Learn Japanese!

I talked about this in my post about English and knowing it, since you'll be teaching it, but I have a thing about knowing the language of the place you are in. I feel that if you are traveling somewhere, you should at least TRY to learn some of the language, enough to get by. If you are going to be living somewhere, it is clearly good manners to learn the language, so you can communicate with the people around you.

That being said, if you are applying for JET, you are planning to live in a foreign country for at least a year. This means that you need to try to learn the language, if you have any decency at all. I am trying my best, so even if I can't do much at all, at least I tried.

Now, I know that JET doesn't require you to know Japanese, but this doesn't mean not to try before you get accepted. Learning Japanese is one of the things highest on the list of things to do to make your application look better. It is recommended to people who have been rejected before and for people applying the first time. Just because you try to learn it doesn't mean that you will get in, but it makes you a better applicant and, in my opinion, a better person. Only jerks don't try to learn the language of the land they will live in.

Now, there are other reasons to learn a language, especially for a culture different from your own that you will be living in. Language says a LOT about a culture. I like to shop for bento from J-Box, which is owned by an American who has married and Japanese woman and has started the business; Peter, the gaijin owner of J-List, writes a blog/item update a couple times a week. Frequently, the difference between Japanese and English comes up. When learning such different languages, you create different personalities, as Peter explains. Japanese is very formal in a lot of ways and naturally creates a humbler personality than English, especially American English. In the US, our language is very brash and straightforward, which shows you a lot about the people that live here.

So, as you learn Japanese, you might learn a new way to express yourself, you might learn how to have more humility in speaking, you might realize more about the way you speak normally, or you might discover any number of other things, but the important thing is that you learned about their culture and yourself (most likely). Obviously, you can get into JET without knowing Japanese, but it makes you seem more respectful and more qualified to know the language of the place you want to live. Also, if you like my blog and me, I'll like you better, if you respect the culture enough to try and honor them through their language. (I know, this is totally why you are all going to learn Japanese, just so I like you :P)