Especially regarding Business Japanese
Let me give you some clues and
important advices on the know-how of starting to learn Japanese. However
difficult it might seem, don’t give up on it, because it ’s almost a must if
you want to get along in Japan, and in case you decide to change countries, it
can give you much advantages to speak this not-so-widely spoken language.
Being able to speak Japanese opens so many more opportunities for the foreign worker in Japan, that whenever I get an email asking about jobs here, I advise the person first of all,that if they can afford it, they should take an intensive Japanese course first.
Of course, the key phrase here is “if you can afford it”. One way to achieve this, and to get to know your future family is to take that time off living for 6-12 months with the in-laws. This will create a full-immersion language proficiency for you, and provide you with the motivation to learn fast and get out to set up your own home…! :-)
I recently received an interesting letter from someone, who is a consultant and a successful entrepreneur, and who is married to a Japanese medical doctor who has been practicing overseas. As you can imagine, relocating to Japan was a major decision by the couple and they had mutually high expectations about the need for local integration and careers. The problem was that he had to learn Japanese first. He soon realized that he would have to create a program to learn Japanese, and to follow that program until he reached relative fluency. He has described for me how he achieved this in a logical manner – and I feel that this could serve as a great example to follow for others considering the same course of action.
I’ll let him tell his own story in these next chapters (and in these few days J ).
To be continued…
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