I'm a Student Again

Three textbooks fanned out on a dark wood desktop. From left to right: Japanese for Busy People Book 1, Genki Book 1 Workbook, and Genki Book 1 Textbook. — My textbooks

I’ve been fortunate to take two trips to Japan over the last couple years. Leading up to those trips, I picked up learning Japanese, attempting to build some basic language skills for getting around. At first, I used Duolingo but recently switched to Migaku.

When I returned from our most recent trip, I decided to find a class so I can practice speaking skills. Community College of San Francisco has an excellent program called “Free City” that grants free tuition to residents of the city. It also has Japanese program. So I enrolled in their online Japanese 1A (Intro to Japanese) and in-person Japanese 10A (Beginning Conversational Japanese) courses.

The scheduling constraints are more complex this time around. Juggling the responsibilities of work, childcare, volunteer work, and other hobbies is a challenge. It makes me appreciate the freedom I had in my late teens and early-twenties.

Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to learning in a more structured way again, and also getting a chance to practice speaking with real people rather than talking to the AI bots in my phone.