I have an on-again / off-again relationship with the Japanese language. That is to say, I study in spurts. I try to study at least 5 minutes a day. I know this is shockingly low and still struggle to manage it. My Japanese was decent at one point, but then Chad went to a Japanese university and it became easier to ask him to read things or order things online. Rasta also finished a Japanese course and became fairly fluent. This made it so much easier to ask Rasta. When he was younger, I never wanted him to speak for me. I also wanted him to feel like “mom gots me.” I never wanted him to feel responsible for me or my needs. I always wanted him to feel taken care of. Now that he is nearly 25, I don’t worry about that at all. I feel like he is an adult so helping me out doesn’t have the same impact. That, coupled with the fact that he is my office manager, allows me to have him do it during the work day and be part of what I pay him for. The truth, is most days I am just too busy to study or too tired to study. I work all day in English. There is literally no one who would value me being able to speak Japanese.

I use all of this as an excuse. The truth is that language acquisition for me is extremely hard for me because I am dyslexic. I have been somewhat steadily improving my Japanese and have the goal of being able to speak to my grandchildren in Japanese. That buys me about 5 years. I have all sorts of ways to keep it interesting. My latest strategy has been to study kanji the way grade schoolchildren do. I am really enjoying this approach. I am chipping away at Japanese acquisition and feel really positively about it. I find that only other foreigners jam me up about my Japanese ability or inability. This always greatly offends Chad. I don’t really care about how people feel about my Japanese journey. I feel like it is very personal to me and of no one else’s concern. I don’t feel defensive or shy about it. I own that my Japanese is remedial even after 12 years here in Japan. For me, it is a process and I am ok with mine.