I know no one likes it when I say "don't bother with Japanese," but what I mean is: It is good to go into things with open eyes. Why do I want to learn this? Do I understand that, in the time it takes to get to intermediate Japanese, I could have a PhD in a romance language?
I see a big cultural difference between how culturally Westernized Americans and culturally Eastern people approach their futures. When I was a kid I was just encouraged vaguely to pursue what I loved. But when I taught in Japan, students would often get a new hobby, think about making it a career, and be guided by their parents and teachers to actually look into what that career would be like. How many opportunities are there to succeed in this field? Does it pay an amount of money that's acceptable to me? What would my days look like?
Sometimes, after realizing that the field didn't look so great actually, my students would tweak their goals.
Now that my oldest former students are mid-career adults, I can see how taking the reigns on the trajectory of your future works better than just the "chase your dreams!" stuff I was told by my family.
I think sometimes about how different my life would be if I'd gotten really into Spanish. My friend was writing papers on medieval Spanish literature in undergrad; now she's an academic librarian specializing in Spanish texts, and she can work in any Spanish-speaking country she likes, as well as the host of other countries with a need for Sp/Eng bilingual librarians. She's currently saving to buy a house.
Meanwhile, I'm the same age as her, I've been studying Japanese for ages, and I still can't read Japanese well enough to have those kinds of qualifications and occupational opportunities. I absolutely love living in Japan, but getting a visa to live here is becoming increasingly difficult. The opportunity costs were real: This is the language I became interested in when I was 18, at a time when I didn't know very much about the language or frankly about anything else.
If I could go back in time, I'd either choose a different language or I'd recognize that Japanese has a hold on my soul and I'd go after it full gusto, working hard to study abroad, stay with a host family, etc, while in undergrad or even high school. There are language-learning opportunities for young people and students that just don't exist when you're 30. I'm frankly dead jealous of my friends who speak fluidly at 30 because they stayed with a host family for a semester or went to a Japanese summer camp at 15.
Also, I'd have gotten a degree that pairs well with "wants to live in Japan." My friends who studied computer science, food systems, and even ichthyology are a lot better-suited for settling down in Japan than me, the person who studied....Japanese history.
But that's advice I never received.
I'm a lucky duck because I chose a language spoken in a country that is my favorite place on earth, but also, there were easier paths with more secure and open life outcomes.
