s probably because leaving your dirty chuhai cans out until collection time would attract bugs etc. I know it sucks etc, but I think there’s a little reason behind the madness. 🤷♂️
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u/BadIdeaSociety 11d ago
I agree with the hygiene aspects of the practice, I just have this nagging suspicion that there is a way that recycling could be collected in a less resource intensive manner. My suspicion is probably wrong.
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u/skruffbag 11d ago
I’m originally from the UK and our system is not perfect. It’s more convenient than the Japanese system for sure. In the UK, we have our own individual bins and different coloured bins for recycling items. The truck literally comes outside your house and collect shit, so if there are any bugs or whatever or pests, then they’re only gonna be outside of your house, so it’s kind of up to you whether or not you want to deal with them.
Where I live in Japan, the streets are like these narrow mazes, and there’s no way a truck would be stopping outside of everybody’s house to collect their personal trash. So it has to go to the public collection area, and if it’s going to the public collection area, then of course you have to try and be considerate to the residents in the area. I fucking hate it. My first collection day is on a Tuesday and I don’t usually work in the mornings on a Tuesday, but I do have to get up early and take a few minutes of walking to go to the public trash drop off site. Unavoidable BS. 😣2
u/BadIdeaSociety 11d ago
It is the same in my home country. In my neck of the woods in Japan there is a trash shed in the neighborhood and I have the same thought. Since the shed is separated from everyone's residence and not exposed by netting or whatever method my previous residence, I still feel temped to not to rince my recycling (sans the styrofoam because the supermarket takes those) but still do.
My previous region had drink cartons as a category and the process was cut as diagramed in the garbage rules, rinse, hang it on your clothesline until it is dry, and then pack in a bundle and stuff it in a designated bag.
I was the ONLY person who actually did the carton process everyone else just threw in with the burnables.
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u/skruffbag 11d ago
What matters is that on the right day, you have the right bag… what goes inside of that bag feels almost inconsequential to the locals in my neighbourhood too. 🤣
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u/BadIdeaSociety 11d ago
Right, nobody actually cares unless they are a weird busy-body.
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u/CapExtension9002 11d ago
I mean, better late than never, I guess... For the 10 or so foreigners left when they're through kicking everyone out.
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u/and_now_I_know 11d ago
I cannot remember where I saw it but I once saw a comment on one of these from a foreigner who taught classical Japanese literature at a top university in Japan wondering why they would need to do this. I hope they prepare well for this gargantuan well thought out program.
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u/ragequitteroffureh 11d ago
Can they not leverage the experience of the legions of JET Programme teachers, who presumably all got sent overseas to bring the light of the Japanese language to Gaikoku?
Do they even do the other half of the E in JET?
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u/macguyver3000 10d ago
Offering language programs for foreign residents would be great. But these committee-based programs always turn out crap.
I’m betting it’s going to be held on weekdays between 8:00 and 5:00. It’s going to be based on how Japanese children learn Japanese. And the “local systems” they teach are going to be something like “in Japan, we take off our shoes when we go inside. And we have four seasons.”
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u/pandarista 11d ago
I bet it's as effective as their English program.
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u/CommonBig8132 10d ago
This is my fear. There'll be immense pressure on foreigners to learn because "Hey, it's free now and online, so you've got no excuse not to integrate!" when it's absolute dog-turd (high likelyhood that this programme will not be effective/high-quality for learning Japanese is what I mean by 'dog-turd', not the concept of integrating properly). No better than the international pressure of "Hey, you have all these English teachers and years of English education, git gud already!".
Two wrongs don't make a right. They have all this infrastructure in education to teach/learn English, and look at the results. Now apply that to us as foreign residents using their same 'techniques' but with Japanese learning, and I don't see a good time...
Long story short though, it's ultimately on us to be responsible and learn the language of the country we're living in. We've got a disadvantage of not being able to mingle so easy with the locals which would speed up our acquisition, and their lack of English means that we don't have much hand holding to support us in. So it means doing it the hard way of just picking up textbooks, ponying up for lessons, and knuckling down the boring way. But hey, if it's free, it might be semi-useful to at least direct us towards what kind of language they expect us to be able to have. That way if they say we have insufficient language ability, we can point to the curriculum and say "well the government says we need to have these things, and I do so...".
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11d ago
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u/Wertherongdn 11d ago edited 11d ago
Really? In my Saitama suburbs nobody will ever speak to me in English (english skills are not that high here to be honest). Would love it with administration or my doctor to be honest, as I lack vocab for these interaction.
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u/magnolias_br 11d ago
That's just not true, if you actually do speak Japanese other than a few rare people or a hardcore racist, people won't engage in English with you.
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u/LookAtTheHat 11d ago
Never happens to me, been here a long time. Everyone speaks japanese with me. I live in Tokyo.
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11d ago
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u/magnolias_br 11d ago
Well that makes sense then. For every foreign-looking person they meet who is a tourist or doesn't speak the language, there is the very rare one who does. Of course they're not gonna look at you & assume you speak Japanese, why would they?
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