Category: linguistic

  • An Unspoken Language

    I am trilinguist and I can understand few other languages from India. My initial thought before going to Japan was that people would be speaking a little bit English and I would be able to survive there on my own. However, I found myself helpless at many times as most people I met could not…

  • I Feel Like a Kindergartener Again…

    I guess this comes across as cocky now that I’ve said it, but I was pretty confident in my Japanese abilities before I left on the trip.  I mean, I was a beginner – there was no way to deny that.  But I had my phrases memorized, and I had constantly quizzed myself on hiragana,…

  • Sustainability

    Does ability to fluently speak a language mean that you will not have any troubles and misunderstandings communicating with people from a culture where this language is native? Neither of us can really speak Japanese yet, but even without knowing Japanese perfectly, we clearly understand now that the answer is no. Cultural Sustainability I have…

  • Oh No I Can’t Read

    There is a list of several things that were my “first impressions” of Japan, and from my perspective of hoping to live in this country someday, I took notice I’m about 5% literate after stepping out of the airport. Some things are written in English, some things are even written in bad English(there’s also a…