I don’t feel like I am improving my Japanese as fast I would like to. The problem is that I don’t find myself finding many opportunities to actually use it. Why is this? I’m living in Japan, studying Japanese, at one of the best Japanese language teaching schools in Japan, and I can’t find enough opportunities to use my Japanese. The problem is this: everyone I know can speak English. The Japanese friends I have want to practice English. The other friends I have speak English as their native language.

One of the problems is my best friend. As the most talkative and loudest person in the dorm, he has turned the default language in the dorm to English. He lives right next to me and we spend 90% of the day together. We have most of the same classes, so we hold each other accountable for classes and homework. I can’t cook food and he is a great cook, and more than happy to cook for me and a few other friends every day. In short, I need him as a friend, but there is one thing about him that is bothering me lately: how much he loves to talk. And because everyone here speaks at least a little English, this is the language of choice when it comes to having discussions. At the dormitory, everyone loves him because he livens up the room and is fun to chat with. But the problem comes here, he has turning the dormitory into an English-speaking family. Everyone here is now best friends, and because everyone here can speak English better than Japanese, it is now the default language at home for chatting.

At school, most of the Japanese students I know also know English. Because I look like a native-speaker of English, the conversations always start in English. When I try to speak in Japanese, because my Japanese confidence and vocabulary is so small, the conversation always turns to English. I do admit that there are opportunities to speak Japanese, such as in class, which is great, but I feel like I need to speak it more often than just at school.

So what do you do when the less-effective, more fun way is easier and more convenient than the more effective, less fun way to accomplish your goals? It isn’t exactly fun to find a native Japanese at school and make attempts to practice my terrible Japanese. No way, it is much more fun to stay at home speaking English, and study Japanese on the side. But when I think of the most ideal and effective way, I start to feel like I am wasting time here.

It is not where I want to be, and I need to change something around in my life to satisfy my priorities. Alright, cool, I will stop my complaints and try to take action, making changes here in the next few weeks and get back to you.