On 2005-03-26 17:52:06 +0900, Wilson <nnon@fake.com> said:

> How long did you have to live in japan to become fluent after doing a 
> major? I will complete a fourth year university level of japanese, but 
> I think my knowledge will be overly academic and not fluent enough for 
> real world situations.

Believe me, we're all that way. The academic study formed the 
foundation, but it wasn't until spending a year going to university 
here as an exchange student that I got really confident in my 
abilities. It took dedication, but the school I went to was Miyazaki 
University, and we pretty much had to become conversant in 
colloquial/spoken Japanese pretty quickly to get by. It certainly helps 
if you're in the "inaka" for complete language immersion.

To answer your question more directly, it took a little less than a 
year and I was effectively interpreting when needed, etc.

> I was reading a column that was talking about IT tech support jobs... I 
> would like to do that job but you need to be fluent in japanese.

Interesting... the ISP I was speaking of previously was GOL (Global 
Online Japan). It was founded by a Canadian, in Tokyo. It caters to 
both Japanese and foreign subscribers, and therefore bilingual tech 
support was sought after, but not necessary. The foreigners there 
manned the foreign help-desk phones, the Japanese, the Japanese phones. 
A lot of people I know started off in tech support. You can move up 
from there while gaining valuable skills rather easily.

A good deal of foreign owned companies have English set as the default 
language. In fact, at the interview for my present company, the HR 
person pretty much told me this would be very different from my 
previous companies in that the working language is English and I 
wouldn't have to speak, read, or type/write much Japanese at all. Up 
until now, my main selling point was my ability to communicate 
effectively in Japanese with colleagues, vendors, clients, etc., by 
phone, email, in person... The reality though, is that being able to 
converse fluently with my Japanese colleagues in their native language 
makes them feel very comfortable in expressing themselves. It breaks 
down barriers of sorts and smooths everything out for all involved.

In the coming years, it will be all about skills and your 
contributions, and of course ability to communicate in the common 
language, which is moving more and more towards English these days.

Lastly, when you make it to Japan, don't doubt your abilities. What 
motivated me was to learn from all the mistakes I make in the language. 
I did a lot more listening than speaking in the beginning. I learned 
that you pick things up faster and easier by following a fairly 
conversant foreigner speaking Japanese. Sounds funny, doesn't it? For 
one, they will speak slower than native Japanese, and oftentimes more 
clearly (Tokyo dialect). You can catch on to what they are saying, and 
if you're careful, also learn from their mistakes.

Forgot to add, since my year as an exchange student, I haven't had any 
Japanese classes/lessons since. That year in Miyazaki really put me on 
the right path. If you get the opportunity, come over as an exchange 
student. The government is giving Mombusho scholarships away left and 
right these days to appeal to foreign students. I remember having to 
right a paper on why I wanted to study in Japan. Don't remember the 
details, but I got the scholarship!

All the best,
- fir35ly