Going abroad, Student exchange and Learning a new language

This is a thread that I've been wanting to make for a while so screw it lets go.

I've been learning Japanese on and off for pretty much my entire life. My primary school had classes and I took Japanese as an elective in Secondary. About a year ago I decided to start taking it seriously and began actually studying and going to weekend classes. One thing led to another and I got offered exchange to Japan. I'll be spending 6 months going to school in Japan and living there with a host family. I'm super excited but this isn't happening until around August next year so a lot nervousness is surrounding this endeavour as well. I thought writing it down might help a bit so...

Managing with a language you aren't comfortable in:
I really only have one relative capable of speaking Japanese and I rarely get to use the language in my day to day life so my Japanese is utter shit. I can function in Japanese but I can't hold a proper conversation.

I can't read it:
^This. I literally cannot read Japanese. I know Hiragana (used for grammar and some words typically) and Katakana (mostly foreign words) but I can't read very many Chinese characters. In eight months I'm hoping I'll improve a bit but still its a big worry for me.

Being away from family:
I know this will sound stupid to a lot of the older Smogonites but remember that I'm 15. I've never been away from my family for an extended period of time. So I don't know how much I will miss them or if I will get homesick or not.

High Density Living:
Another one that will sound stupid to most people but I'm kind of worried I won't be able to adapt to dense city living of Japan. I live in outer suburban Melbourne and even the Melbourne CBD seems packed to me.

Anyway I made this thread in the hopes that Smogonites with more age under their belt than me will share their experiences. Please comment on your experiences on learning a new language. Being a student in a foreign country, first time being away from family. Tips for going to school in a language you don't speak, share anything you've got. I want to hear peoples' stories and advice. Thanks for reading.
 
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Having moved from Colombia to US, English is my secondary language, from my experience with a different culture/language I'd advise:

- Immersion is important, don't limit yourself to movies, pronunciation on anime and other shows is usually cleaner than what you get in real life, try to get some podcasts and listen to them all the time, when you're riding the bus, when you're walking, when you're about to go to sleep.
- Don't be afraid of talking, everybody has an accent, you will find all kind of people, in my experience most of them will be patient with you, we ask people to repeat what they said all the time, is just that we are more self conscious when we are in a different country.
- Immersion is important, don't watch English TV once you're there.
- Good luck and enjoy the experience, I'll post more stuff if I can think of anything else :)
 

Adamant Zoroark

catchy catchphrase
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I learned Japanese in high school (then forgot almost all of it through sheer lack of use) but I'll try to apply my experiences learning German (still learning German to be exact) to this.

Biggest thing: Use the language. The only way to get good at something is to practice. Speak in Japanese while in Japan; hell, I'm sure even Skyping with a native Japanese speaker could help you here. This probably doesn't apply so much to learning Kanji, though; as far as I can tell that's purely rote memorization.

Another thing I like doing to help learn German which I'm sure applies equally to Japanese is using media in that language. For example, I'll listen to Rammstein and Die Toten Hosen while also having easy access to the lyrics of whatever song I'm listening to (Spotify lets you see the lyrics of what you're listening to but this doesn't apply to DTH because their music is not on Spotify.) When I get to a line I can't translate completely, I write it out, then write out as much of it in English as I can, then I'll use a dictionary to figure out what the remaining words mean. I'll use Rammstein's song "Du Hast" as an example, writing one of the lines in German first then writing out English translations I initially knew:

"Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab' nichts gesagt"

"You have me ??? and I have ??? ???"

So I needed to learn the words "gefragt," "nichts," and "gesagt." Looking in a dictionary, I get "asked," "nothing," and "said," respectively, which tells me that the lyric translates to:

"You have asked me and I have said nothing"

Then I'll listen to the song a few times again, without looking at the English translation, so I can better memorize what the lyrics actually mean. Before I applied that method, the only German words in the entire song I knew were "Du," "Hast," "Mich," "Ich," and "Nein," but now I know almost all the song (excluding one line) Doing this also helps with getting pronunciation in that language down (but I remember this wasn't too difficult in Japanese because pronunciation rules in Japanese are incredibly consistent)

I've heard of a similar method being applied to movies, anime, etc. So, applying this to your case, I believe the technique would be to watch one scene of a Japanese movie/anime or something with subtitles, then watch the same scene again without subtitles. I don't know, I've never used this method before, so I'm not the person to ask about how it works.

But basically, tl;dr: Practice practice practice.
 
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internet

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I have a friend who went on an exchange to Japan (and is still there currently) under circumstances similar to yours but isn't a smogon user, I'll see if I can get him to read this thread and reply.
 

internet

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His response:

I've been living here as an exchange student for 9 months now, so I can asnwer some questions you may have about the whole thing.

-the language
When I came to Japan, I could only read hiragana and half of katakana, and the only Japanese I spoke was 'XはYです'. Knowing basic Japanese helps a lot, and if I could go back I would have definitely studied Japanese harder before coming here. But it's important to note that it's not absolutely necessary. You'll probably be studying at a senior high school, and the students there at least understand very basic English. It varies from person to person. Some are terrible at English and some can express themselves with only a few mistakes. The most important thing is to not be afraid of talking to people. You're a foreigner, and that already makes you interesting to them. Trust me, they're more than willing to be patient in understanding you and talking to you. Just keep talking and it'll be fine.

-reading the characters
Kanji is important here, but I didn't know any of it in the beginning and I still managed fine. Keep in mind that you will at all times be surrounded by people fluent in Japanese, and asking them about grammar/kanji is a good excuse to start a conversation and bond with people.

-being away from family
This one depends heavily on your personality. I'd say that almost everyone experiences some form of being homesick at some point, but for how long and how bad depends on the person. I myself have had times where I missed my family, but I didn't feel depressed, just a tiny little bit sad. I also got a call from another exchange student bawling her eyes out cause she wanted to go home. But it's worth noting that for almost everyone, it's just a phase. And even that exchange student is still happy that she decided to come here.

-high density living
It's no guarantee that you'll be living in a high density area. I've lived with 2 different host families until now. The first live in a relatively peaceful part of the city, and it wasn't very busy. The second live literally right above the busiest part of the city. It's worth noting that for my entire life in my home country, I've lived in a very small town where nothing ever happened, and I had no problem adapting to this new lifestyle.

Tips for going to school very much depend on what kind of school you go to. I know exchange students who go to incredibly strict schools with ridiculous dressing rules, and I myself go to a school with hardly any rules at all.

Worth nothing is that Japanese schools have a few things which may not be considered 'normal' where you come from. It is considered normal for a student to join at least 1 after school club, and if you choose a sport club, expect to have to go to club every single day. Yes, even the weekends. All your subjects will be in the same room, and teachers will come to where the students are, rather than the other way around. Most schools only have changing rooms for the girls, and boys change in the classroom.

That's all I can think of for the moment. If you have any more questions I'd be more than happy to answer them.
 

aVocado

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I'm currently studying abroad in Dublin (originally from Kuwait) and have been since September last year. I also went to an English language institute in south UK for a month and lived with a host family there during the entire time (I was 16) and even had my birthday there which my host family celebrated with the mum making a cake and them giving me a birthday card that I still keep today. A month is nothing compared to your 6 months, but it's still something.

Anyway, are you going to be studying in japanese at this school? What will you be doing? Will there be other exchange students as well?

If the answer to the last question is yes then it's guaranteed you'll have a good time. You'll be stuck with other people literally in the same situation as you so that makes socializing very easy. When I went on that month to study English I got paired up with people from all over the world, and I was in a group of friends with a Korean and Russian dudes, a Turkish guy, and a Turkish chick, and it was suuuuuper fun. The russian dude was even fucking 36 and divorced but he was still really chill (i know how creepy that sounds but really, he's chill LOL).

If not, then socializing will be harder but don't be intimidated by it. Surely there will be people curious about you so introducing yourself shouldn't be difficult, from there you can just converse with people etc, it will certainly be a learning experience in terms of socializing.

Definitely get on good terms with your host family day 1. If they have a little kid bring him a toy or whatever, trust me, I brought a little teddy bear I got from the airport for my host family's 3 year old and he started calling it "Bader Bear" (Bader being my real name) and if his parents are telling the truth then he's still attached to him this very day lmao, they'll super appreciate it. If they don't, then bring them a souvenier or whatever. My experience with host families was a very good one but I've heard many stories that tell otherwise so idk. Always ask them first if you need help with something or have a question or whatever, I asked my host family for directions or suggestions on where to go all the time. hanging out with them a bit is nice too, like for watching TV and shit.

Feeling homesick largely depends on you tbh. Personally I didn't like living in Kuwait at all seeing how everyone including my own family was super close-minded and I didn't want to spend some of the most important years of my life in that environment so I wanted to get out for a few years which is exactly what I'm doing right now, even thinking of extending those few years for college to get a masters or whatever but it's still too early to tell lol. anyway, if you're in a similar situation (aka don't like where you're living very much) then you probably won't be feeling bad homesickness. If you do though, then just remember that this experience is something you'll probably not regret at all because it would be a huge learning experiences. You can also easily be in touch with ur family via skype/viber/whatsapp/facetime/whatever, so it probably won't be super bad imo.

Can't help you with the language barrier thing tho cuz I never had that seeing how I could speak fluent english easily.

It will be scary at first, going through the airport alone and shit, but you'll learn that airports aren't as scary as they look like. There's flight information screens everywhere and people are prepared to ask any common questions aka "where's this gate" and "where can I get food" or "where do I check in in my bags" and whatever.
 
Anyway, are you going to be studying in japanese at this school? What will you be doing? Will there be other exchange students as well?
I'll have some Japanese classes early on yeah but I mostly have to manage with what I've got. I'm already taking Japanese classes here in Australia though. I was told that they specifically try to get kids to go to schools were there are no other exhange students so that you have to speak the language of your country. I'll probably meet plenty of students at the airport. As for what I'll be doing I have no idea. I'll just be living life with the host family for 6 months I guess.
 

apt-get

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Sounds nice! I'm learning Japanese too (well, I started a month ago). Grinding Remembering The Kanji right now, I'm at about 500 of them... Gonna start vocabulary + grammar in a few weeks at most.

I'm planning to learn Russian afterwards. Gotta complete the Japanese/Russian/Arabic oriental languages trinity, since I already know French, English, (a decent amount of) Spanish, Arabic, and Moroccan.
 
Sounds nice! I'm learning Japanese too (well, I started a month ago). Grinding Remembering The Kanji right now, I'm at about 500 of them... Gonna start vocabulary + grammar in a few weeks at most.

I'm planning to learn Russian afterwards. Gotta complete the Japanese/Russian/Arabic oriental languages trinity, since I already know French, English, (a decent amount of) Spanish, Arabic, and Moroccan.
Holy crap thats impressive. I only know two languages and I honestly can't imagine learning another language past Japanese at this rate. Also remembering the Kanji one by one is useless. I did that and completley wasted my time as I found myself forgetting stuff. Japanese grammar is really unique so start by learning that. Learn Kanji as they come and focus on radicals first.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Hey guys,

So basically my prof for my Immigration class told me about this great program where students from the U of MN (my uni is sister schools with the UoMN) can go and teach English for a semester in Brazil (I get college credit for doing so, ~12 credits or so). I have never been to Brazil nor do I have any knowledge/exp about that region of the world. Does anyone know anyone here (i.e. are there users here from Smogon that live or lived in Brazil) that could tell me about living in Brazil?

Of course, I'm all about adventure: I literally went to Thailand to teach as a volunteer on a short notice and loved it, so I could just do it without any mental preparation, but there's something about having the resolve to do something that get's stronger if there is the right kind of knowledge about the subject matter at hand. In this case it's Brazil. I know that I'm being vague about where in Brazil and whatnot, but I have no idea yet, as this is just something that surfaced today and I haven't gotten any info from the prof yet. Just curious about culture, people, etc (I know the language is Portuguese).

Financially I'm not sure if I would be able to support the full cost of the trip, so ofc I'm going to be looking at student aid/scholarships/etc, but that's another subject matter.

Also I didn't want to post a new thread about this, since I figured this is pretty similar to OP's questions/discussion. So yeah...
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
English is my third language, but I'm sent to school in the UK when I was aged 13. I stayed in the UK for 5 years.
It was fine. No big deal.

I'd say, it's important to have some proficiency of the language, especially the spoken aspect of it. Reading/ writing is not as important. But it is still good that you can learn some kanji if you want to stay in Japan.

It is also important to research thoroughly about their culture and way of life, especially when it's a far East country-- culturally it is VERY different.
Research on what offends them and what doesn't.
Research on what offends you, but is completely acceptable in their culture.

(I personally see too many US college students come to Hong Kong without researching on our culture, and they become very shocked and even offended when things don't go their way!!
European students don't seem to have the same problem though, and I don't know why.)
 
So basically my prof for my Immigration class told me about this great program where students from the U of MN (my uni is sister schools with the UoMN) can go and teach English for a semester in Brazil (I get college credit for doing so, ~12 credits or so). I have never been to Brazil nor do I have any knowledge/exp about that region of the world. Does anyone know anyone here (i.e. are there users here from Smogon that live or lived in Brazil) that could tell me about living in Brazil?
sup

- Lots of traffic and queues for everything. Life is slow.
- Big difference between poor and rich.
- External richness signs are very common, such as expensive cars and restaurants
- Men dress pretty poorly as if they dont care, and most of them don't even know how to do basic home stuff like wash dishes or use a washing machine or even "masculine" stuff like change the car wheels.
- Everyone supports a football team. It's almost religious.
- Gigantic taxes on everything. Brazil is very expensive in everything, except food. Food is cheap.
- Salaries and life cost do not align well, be smart about planning your economies.
- People think everything is gay.
- People think every asian is japanese.
- Weather is good.
- Salty food is very salty, sweet food is very sweet. Brazilians love rice with beans with everything (myself included).
- Coffee here is really really good.
- Lots of good beaches.
- A 'thumbs up' is a positive signal for everything.
- Brazilians never say "no" to stuff, if someone says "I'll do this later" it means they'll never do it.
- Most people are very friendly and will actually get anxious to help a foreginer, although most people arent good at english, but they have no shame in speaking a very broken english to be helpful. Also they'll absolutely LOVE if you try to make an effort to speak some basic portuguese.
- Portuguese is a much harder version of spanish.
- The TV channels keeps repeating the same movies over and over again.
- Relashionships are almost encoded. Love has labels. "Peguete", "ficante", "namorada", "esposa"...
- Big inferiority complex towards other countries wich is really stupid, especially relating to U.S. It's common to associate bad stuff to BRness. (Example: Some league players don't like to play solo queue because it's "full of BRs" and not because "it's toxic"). They don't believe in the country, most brazilians think Brazil is shit and the rest of the world is paradise.
- Inside cars, there's always a bag to put the trash on the gear.
- 30 year olds living with parents is completely normal here, most people only leave parents house after they get married. Most college students also live with parents.
- The year only starts after carnival pretty much.
- Stores sell stuff as if they were the best. You always see signs saying "The best shoe store", "The best grocery store".
- If you have something to say, people warn before they say it. You hear alot of "Let me tell you something".

There's more stuff but that sums it up
 
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