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by petodo 1240 days ago
> I spent about half my year in Japan and half my year in Sweden and I speak both languages.

Yeah, I really doubt that you can move to Japan with zero Japanese and in half year learn enough to hold normal conversation and be able to read/write Japanese, all that while working full time and not being immersed every day in Japanese language course.
2 comments
mtlmtlmtlmtl 1240 days ago
It's perfectly possible to learn a language in 6 months if you spend a lot of your time conversing in it, avoiding English as much as possible. They also said "speak", not "write". It's possible and even natural to learn one and not the other.
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petodo 1240 days ago
Almost anything is possible, even time travel, it's just not very realistic under certain circumstances. In case of learning Japanese in 6 months while working full time in English speaking enviroment with 0 Japanese foundations to start with.
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lmm 1240 days ago
> Yeah, I really doubt that you can move to Japan with zero Japanese and in half year learn enough to hold normal conversation and be able to read/write Japanese, all that while working full time and not being immersed every day in Japanese language course.

If you're working full time in Japanese you could absolutely get conversational Japanese within half a year. Indeed I suspect that's the most practical way.

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petodo 1239 days ago
> If you're working full time in Japanese you could absolutely get conversational Japanese within half a year.

I fail to imagine scenario where Japanese company hire non-japanese speaker who will then be working full time in Japanese language to learn it.

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lmm 1239 days ago
Happens all the time with menial or physical jobs where they're desperate for labour - construction, fishing, forestry, that sort of thing. You can't get a work visa for that kind of job, but if you have a visa for other reasons (spouse, child of Japanese national, etc.) they'll take you.
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petodo 1239 days ago
Yeah, but I assume in that case you don't talk much during the job and don't have really time to talk to practice the language, so it's complete circle - can't learn it in job which doesn't require the language, because there is no reason to use there language. Sure you could learn few phrases or at least improve your comprehension I guess, but I don't think you could get fluent after half year of such (hard) work.
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