Use it or lose it

In college I took two semesters of Spanish during summer school.  For six weeks I spent like three hours a day in practically an emersion environment.  Pretty soon, I started thinking in Spanish.  I could hold a fairly long conversation.  I was actually speaking and understanding a foreign language.  And then summer ended and I was done with my language requirements.  Despite the face I was living in Tucson, Arizona, just an hour from Mexico, all the Spanish I had studied that summer (and the four years before) slipped away like desert sand in the wind till I can hardly ask where is the bathroom anymore.

When it comes to language, if you don’t use it, you lose it.  I learned that with Spanish.  As soon as I stopped studying and moved to an area with less Spanish speaking people, it all faded away.  I am sure it is still there, if I started studying again.  In fact, when I am searching for a Japanese word, a Spanish one sometimes slips out.  But what I didn’t realize is you can still lose what you have picked up even if you are still immersed in the language!

I have not done much to study Japanese while I have been in Japan.  There have been a few half-hearted attempts at kanji.  I had some success trying to translate the first volume of One Piece, an anime and manga I enjoy and know the story for.  But mostly I have learned by listening and talking to people.  When I lived in Osaka, this was easy.  I had my flat mates, the people on the shopping street, and neighborhood friends to practice with.  At school my desk was right in the middle of things and my coworkers really tried to talk to me.  But when I moved to Wakayama, I started to slip.  Traveling between two schools kind of distanced me from my coworkers.  Not to mention high school teachers are a lot busier.  So where I used to chat with the nurse and other teachers without classes, I now find myself sitting quietly at my desk in the back of the teachers’ room.  This is not to say my teachers ignore me or avoid me, it is just different.

My situation at home is different, too.  I no longer stroll past mom and pop businesses on a daily basis, stopping to chat about weather, family, and work.  I no longer have flat mates to listen to, much less discuss life with.  My apartment is in the middle of a residential neighborhood, but I hardly see my neighbors.  My commute is long and by the time I get home it is easier to cook for myself than find a restaurant or take away close by.  So my weeknights are spent quietly.  I still watch anime, but I have found myself reading more than listening.

 Now this would not be so much of a problem if I had kept up studying on my own.  But without people to practice with, the studying is hard.  I never really figured out how to learn language.  I have tried different things, but nothing really seemed to work.  Or, more likely, I never really gave it the time to work.  I have never been really good at commitment.  But studying on my own, I was always left with questions of why and how with no way to answer them.  Conjugation, counters, levels of politeness – Japanese is a very difficult language to understand the ins and outs of.  Flash cards and kanji didn’t help me speak or listen.  I need a structured class, I think.  Something with other people that will give me support and keep me accountable.

It sounds counter intuitive, but I have kind of put learning Japanese on the back burner for now.  My time here is drawing to a close, and I would rather spend the time exploring and interacting than holed up studying.  Perhaps when I am back in the US I will have the time and resources to learn the language I have been living with for over a year. 

My struggle with language has been my biggest frustration in my time here.  Being unable to communicate has left me isolated, confused, and often frustrated.  Learning while living here turned out to be very difficult with a full time job and a world of amazing things to explore.  If I could do it again, I would put off moving here until I could speak and read the language at least a little bit.