About

I met my first Japanese friends in college more than ten years ago and started studying Japanese because of them. I’ve lived in Japan for seven of the last nine years and while my Japanese is good, it should be better.

I passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, level 2, in 2006. I’ve taken the level 1 exam twice and failed both times. When I show the level 1 grammar and vocab to my Japanese friends and co-workers, the reaction is the same: they’re surprised because they don’t even know half of it. And If they don’t know it, why should I?

While I think it would be nice to say  I’ve passed level 1, I know it doesn’t matter. I can more than get by in daily life. I’ve just lost my motivation to continue studying Japanese. Partly, it’s because my job is teaching English, so I don’t get many chances to speak Japanese. But the main reason is the change in the Japanese language itself. It has become increasingly trendy to use “katakana English” – words borrowed from English and pronounced with the Japanese syllabary – instead of native Japanese words. So, why should I endeavor to learn new vocabulary when I can communicate just as effectively using English words I already know, spoken in a Japanese accent?

This blog will serve as a platform for me to make the case that, once you reach an intermediate level of Japanese, there’s really no point in struggling to master the language. I will show how the Japanese are replacing their language with mine, so there’s no need for me to make any further effort.