10+ Years of Teaching Experience, Native English Speaker, Lived and Worked in Japan

Find out more about Emily

• Did you grow up speaking this language? Or were you inspired by a trip abroad, an individual or a certain aspect of the culture?

  I didn't grow up speaking Japanese. I really enjoyed the pop culture from the time I was in primary school and continued to learn Japanese throughout my schooling, eventually majoring in Japanese in university and going on exchange twice.

• Can you name a living, historical or fictional character that you think is the emblematic representative of the language's culture?

  Its really hard to choose just one character to represent the whole culture but I think, for me, I would choose Sailor Moon! She's always positive, even in seemingly impossible situations and of course, her stereotypical sailor uniform is a landmark of Japanese culture. Some students in Japan even choose their schools based on the look of the uniform. She represents the moon princess, which goes back to an old Japanese folklore about Kaguya-sama, the moon princess and her name, Usagi (rabbit), is symbolic of the "rabbit" on the moon that Japanese people say they see in the craters of the moon (rather than the man-on-the-moon that we see in the West). The moon has a special place in many Japanese peoples' hearts and is a part of all of our daily lives. All of the stories around the moon that represent the special cultural significance of the moon in Japanese culture are represented by Sailor Moon, who even today is still a widely recognised character both in Japan and outside of Japan, almost 30 years after her first appearance!

• Is there a typical word, phrase, tradition or expression in the language that you particularly like?

  I like the expression「空気を読む」which literally translates to "read the air" and is the equivalent of "reading the room" in English. A lot of communication seems to happen in the air in Japan!

• Why does speaking this language matter to you?

  I always enjoyed studying Japanese at school and learning more about the culture. Languages have always interested me and I made it a personal goal of mine to do whatever it took to reach fluency in Japanese as a point of pride, I suppose. I didn't want eight years of study to surmount to nothing! And the friends and connections both inside and outside of Japan I've made through being fluent in Japanese will last for the rest of my life, which is something irreplaceable.

• What is the main difficulty in learning this language and what can help the process of learning?

  I think the writing system is something that trips up a lot of beginners. There are 3 alphabets in Japanese, and one of them, kanji, contains thousands of symbols! To be able to read a newspaper in Japan you need to know around 2,000 kanji and even to function in everyday Japan you need at least 700. To English or European language speakers, kanji might just look like a bunch of scribbles, but I think the best way to learn kanji for people of these backgrounds is to understand the "radicals" or smaller parts within a kanji and make a story out of them related to the meaning of the kanji.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your language learning or your days at school.

  When I went on exchange to rural Japan in high school, after about 1.5 months with my first host family, I was experiencing seemingly impervious cultural and language barriers.
  
  The company I was on exchange with had to intervene and I was on a phone call with the regional manager. The regional manager asked me why I was "acting out" and I gave her examples of where I was made to sit up late at night in the family's karaoke bar, keeping the old men customers company and where they didn't provide me with reliable lunches and dinners so some days I didn't eat anything at all.
  
  The manager said that was no excuse and I should count myself lucky that they accepted me into their homes and should go around with a smile on my face and apologise straight after the call. I refused. She threatened me saying "If you don't make nice with your family, we'll send you back home to Australia! You don't want to be a failure do you?"
  
  I stood my ground and said, "That's fine, its better than staying in this family!"
  
  She then hung up and contacted my mother in Australia to persuade her that I was misbehaving and that I wanted to be on the next flight home. My poor mother was completely unaware that there had been any issues at all and after a phone call with me, she demanded the company find a new family for me and maintained that I was not in the wrong.
  
  I had a very turbulent next few days, between being thrown out of my host family's house at midnight, being adopted by my school principal for three days and then being put on display at my school club's end of year BBQ to attract a new family. Finally, I was accepted by the club's second-in-command teacher and I went to spend the remainder of my exchange with them and their 3 and 1 year old sons.
  
  I was fed, taught about the language and culture, and loved infinitely by my second host family! I made memories and friendships I will have for the rest of my life! If I hadn't stood up for myself at that crucial moment on the phone with the regional manager, and my mother hadn't been so supportive of me, it would have been a very different story.
  
  Sadly, I heard of similar instances of inappropriate management by the company when I finished my exchange and in the years since and I think this is the side of exchanges that we rarely hear about. Since then I have made it my personal mission to protect and comfort the exchange students who might not feel as bold as me to speak out against their situations, in my personal life and in previous employment. Speaking of our experiences makes us all stronger and I hope it will improve the treatment of exchange students everywhere!

• How has travel or a specific trip helped you to increase your skill and knowledge of the language?

  Both my high school and university exchanges were wonderful, life changing experiences. I think my university exchange helped me nail the last parts of the Japanese language I'd struggled with to reach fluency. I took classes in Japanese and my Japanese language classes were taught by very fun and expressive teachers, who always made my day better. During lessons I had to speak in Japanese, however even outside of class with all of my friends Japanese was the only language we had in common, so I was speaking Japanese more than I spoke English and my Japanese skills advanced infinitely.