1

1 David Muir 15.09.22

2 Reflections on my personal experience of trying to learn Japanese

3 Twenty-six years ago, I married a Japanese woman. We decided to settle down in Denmark, so my
4 wife immediately started to study Danish. Our common language was English, but I wanted to learn
5 Japanese so I would be able to communicate with my parents-in-law. It has proven to be
6 exceedingly difficult for me to learn, even though I have spent many hours trying. Japanese is
7 supposed to be quite easy to learn to speak, but hard to learn to read.
8 Motivation and learning strategi are two important components, when trying to master a new
9 language. What are the reasons for my lack of success?
10 It would be nice to learn by speaking to others I thought. I started to practice Japanese with my
11 wife, but we both found that to be a frustrating experience. I felt she didn’t have enough patience’s
12 and she thought I wasn’t trying hard enough.
13 So I attended an evening course once a week instead. Japanese has three alphabets, two phonetical
14 ones with about fifty signs each and then kanji, which you must learn about 2000 of to be able to
15 read a newspaper. I attended this course several times and noticed that usually halfway through the
16 six-month course many students (including myself) were not participating anymore in class. At this
17 point I felt my motivation disappearing and suddenly studying became a bore. As a matter of fact, I
18 met several fellow students again, when attending later beginner courses.
19 I switched to studying by myself using mobile applications and online courses. This way I learnt the
20 two phonetical sign systems hiragana and katakana. The individual approach of digital learning
21 made sure that I had no problem in keeping up, but on the other hand I missed the fun and
22 challenging aspect of dialog with real people. Learning was very slow in fits and spurts. I would
23 study daily for two or three months and then pause for several months/ years.
24 To acquire new skills requires energy. To stay motivated I feel the reward must be comparable to
25 the effort involved. So, when I say that I want to learn Japanese maybe my deeper motivation
26 comes from a wish to live up to my wife and in-laws’ expectations. Their expectations have by now
27 (26 years later) all but evaporated so this has removed part of the reason for me wanting to learn in
28 the first place. My wife learned to speak and write Danish within two years so since then we have
29 just spoken Danish together.
30 If only it was more fun to study. This and the fact that I do not live in Japan and must learn, are the
31 only excuses left to me by now. I think that the most important preposition to learn anything is
32 motivation. A great source of motivation when learning is fun so, that would be my prerequisite for
33 an ideal teaching environment. As a last resort I could go and live by myself in Japan. Then I would
34 be forced to learn.