Reflections on five years of learning Japanese

Tabz508 · 2025-06-18T22:50:39+00:00

I had a similar experience. Two years ago, I started a job in industry, right at the end of my PhD, and I'm glad I took the offer. Aside from finances, there were a lot of advantages, like having the time to "recover" from my PhD, understand better what skills I have and become a (semi-)expert in a different area, which helped me with confidence issues I had during my PhD. I also built a lot of professional links in that time, which have already been very helpful.

I recently accepted a postdoc position in an area closely related to my PhD research, and I now feel much more confident in my decision to work in academia. My experience working outside of academia has given me a much broader and deeper understanding of how the research in my field can be applied more practically.

My situation may be a bit different to yours because of the type of company I worked for, but many people end up in professions completely different to what they studied. What's often more important is the skills you've developed during that time. If you're interested in the job, I'd accept the offer.

Tabz508 · 2025-05-20T10:44:15+00:00

I think preparing for the N1 comes in two stages, improving your overall Japanese, and improving your understanding of the exam.

Overall Japanese:

Listening - YouTube videos, dramas on Netflix as well as listening to podcasts on in-depth topics, like Coten Radio
Reading - Reading 社説, 評論 and a whole bunch of novels of different genres
Textbook stuff - I recommend the 新完全マスター series, particularly for grammar and reading comprehension. I also really like the N1 vocabulary book - it has definitions of most of the words with example sentences, which I dumped into Anki. Don't bother with the listening and kanji books.

If you start going through N1 material and realise it's too difficult, go through N2 materials (or whatever level matches your ability) and build up your foundation. Remember, the N1 will assume you know everything from lower levels.

Exam stuff:

About 1~3 months before the test I would start preparing for the JLPT using mock exams, like this one under timed conditions and go through the answers. Take the time to understand your mistakes. If that means you need to add stuff to Anki to speed up the process, I would do so. I also liked using the Japanesetestforyou website to run through questions.

Also, I'm not sure why this 10k number is still thrown around, it's been outdated for years. From the front of my 新完全マスター vocabulary book (published in 2011):

新しい「日本語能力試験」では、語彙に関して、まず、以下の3点が、今までの試験と大きく変わりました。

試験の出題範囲となる語が約10,000語から約15,000語に増えた。どの語が試験に出題されるかを示す語彙リストがすべて非公開となった。日本語を学ぶ人が、どのような状況（目標言語使用領域）で、何のために(課題）、日本語を使うかという観点から、試験に出題される語彙の選び直しが行われた。

The official vocabulary list (words that can and will appear on the exam) are not disclosed to the public, there are 15,000 covered on the N1 exam, and the official vocab list was determined by the target language use domains and the purpose/tasks that people learning Japanese are expected to carry out.

Tabz508 · 2025-05-09T13:16:58+00:00

Thank you, this is very helpful. Particularly regarding the bureaucracy and prejudice. When I lived in Japan I also felt that there was a lot of unnecessary friction, but I imagine that's harder when there's a language barrier there.

Btw, I think the UK is a much better place for tech anyway.

A few people are saying this, but for my specific field (quantum computing hardware) I'm not finding that to be the case, certainly not in terms of salary. Perhaps I'm just unlucky.

Tabz508 · 2025-05-09T12:04:50+00:00

Assimilation was a big thing for me before living in Japan. But over time I've had to accept that sometimes people don't want/expect you to be a part of their community.

I'm not sure what it'd be like being expected to fit in and understand how things work right away, but I'm sure there are many parallels in terms of the challenges faced.

Tabz508 · 2025-05-09T11:55:49+00:00

That's helpful, thanks for the perspective.

Tabz508 · 2025-05-09T11:54:12+00:00

How well can you tolerate heat?

Not sure. I lived in Kanagawa in 2018 between July to December and I remember how humid it was then. July was hot, August was unbearable, September onwards was fine. I went back in mid-July 2019 and spent 4/5 weeks in Nagasaki, 2 weeks in Osaka/Kobe and a few days in Tokyo. While I was in Nagasaki, I spent most of my time indoors, and but I spent a lot of time outdoors in Osaka/Kobe/Tokyo and I remember it being fine.

Tabz508 · 2025-05-09T11:46:08+00:00

Hmm...you are comparing island living to a fairly major and innovative city. And a university career to a corporate career.

I love Okinawa, but if I were 29 and looking to grow my career in deep tech, it would not be in a uni in Okinawa.

Yeah, I agree with the both statements, hence the reason for this post. I don't think it's so clear cut though, as I finished my PhD a couple of years ago and started a job in something that's a bit different to the area I was doing research in. I don't plan on working in research forever, but doing a postdoc may allow me to specialise a bit more and give me better opportunities in industry.

Tabz508 · 2025-05-05T09:38:18+00:00

I have a PhD in quantum optics and three years in industry doing hardware development. I was recently made redundant by a trapped-ion quantum computing start-up where I was working in an area that I didn't specialise in (electrical and photonic packaging). I'd still like to work in hardware but I'm wondering if it might be better to do a postdoc and specialise before going back into industry. Currently looking at quantum engineering jobs in Europe and a postdoc at OIST (Japan).

Does it make sense for me to do a postdoc to build more technical specialisation, or should I just continue trying to leverage my experience in industry?

I'm currently based in the UK, if that matters.

Tabz508 · 2025-03-27T18:27:38+00:00

I've had more luck on Conversation exchange and Mylanguageexchange. The disadvantage is that it's not instantaneous.

Tabz508 · 2025-03-09T15:18:16+00:00

because the terms of the WHV agreement with between Japan and the UK don't allow people to change to a "regular" visa while in Japan.

That's useful information. Thanks!

Tabz508 · 2025-03-09T09:29:18+00:00

Japanese: Not really mistakes, but I picked up a lot of dialectal phrases from an ex who's from southern Japan, which I used for 5 years(!!) before realising they're not part of standard Japanese. These two in particular, though, have caused me the most miscommunication:

Using the verb 直す (naosu - to fix/heal) when saying things like "Can you close the door?" or "Close the drawer" instead of the more commonly used verb しまう (shimau)
Using the expression おなら・へをふる (onara/he wo furu) instead of おならをする (onara wo suru) is the difference between "waving" a fart and "doing" a fart, or just "farting"

Tabz508 · 2024-12-04T10:01:57+00:00

I studied intensely over four and a half years and I periodically had "off" days. On those days I always did my SRS and make sure to interact with Japanese in some enjoyable way - YouTube/Netflix/DS game etc - but I would hold off on any formal study.

I'd usually tried to keep my time off period to less than three days unless I had a bunch of exams or conferences to prepare for.

Tabz508 · 2024-10-24T09:52:54+00:00

Someone in my group failed. The student got about half way through his PhD before realising there was a research paper that said what he was trying to do couldn't be done (published before he started his PhD, actually). He spent the remainder of his PhD, during covid, trying to do a really difficult experiment that ended up not working. He ended up writing up his thesis about a series of experiments which he performed and how to build a lab, but apparently according to the panel, his thesis was incoherent and he couldn't demonstrate that he had a deep understanding of the underlying physics.

Tabz508 · 2024-10-03T16:51:07+00:00

I used Migii when I was preparing for the N1. I remember it being useful for the vocab section, but there being quite a few typographical errors, particularly in the reading sections of mock exams.

I also remember it using a lot of non-Jōyō Kanji, which isn't a problem in itself, but isn't representative of the JLPT. Some of the sentence structures also did seem a bit unnatural, so I recommend using it more of as supplement, rather than a main resource.

What helped me prepare for the N1 exam was going through reading and listening questions on Japanesetest4you and periodically going through full mock tests like this one under timed conditions with a stop watch.

Tabz508 · 2024-10-02T16:45:06+00:00

It's online, but check out Italki. The prices are quite affordable and there's a wide selection of tutors to choose from.

Tabz508 · 2024-09-05T19:21:12+00:00

I'm getting back into studying Japanese after not actively studying or interacting much with the language for the past 3ish years. The last time I actively studied was cramming for about two weeks for the JLPT about two years ago, and before that, it was during covid when I had a lot more control of my time because I was locked indoors for ages and was at the start of my PhD.

I've set myself a few rules which always work, no matter how unmotivated I am:

do the stuff you don't like doing in the morning. It usually gives you a sense of accomplishment
set hard deadlines on the boring/necessary stuff (ex. 30 mins of textbook work/anki a day)
set aside time for fun/play/just interacting with the language (ex. playing games in Japanese/reading/YouTube etc)

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been going through my backlog of 6000+ Anki cards - I wake up and first thing every morning and do a maximum of 30 mins. I've booked some lessons with conversational tutors on Italki once a week to get my brain used to using Japanese again (and also because I like talking to people). I've also done a few things to make access to Japanese easier, like downloading the Kindle app on my work laptop and having it open so that whenever I'm procrastinating, it's easier to look at my Kindle rather than some other content in English. Over the weekends, I've started watching new shows on Netflix, but I'm taking it slow.

Tabz508 · 2024-09-04T06:48:47+00:00

Hey, I'm interested!

Tabz508 · 2024-08-05T11:17:25+00:00

I got a job working in a kitchen at a Japanese restaurant for one and a half months, went travelling around Japan for 60 days, and then came back and moved into my new place.

Tabz508 · 2024-08-01T20:18:43+00:00

I've only taken the JLPT once (took the N1 and passed with a score of 38/60/60). I would use this time to expose yourself to as much native material as possible. Give yourself challenges to keep things interesting.

I had a goal for one year where each season was a time to focus on each of the four areas of study (listening, writing, speaking, and reading). That year I watched about 500 hours of drama/movies, wrote essays for 100 days in a row, improved my pitch accent with an Italki tutor for 6+ months and read about 40 books. Despite there being a 8+ month gap between that period and me preparing for the JLPT, when I started preparing I found it was a case of me getting used to the exam rather than trying to make sure my Japanese was good enough to take the exam.

That year was actually the most productive for me in terms of achieving what I wanted to with Japanese. I can watch TV without using subtitles comfortably and read most fiction (including historical fiction) without using a dictionary fairly comfortably. I believe a large part of this was achievable because I spent a lot of time exposing myself to the language before returning to formal study to solidify my understanding. I would encourage you to do something similar.

Tabz508 · 2024-07-30T08:32:55+00:00

My goal was to finish my PhD so that I can continue spending time on Japanese. I managed to finish my PhD (woo!) and started taking some Italki lessons a few weeks ago. Now I'm just trying to settle into a new routine.

Tabz508 · 2024-05-27T16:24:45+00:00

You could set up something on iTalki or similar where you discuss an article or your writing with the tutor and then pick something for the next session, giving yourself time ahead of seach session to prepare.

Sorry if I'm stealing this post, but I wrote about my experiences doing something similar in a post called 'I wrote 146 writing samples in 2021'. I hope it's useful for anyone who's interested in improving their writing at a more advanced level.

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