"How Did You Learn Japanese?"
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When I tell people I'm a Japanese teacher they quite often ask: how did you learn Japanese? And I don't find this question particularly easy to answer.
Sometimes I give a quick answer which is that I used to live there.
But you can live in Japan for years and not learn Japanese.
I've met lots of people like this (and there's nothing wrong with that, unless learning Japanese is the reason you moved to Japan).
The long and more honest answer to "how come you speak Japanese?":
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Like many people in the UK, I studied French in school. I liked French. I thought it was really fun to speak another language, to talk with people, and to try and listen to what was going on in a new country. (Still do!)
When I was 14 we went on a school exchange to the city of Reims, in northeastern France. I was paired with a boy, which I’m sure some 14-year-olds would find very exciting but which I found unbearably awkward. He was very sweet and we completely ignored each other.
That was nearly 20 years ago, and I didn’t learn or use any more French until, at some point in lockdown, I decided on a whim to take some one-to-one lessons with online teachers. Here are some things I learned about French, about language learning, and about myself.