How to : Live in Japan ?
 

Hello everyone !

First of all, I'm not an english speaker so excuse me if my writing seems weird.

Second of all, I'm sure there is planty other threads about that subject (maybe have you some links to share), but I just signed in and I really have no courage to make a major check out ("Major Check Out") to find them right now.

I actually live in Switzerland. I've been few times in Japan since 2003 and now I feel like I really want to go try to live there.

I was planning on working as a french teacher (which I'm not). I guess french is thousands times less attractive than english in Japan.

But still, is there any whatever language teachers who succeed that can give me some feedback or advices ?

I would be very interested on reading any of your experiences (good or bad) about achieving their dreams, even for a short period.

What are your secrets ?! :)

Thank you for reading and maybe answering.

M.

Oh I don't know about that. French is still spoken in lots of parts of the world.

Teaching in Japan is not a bad thing for a young person to do for a time. The pay is reasonably good, and the workload is usually quite light, allowing you the money and time to see and do many things.

If your goal is to live in Japan permanently, you'll need to find something better than teaching. 3 million yen per year is enough for a single person, but isn't adequate if you want to get married or have children.

I teach/offer both French and English lessons and the demand is about 100:1 -> English:French.

There are far more willing teachers than students for French.

Like Sangetsu said, it's not quite good enough a job (in English or French) for permanent living.

People can say what they want, but English is the lingua franca. Japanese want to learn English, and there's not too much of a demand for other languages.

That's a bit of an overstatement, don't forget about Chinese.
There are only a few less Chinese schools in Kobe than English schools.
English is still more in demand but Chinese certainly isn't such a distant 2nd.

Although I could have explained better, I was really just considering most western languages. I agree, Chinese is quite popular.

Yeah in terms of western languages, I see a few Spanish and French schools, but they don't last very long.
Some schools offer them in addition to English but you'd have to be well qualified to get that job considering the demand is low.

I see..

So RealJames, you got to speak french by learning it or are you coming from any french spoken coutries ?

How did you get in Japan at first ?

Thanks eveyrone for participating to that thread.

M.

I grew up in the French Caribbean (Guadeloupe) and then lived in eastern Canada (Quebec city and Montreal). My French is as native as my English.
I don't advertise it because it isn't popular here, perhaps it would be like 100:5 instead of 100:1 if I advertised it more :)

How lucky you are !

Bon, je me permets de passer en FR si ça ne te dérange pas.

J'ai 31 ans, je suis vendeur automobile dans un petit garage familial en Suisse et j'ai envie d'acquérir de nouvelles expériences avant d'entamer une carrière ou de fonder un foyer.

Après 4 voyages au Japon (entre 2003 et 2010) et un réel intérêt pour ce pays et sa culture, j'aimerais vraiment y passer quelques temps, hors des sentiers battus.

Comment t'y es-tu pris ? Débarqué à la fraîche ou t'avais bien tout prévu à l'avance ?

J'espère que je t'embête pas trop avec toutes mes questions : /

Merci !

ça ne me dérange pas du tout! mais les langues officielles de ce forum sont l'anglais et le japonais alors je te reponds en anglais :)

Coming here to teach English is certainly one of the easiest ways to end up in Japan. I came here with nothing prepared, but I knew that anywhere in Asia there is enough demand for English teachers that it wouldn't be long before I had a job.

Your other options, depending on how safe you want to play it, are to apply for jobs from abroad, and then once you get a bite to get them to sponsor a work visa.
Or to come here on a tourist visa, spend most of your time applying for work in the city where you'd most like to live, and home you get a bite before your tourist visa or money runs out. you're infinitely more likely to find any kind of job by applying from within Japan, walking in the front door, than applying from abroad, but then there's the risk of "wasting" 3 months.

If you don't have a 4-year college/uni degree then none of this is feasible.
That's the sad reality of it.

Teaching French is worth a shot, if you have any other marketable skills, or enough money to start a business (5mil yen at the absolute minimum) then you should look into that.

Oh sorry for the french writing !

Unfortunately I don't have a 4-year college/uni degree so I guess the dream stops here..

Thanks anyway !

M.

There are plenty of foreigners living and working in Japan who do not have a degree, and who are not married to a Japanese citizen. The degree/language teacher option is the easiest and most common way, but not the only one.

Take some cooking classes, practice in your spare time, then come to Japan and look for a job as a chef. I've been to enough restaurants in Japan to know that actual cooking skill is not a requirement for the job. A chef visa does not require a degree, and can pay more than language teaching.

Okay,

So I guess I can still think about living there :)

You see I have nothing holding me back in my country, I can quit my job anytime, I have no wife or children (or pet). I'm completely free to go.

But as I read forums about Japan, it always seems that it's difficult to go, mostly because of getting Visa, college degree to get a job or so..

I was also thinking of going into a school in Japan to learn japanese. I could help me staying for a bit and looking forward for a future job.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for your advises !

M.

I understand most of what you said in french :P. So french in school does actually learn me french ^^. I don't know much about teaching in Japan. But if Japanese people have such a hard time with speaking english. Isn't french going to sound even weirder?

I agree with Aad, the French Language doesn't suite the Japanese.
And it's not that Japan is surrounded by many Countries like in Europe, that it is important to speak several languages. The most imoprtant one is still English.
Other languages I say are learned by people with interest in them

What about if I wanted to be a translator? Then again I'm not sure if I should because my Japanese is moving slowly?

I’m hoping to move to Japan also. I’m getting quite a bit better in speaking Japanese (still having a little bit of issues recognizing some ひらがな characters!) Currently I do frontend and backend web programming in the US, but I’m not sure if I would be able to keep that in Japan? Are there many people seeking this kind of work?

After reading through this thread, I’ve noticed that English teachers are desired in Japan, what type of degree would I need to teach English in Japan? Would teaching precollege or teaching post high school be more desired? I assume becoming a professor at a college would be more difficult.

I’d love to work as a chef too; I think that would be enjoyable. How would I go about finding a restaurant to work at? I’m also going to wait until I have a better knowledge of Japanese, but that shouldn’t be too far away! I assume that would assist me quite a bit.

Hopefully this wouldn’t be considered thread hijacking as well, as it’s still on the same topic! Any information that I receive could also assist anyone else that is hoping to move to Japan.