How's my nihongo? Call 1-800-SUCK

Having lived in Japan for nigh-on 6 years now, and working at a Japanese developer you'd think my Japanese was pretty damn good, right? And by all reasoning it should be! I have decided I'll probably stay the rest of my life in this country, I deal on a daily basis with my colleagues, I watch tedious Japanese television... I'd be a pretty sad individual if my Japanese wasn't up to scratch, right?
Well, it isn't. I'm rubbish.

So what went wrong? For a start, I am naturally lazy, like most people. You come home from a hard day's work, the last thing you want to do is hit the books. No, you want to sit back, play some games, watch some tv, go out for some drinks. You definitely won't want to learn kanji. I would like to go back to school but that can be quite expensive. I once tried group lessons, sharing a class with only two other foreigners, neither of whom had the slightest interest in making an effort. While they were being sponsored by their companies I was paying for it myself and keen to make it count. So I would be sitting in class thinking "man, we went over this last week! Haven't you learnt it yet? Sheez." In an ideal world classmates would offer a little competition or at least motivation. I was unlucky enough to be stuck with the two most tiresome individuals the foreigner community had to offer. So I tried private lessons. Much more expensive, obviously, but at least it was tailored to my needs and weaknesses. It went great for a while, until crunch kicked in at work.
In the end I let it slip and never had the balls to pick it up again.

I also firmly believe reading is the best way to study a language. But with Japanese you're buggered. Sure, katakana and hiragana are a doddle to learn, but kanji? A right Royal pain in the neck. Even reading a newspaper requires some 2000 odd kanji.

Of course my spoken Japanese is alright. I have no problems communicating with my colleagues about work and life. Occasionally I stumble over some words but so far I've been lucky to have worked with some very patient people who were always willing to speak in baby-Japanese when necessary. I learnt some handy slang too when out for smoking breaks. Emails and documents still go through Excite, most days. I could wrestle my way through them, but I am usually busy enough with my own tasks so a quick and dirty translation on-line is good enough. Except when I send them out, of course, then I do spend some time making sure I am not inadvertendly insulting the boss's mother or anything like that.

So I'm screwed. I have no excuse but to go back to school. I really should. One day...

But how good do you have to be to actually work? I guess if you can manage an interview in Japanese you're probably good enough, at first. I shouldn't bother with JLPT too much unless you want to go into translation or work for another industry. I don't think I've ever met anyone in the games inudustry who cared about JLPT or even knew exactly what it was. You may want to use it to motivate yourself, but I don't think it's required for development work.

The final tip I can give is probably "learn kanji NOW!". If you're toying with the idea of moving here, start learning it immediately, while you're still young, preferably, before your synapses start eroding with old age. The Japanese start learning it from age 6 orso, and even they have problems with it! But always keep in mind that, aside from the kanji, it is just another language. Grammatically it's pretty easy and solid. Once you get to grips with the structure of words you'll pick it up fairly quickly. If you just put in a little effort it is not that difficult to learn!