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The Most Frustrating Part of Learning Japanese
Common words and phrases aren’t in the language textbooks
A couple of months ago before moving to Matsuyama, Japan, I was at my Japanese language farewell party, sitting at the front tables with classmates who had been with me for a year.
I still remember how sweet the moment was — going up on stage to get a prize for having a great academic performance in learning the language.
We had just finished learning the N4 level. Turns out, N4 is the equivalent of a Japanese child in kindergarten. I learned that the hard way.
During my revision tests before coming to Japan, I would study the dreaded kanji the previous night and pass the test with decent scores. However, that isn’t an option when you’re trying to read local signboards now.
Oh let me just look up in my books what this means. Oh 駐車場 (chuushajou) means ‘parking lot’.
FYI — The ‘parking lot’ kanji isn’t even in N4. I was more or less an uneducated dude walking the streets (I still am).
