The other day, someone I don’t know well wrote me a short message in Japanese. He’s not Japanese, and I don’t know how he knew that I can read simple words in hiragana (“ありがとうございます” = “Thank you.”). The delight I felt over this tiny connection turned my day around.
Last week, my Japanese teacher asked about my favourite anime. I told her it’s currently Yuri!!! on Ice. She didn’t seem to know it, but during pair work later, my partner excitedly pulled out her Yurio doll and we squealed about him together. Part of me thinks that being in my fifties and bonding with someone over an anime figurine is unseemly. But it was a true shared little joy, like the moment I discovered that the Japanese equivalent of the Facebook “Like” is “いいね！” (“Ii ne!” or “Isn’t that great?”) and immediately texted my one colleague who is also studying Japanese and who I knew would understand how charming I found this.
As an older person embarking on learning an (almost) new language, I face some obstacles. In my Language Acquisition classes in university, much was made of how unlikely it is to achieve full fluency once one is past a certain age. There are some factors that make things a bit easier for me: I have learned one language (French) as a grown person, and this experience is supposed to have made my brain and ear more flexible. I already have some familiarity with Japanese; I lived in Japan for a couple of years in my twenties, although I was a lazy student and came away ashamed of how little I had absorbed.
I sometimes think with regret about that missed opportunity, but that regret is softened by two factors: I’m having so much fun studying Japanese now, and throughout my life, I’ve always learned things better the second time around. I pecked away at a typewriter with two fingers and a self-study book for years until I finally took a typing class and aced it. I failed my childhood beginner’s swim class three times, but when I finally passed, I flew through the next-level course with no problems. I even hold out hope that when I decide to take driving lessons again, I will come out actually able to drive, and maybe even to park. I’m a slow learner, but if I care about something enough to do it more than once, it starts to stick.
What I do regret about my time in Japan, however, is how closed-off I was, not just because I knew no Japanese, but also because I felt like a helpless and ignorant child in a world that made no sense to me, and this made me defensive. These days, treating the people and events around me as curious and interesting universes to investigate and connect with, rather than threats, is my main psychological project. When I go to Japan again someday, I will go with this goal.
It’s been a long time since I last posted here, because I felt I had little left to say about teaching. Where learning is concerned, though, I’ve barely begun. If you are interested in learning, or Japanese, or exploring curious universes with an open heart, then please stay tuned.
Classroom as Microcosm 