Getting on the plane at Narita was gut wrenching. The realisation that my Tokyo trip was over had hit me square between the eyes. Real life was beckoning once more. It wasn’t all bad though. What I’d realised whilst in Tokyo was that my Japanese abilities had improved. Massively. I was not only able to make myself understood pretty articulately, I was also finding that understanding people’s responses was a hundred times more successful than I’d ever thought it would be. And reading signs, menus, flyers, newspapers, novels even, was not half as soul destroying as I’d assumed it was going to be.

Looking back, I’m not all that sure why I was so surprised, to be honest. I mean, I had just had my JLPT 2 certificate through the post. And my attendance at my lessons with my private tutor had been pretty spot on all year. All that said though, I had this niggling feeling in the back of my head that when it actually came to conversing outside a classroom situation, my Japanese was going to fall flat on its back, as if all these years my tutor had been teaching me complete and utter nonsense and suddenly the realisation would hit me that I’d sunk thousands and thousands of pounds into years of wasted lessons. Happily, this was not the case. Thank God for that, then!

Hitting the tarmac at Heathrow, I was newly invigorated to get on with it, to begin my studies once more. I’d already planned out my schedule and devoted additional hours each week to practice. I’d got in touch with my tutor and had my lessons all arranged. I was all set again. This time I was going for gold, for the grand prix, for that highly coveted JLPT 1 certificate. And nothing could stop me. Not a thing. Nothing…

…
…
…

Soooo, it came as a pretty big surprise to me when, one day I was minding my own business, getting all excited about the prospect of sitting the exam this December, and the next minute, the proverbial rug was pulled right from under my proverbial self.

Instead of life settling back down to normal, fate had decided to play a card, and so rather than going back to Manchester and getting on with life, what had been but the foundations of an idea, a notion not yet fully formed unexpectedly began to grow wings. Like Japanese knotweed, all-consuming and totally indestructible to well, anything really, a career progression suddenly flowered up before me, and with it a wholesale shift from Manchester to Birmingham. And now of course, the private tutor that has helped me discover my potential, that has tirelessly (and without moaning too much, I might add) pushed me much farther than I ever could have done so myself, is no longer within a car ride’s distance and doesn’t fancy the prospect of shifting to Birmingham with me just so that I can continue my studies. Bummer.

I’m sure you can understand why then, that I want to get my studies up and running again as swiftly as possible. I don’t want the interruption to turn into a great, gaping, ever-expanding chasm that once in front of me, becomes totally impassable. And I know it could happen. All too often I’ve left things too long and what once seemed like the best idea in the world is left by the wayside, never to be entertained again. You only have to ask my rather expensive electronic keyboard that I played for about three weeks tops, or my various website addresses that I’ve bought and never done anything with to begin to piece together the detritus that accumulates as started and yet totally unfinished ideas.

What is worrying me however is the complete and utter lack of options available to me. Want a private tutor of Japanese in Manchester? You bet. London? Without fail. Edinburgh? Right on. Flipping Bridlington no less? Not a problem. Birmingham? Er, well, actually…no.

Now I could look at this as a problem. (Which I am doing.) Or as an opportunity. (Which I’m not doing.) Whichever side of the fence you climb down into though, the outlook is not good. In fact, when the only option is no option, then I guess I’ve got pretty big problems. Suddenly that chasm is not so far away…

Three or four mind numbing hours later and it appears that actually, there are a couple of options. And when I say couple, I’m not exaggerating as much as regular readers would think. Either, I can go with an English private tutor, a classroom situation or self-study. They are the options. And when I say ‘a private tutor’ and ‘a classroom’ situation, I really do mean one of each.

Now, although the idea of a private tutor appeals more to me than being in a classroom full of other people vying for the teacher’s attention, the fact that the tutor is not a native Japanese person fills me with a kind of dread. After having a Japanese tutor for so long, how would I find learning from an English person? I don’t even know whether I’d be able to adapt. Sure, discussions surrounding a topic would be easier with an English person. Discussing the equivalent to the pluperfect in Japanese with a Japanese person, whose native language only has two main tenses and has never heard of the pluperfect is quite difficult, let me tell you. Doing the same with an English person would be much easier. Having said that though, being able to get away with speaking about these things in English would take away the challenge (and half the fun), if I’m honest, so is that necessarily a good thing?

Onto the classroom situation, and now I’m really not so sure. The teacher is Japanese. Which is definitely one plus point. The class is just ten people. Another plus. And enrolment starts in a week for two weeks. Yet another plus. All that said though, there is something about learning in a classroom environment that I just don’t like. I can’t even put my finger on it. And it’s not because I’m bad at interacting with people, before you say it. I love people. I love sharing ideas and discussing concepts and having people around me. But that doesn’t change the fact that being plunged back into a classroom is not appealing to me at all. I just have visions of spending two hours in the session and speaking to the teacher perhaps once or twice, whereas in a private tutor situation the concentration is all on one individual. Me.

And then of course, there’s that old favourite: self-study. No disrespect to people that are learning Japanese this way, but compared to the other two options I have, I don’t even think this concept figures. Don’t get me wrong, when I first started out, I was a self-study kinda guy. I had my AJALT books with me at all times. I completed the first textbook, complete with complimentary CD, and the second as well, before I moved onto learning with a tutor. Even now I sometimes skip through them because the way they describe some particularly hard to grasp concepts are second-to-none. I just don’t think however, that there is any substitute for interaction, be that with one or many people. Plus my own company bores me after a bit. I’d go stir-crazy and start eating my own arms.

It’s a dilemma, it truly is. So what do you think?

Podcast: Download (Duration: 10:36 — 5.0MB)