Author Profile
Daiyan (Programmer・LangJournal Developer)
Started learning English at age 29 inspired by American travel. After Canadian working holiday and two years of intensive study at NCC Language Institute, developed and released the English diary correction app "LangJournal." Current programmer with 5 years of English learning experience.
Introduction
Five years have passed since I seriously began learning English. I went on a working holiday to Canada and attended a language school called NCC Language Institute. I'm currently creating a language learning app. For five years, English learning has always been at the center of my life.
I'll write about how I became absorbed in English and learned it over these five years. I'd like you to enjoy this more as a story. First, about the American trip that became the catalyst for starting my English studies.
Off to America
At age 29, I traveled to California, USA. At the time, I was working as a programmer but was living unfulfilling days. Should I enter my 30s like this? What do I really want to do? I couldn't understand what I wanted to do with myself. What I vaguely thought I wanted to do in the future was "work as a programmer in Silicon Valley, America." So I went on a trip to see the real Silicon Valley.
The moment I stepped out of the airport and first set foot on American soil, I was extremely excited. I immediately took my first Uber ride. Unlike Japanese taxis, Uber in America already had ride-sharing at that time. In other words, there were passengers other than me in the car. People going in the same direction ride in the same car. It's a bit of a detour, but the fare becomes less than half the price.
When I got in the Uber, the driver and fellow passengers actively talked to me. They asked "Where are you from? Is this your first time in America?" At the time, I could barely speak English, but I understood what they were asking, so I answered by just stringing words together. However, due to my poor English, the conversation didn't continue, and gradually they stopped talking to me. Not being able to speak English became painful, and I was wishing "Please get to the destination quickly."
I rented accommodation through Airbnb. Using services like Uber and Airbnb was one of the purposes of this trip. (At the time, neither service was available in Japan.) I rented a room in a house. The owner lived in another room, but the appeal was that we could have conversations in the living room and it was less than half the price compared to hotels. When I arrived at the room, the owner kindly talked to me. Perhaps accustomed to Japanese people, they didn't seem particularly bothered that I couldn't speak English. We had minimal communication using Google Translate. I had originally thought I would talk more, but I completely lost confidence, and in the end, during those 5 days, I never initiated conversation with the owner, nor did we eat meals together.
The main purpose of this trip was to visit the headquarters of Apple, Google, and Meta (Facebook at the time). All the companies I visited were tremendously large. I was particularly shocked by Google, so I'd like to introduce it. First, there's a photo spot for tourists at the entrance. There was an Android mascot, and tourists were taking pictures in front of it. There was even a souvenir corner selling T-shirts and snacks. Apparently, there were even tours going around GAFA headquarters.
Inside, there were tons of colorful bicycles. Employees apparently used them to move between offices. Employees could work anywhere, and there were countless cafes throughout the company. Employees could apparently eat and drink everything for free. When I visited, there weren't many people in the cafes; instead, many people were working on benches outside.
What was impressive was that all the employees wore plain clothes. They wore gray or black T-shirts, and there weren't any people wearing colorful clothes at all. Also, the T-shirts had stretched-out necklines. I wondered if they weren't interested in fashion.
I explored Google's campus for about an hour, but I hadn't even covered half of it. I vowed to come back as an employee next time and left Google headquarters.
I used Uber for all transportation. I still couldn't have conversations and was flustered the whole time. Only once did I encounter a kind-hearted driver who spoke slowly to me. Since there were no other passengers, I was able to continue a conversation for about 30 minutes.
On the last day, I moved to LA and stayed at a hostel that night. The hostel had many young people, and everyone was drinking, eating, and playing board games in the common area. When I checked in, several people talked to me, and we decided to have lunch together. Among them was a very cute Asian woman who appeared to be about 25 years old.
She apparently loved Japan and actively talked to me in broken Japanese. Since she usually studied Japanese, she wanted to practice Japanese with me. After lunch, she invited me to go to a nearby museum together. We went to the museum together. We conversed using English and Japanese alternately. This was the most enjoyable time during the trip.
I exchanged WhatsApp with her and promised to meet again. At this moment, I seriously thought "I want to study more. I want to get a foreign girlfriend and work at an American company." It was just a one-week trip, but I still remember various things from it. Anyway, let's do English! It was a trip where I made a serious decision.
Working Holiday
On the train from Haneda Airport back home, I was researching working holidays. I wanted to take action before this English enthusiasm cooled down. I knew that in about a week, the enthusiasm would cool, living abroad would become troublesome, and I would quit. At the time, I was 29 years old. Most countries' working holiday programs target people under 30, so I had no time to spare. The country I wanted to live in the future was decided to be America, and if possible, I wanted to immigrate directly after the working holiday. Therefore, I chose Vancouver, Canada for my working holiday destination. Since it was close to California, I thought it would be easy to go there for interviews when they arose.
The day after returning to Japan from America, I applied for a Canadian working holiday visa during my lunch break at work. That same afternoon, I told my client that I was quitting my job. Six months later, I went to Canada.
During the six months from returning to Japan until going to Canada, I couldn't study English much. I only took 30-minute online English conversation lessons daily and read grammar reference books on weekends, and I didn't feel my English ability had improved. However, I thought I could manage somehow once I got there.
I hadn't decided on a place to live. I only booked accommodation through Airbnb for the first week and planned to find a place to live during that time. Using agents to contract local housing from Japan becomes expensive. Most importantly, I thought it was crucial to interact with natives, so I looked for a hostel where I could stay for an extended period. I had good memories of the hostel I stayed at during my American trip, and I thought staying at a hostel would allow me to be exposed to English 24 hours a day. Since I wanted a place with few Japanese people, I signed a one-month contract with a hostel in an area called Squamish, about 2 hours by train from Vancouver.
Incidentally, I had about 2.5 million yen in savings at the time. I thought it was okay to use it all up. Therefore, I thought "I'll probably be fine without working for about half a year. First, I'll learn English, and in the latter half year, I'll work part-time there." Also, I thought going to language school was meaningless. I thought I could study by myself, and even if I went to language school, it would be full of Japanese people, and my English wouldn't improve after all.
Events were held daily at the hostel. Trump night, watching English movies together, hiking together, etc. First, on the night I arrived at the hostel, I immediately participated in trump night. There were about 8 participants. The host explained the rules, but due to my poor English, I couldn't understand. Since it was a game I had never played, I didn't know what to do. Every time it was my turn, the flow stopped. Each time, some people kindly explained the rules to me, but I could tell some people were clearly getting irritated. Even after receiving explanations multiple times, I couldn't understand. I couldn't bear that atmosphere and left saying "Sorry, sorry" after less than 15 minutes. In the end, I never participated in any hostel events after that.
Life at the hostel was terrible. The hostel had 4 bunk beds in one room. Up to 8 people slept there. At night, snoring was noisy and I could hardly sleep, and I didn't want to be in such a space during the day either. When I cooked in the shared kitchen to eat, other users would sometimes talk to me in English, but I couldn't understand English and conversations wouldn't continue. I fell into self-loathing. Even though I had specifically chosen to live in a hostel, I came to dislike spending time with other users. I lived trying to avoid them as much as possible.
What I was doing was going to the library alone every day from 10 AM to study with reference books. Also, I took NativeCamp English online lessons 3 times daily. I would return to the hostel during times when there were few people, eat a light meal, and return to the library. At night, it was painful to return to the hostel because I couldn't have conversations, so I moved to McDonald's. I watched Netflix with English audio and English subtitles alone at McDonald's until around midnight when everyone was asleep. These were all study methods I could have done in Japan.
After about 2 weeks, I reached my limit of stress and fatigue, and although I had 2 weeks left on my contract, I left the hostel. Of course, the money for the remaining days didn't come back. I returned to Vancouver and rented accommodation through Airbnb for a week. This time I chose a slightly more expensive private room.
Living in the private room accommodation for a week restored my mental health, and I made my next plan. I thought a private room was absolutely necessary, and I honestly decided to go to language school. I set the period for 3 months. Even if there were many Japanese people, I thought I would study there seriously for 3 months. I visited about 3 share houses recruited online and rented the room that seemed cleanest. I also contracted with a language school near that share house.
The language school was about 50% Japanese and Korean, with the rest being Mexican and European people. The fee was about 100,000 yen per month in Japanese yen, with classes 5 days a week, 6 hours per day. Language school was fun. Sharing problems with people who similarly couldn't speak English and were having a hard time, and working hard together toward the same goal stabilized my mental state.
I spent a lot of time with classmates and gradually became close. When talking among Japanese people, we spoke Japanese, but when people from other countries were present, we spoke English, so my English ability gradually improved. During classes, teachers spoke entirely in English, so my listening ability improved. Being able to hear native English for 6 hours daily might be the biggest benefit of language school.
Still, I didn't feel my speaking ability was improving much. After consulting with my teacher, I decided to write a diary in English every day. That teacher accepted diaries from students every day before class. She would correct them and return them the next day. I wrote a diary in English every day. It was fun, like corresponding with the teacher.
There were 4 residents in the share house: a young Korean female student, a Japanese woman in her 40s, an Irish man in his 20s, and me. That Japanese woman, perhaps disliking using Japanese, thoroughly avoided using Japanese. She always spoke to me in English. Therefore, I also responded in English. We spoke English even when it was just the two of us. It seems strange now, but it was good in its own way.
The Irish man was kind, and we often ate meals together. There were many aspects of him I could respect as a person, and I adopted parts of his lifestyle. For example, cooking for himself. He was very careful about his diet. Since then, I've also been careful about nutrition when cooking for myself. However, he ate the same meal every day. I couldn't imitate that.
Also, he was thoroughly gentlemanly. There were several occasions when he brought girlfriends home, and his behavior toward them was quite respectable as a man. However, he constantly changed girlfriends, so he might have been quite a playboy. Also, since there were two women in the share house, the room was kept quite clean. We took turns taking out trash and cleaning. Looking back, it was quite a good share house.
Participating in English Events Through Meetup
On weekends and after school, I went to the library to study English. In the evenings, I used an app called Meetup to find language learning events and participated about 3 times a week. One of the main events I participated in was language exchange. This is an event where foreigners who want to learn Japanese and Japanese people who want to learn English participate and teach each other languages alternately. Others included events for people whose second language is English. This is an event where everyone just gathers and chats. These events are basically held at cafes, and you only need to pay for the cafe. You can get opportunities to speak English for that, so it's quite a bargain. In large cities like Vancouver, similar events are held everywhere every day.
However, there are also drawbacks. Many foreign men come with the purpose of picking up Japanese women. As a Japanese man, I was often ignored. Japanese women were quite popular. Even if they couldn't speak English, foreign men who wanted to teach English would always gather around them. Many Japanese women who couldn't speak English were making boyfriends locally. Some even got married and lived there permanently. Conversely, I never heard of Japanese men who couldn't speak English making foreign girlfriends.
I participated in many events, but it wasn't always fun. Rather, I always felt depressed before entering the cafe where the event was held. I didn't want to meet strangers, and I had no English ability at all. I would tell myself "If I don't like it, I can leave in the middle! Let's do our best!" and participate. I would sometimes listen to music I liked and boost my mood before participating.
Among event participants, I was always at the lowest level in English ability. However, after participating several times, an Asian male host of the event told me "I respect you." Many English beginners apparently come to events once or twice but don't continue. He praised me for participating every time and actively talking despite being a beginner.
Those words made me very happy. After that, participating in events became less burdensome. Participants gradually began inviting me to activities. Going bowling, drinking at bars, hiking - finally, a Canadian-like life began. Even so, I was still reluctant before each participation, and during participation, I had many painful experiences.
Also, I met many Japanese people at these events. Initially, I thought I would avoid meeting Japanese people during my working holiday period, but when I actually talked to them, I could exchange useful information, so I thought that was important too. For example, I could learn about insurance and jobs where Japanese people could work easily.
School, share house, events, studying at the library. Such an English-immersed life continued for 3 months. It was very fulfilling.
After graduating from language school, I looked for work. I made a resume and visited about 5 cafes near my house. However, I was rejected at the document screening stage for all of them. Apparently, cafe jobs are very popular among international students and working holiday participants, and it's difficult to get hired unless you can speak English to some degree.
I also looked for programming jobs locally. Since I had 7 years of programming experience, I passed document screenings with high probability. However, I took 3 interviews but was rejected from all. The reason was my English ability. I was always extremely nervous before interviews. Also, I was extremely depressed after interviews ended. Living abroad is not good for mental health. Your mood goes down every day, so it affects your psyche.
About a month had passed since I started looking for part-time work, but I still hadn't found any. Japanese people around me with the same level of English as me had jobs at Japanese restaurants or dishwashing jobs. These jobs don't require English. The hourly wage was about 1000 yen for any of them.
My savings were about to run out. So I reluctantly decided to take remote programming work from a Japanese company in Japan. There was a 16-hour time difference, but meetings were only once a week, so I could work whenever I wanted during other times. On weekdays, I worked about 6 hours remotely as a programmer, and spent the remaining time studying at the library or participating in meetups. Friends I made at language school returned to their respective countries one after another. Even though it was a brief encounter, thinking that I would probably never see them again in my lifetime made me very sad.
Such a life continued for about 3 months, and I realized: "If this is the life I'm living, do I need to be in Canada? Wouldn't it be more fun to work in other countries?"
Since programming work can be done anywhere, I worked while regularly changing countries and accommodations for the next 4 months. I worked in the morning, sightseeing in the afternoon, and studied at home in the evening.
Toronto in Canada, New York in America, Cuba, Mexico. After that, I went to Europe and finally toured Asia. Exactly one year after going to Canada on a working holiday, I returned to Japan.
My crucial English ability was far from the level I had envisioned before going to Canada. I still couldn't speak satisfactorily. However, my listening ability improved dramatically. I think I developed the ability to guess what was being said. Also, my fear of speaking English decreased. I came to think it was okay as long as I could communicate, even if I made mistakes.
English beginners don't become able to speak English just by going abroad for about a year. I think I studied English quite seriously. Even so, I couldn't speak it. I think you should study thoroughly in Japan before going on a working holiday. Specifically, to a level where you don't have trouble with daily conversation and can get hired for cafe work there. That way, you can make friends locally, have work, and live an enjoyable life.
However, I think there are many people who can't continue studying English when they're in Japan. I was one of them. When living in Japan, there are few moments when you feel English is necessary. However, when you're abroad, you need English every day, so motivation to study is forcibly increased. So I think such people can go abroad even as beginners. In my case, I think it was good that I went.
Intensive Study at NCC Language Institute
When I returned to Japan, I was 30 years old. I hadn't given up on my dream of working in America. I planned to save money, improve my English ability, and find employment a year later. Therefore, I continued studying English after returning home.
I decided to live in a share house with many foreigners. The rent was 75,000 yen. It wasn't that cheap, but it was quite clean and had good access to Shibuya. I chose this house because I wanted to be exposed to English as much as possible.
While searching for English study methods, a resident living in the share house taught me about NCC Language Institute, a language school in Shinjuku. He had attended several language schools before, but said this one was definitely better than others. Since he himself was fluent in English, he was trustworthy. That school sold itself on Spartan education and had a lot of homework, so I was told it would be tough unless I could spare at least 1 hour daily for English study outside of class. Since I wanted to seriously study English, this wasn't a problem. I decided to attend that school.
I attended once a week. Each class was about 3 hours long, and homework was given each time. Homework was checked individually at the beginning of class. The instructor would read Japanese aloud, and you had to immediately answer in English. You wouldn't get scolded for not being able to answer, but there was considerable tension.
When I was in Canada, I took classes in English at the language school, but at this school, I took classes in Japanese. Both have their merits, but I thought classes conducted in Japanese were better. The reason is that I could understand grammar in detail, and they taught from the perspective of "How should Japanese people speak English?"
Every morning I spent 1 hour on homework, and every Wednesday I attended language school. Also, partway through, I asked the instructor for special assignments. You could get additional assignments separate from class assignments. You needed to buy reference books costing about 1000 yen per assignment, but there was no other fee. I took "Special Assignments for Eiken Grade 1 Acquisition." A menu was created, and you go through it from top to bottom. Grammar, vocabulary, listening, etc. - about 10 assignments to complete. By the time you finish all of them, you have the ability to obtain Eiken Grade 1. I wasn't interested in getting Eiken Grade 1, but I wanted the ability to obtain Eiken Grade 1, so I decided to take these assignments. Also, the person who introduced me to this school recommended I do these assignments because they were good!
The difficulty level of each assignment is tremendously high. For example, you have to memorize 1000 pairs of words with similar meanings and answer all of one word from each pair within 1 second. You absolutely cannot clear it with vague memory. Others include memorizing 700 example sentences and being able to answer them smoothly without making a single mistake after Japanese is presented. These are the kinds of content.
Although difficulty varies by assignment, each takes about 3 weeks. Once every 3 weeks, at the end of class, I would ask the instructor to check my assignment. If it was OK, I'd proceed to the next assignment; if not, I'd do it over again. On weekdays I spent 2 hours, and on weekends 8 hours studying these special assignments. I was probably studying more than when I was in Canada. I spent all time outside of work studying English. What I thought at this time was that English can be learned even while in Japan. In fact, I improved more in this one year than in the year I was in Canada. However, I think I was able to work hard because of the frustration from the year in Canada and knowing that English won't become speakable with half-hearted feelings! In that sense, studying abroad in Canada was never meaningless.
I finished all assignments in 7 months. Even NCC instructors were surprised, saying there had never been anyone who cleared assignments at this pace! Since the instructor rarely praised anyone, I was very happy. However, I failed Eiken Grade 1. But I wasn't very interested in Eiken Grade 1. Rather than preparing for Eiken Grade 1, I wanted to train my speaking ability more. So next, I challenged something the instructor recommended called "3-Hour Non-Stop Solo English Conversation."
You decide on 90 themes and give 2-minute speeches in English for each one. Hobbies, work, family, favorite anime, etc. If you perfect 2-minute speeches for 90 topics, you can speak English for 3 hours. With this much conversation stock, you won't be afraid to speak English with foreigners! That was the idea.
In my case, I created speeches at a pace of 15 every 3 weeks. And every 3 weeks, I had the instructor check them. I would submit the titles of 15 topics written on paper to the instructor. From among them, 4-5 would be randomly selected. If I could say all of them smoothly, I'd move on to the next 15. I studied for these assignments almost daily too. I was renting a shared office at the time. Since no one was there at night, I practiced English speeches at the shared office every evening.
Through NCC assignments, I realized that having assignments with short spans is tremendously good for language learning. For example, a goal like "become able to speak English in one year" becomes loose and difficult to set specific goals for. Conversely, goals like "memorize 500 words in 2 weeks" allow you to establish concrete strategies and become absorbed in them.
In the end, I attended this school for 2 years. It was really a good school.
The Secret Story Behind LangJournal App Creation
When I graduated from NCC Language Institute, I was 33 years old. During that time, I also got married and had a child. My goal when I started learning English was to work in America, but my thinking had changed through marriage and the COVID pandemic. Since I had only been studying English for the past few years, I now wanted to immerse myself in work. And I wanted to live in Japan until my child grew up.
I thought I would use the time I had been devoting to English learning to create something I really wanted. Since I'm a programmer, I can create smartphone apps and websites myself. What came to mind was a diary correction app.
When I attended language school in Canada, I wrote a diary every day for 3 months and had my teacher correct it. After graduation, I continued my diary using paid services. However, because the fees were high, I stopped partway through. Even after returning to Japan, I had foreigners in the share house where I lived correct them, but I felt bad about asking every day, so I stopped this time too.
I had always thought it would be great if there were an app that could correct diaries for free. There apparently used to be a service called Lang-8, but the service had already ended. So I decided to create one myself. In today's era, AI can do corrections. Not just spell check and grammar, but corrections based on understanding meaning.
I devoted all the time I had been spending on English study to app development and completed the app in about 6 months. I named it LangJournal. The meaning is straightforward - combining "Language" meaning language and "Journal" meaning diary.
About a year has passed since releasing the app. Since I use it myself every day, I'm improving it daily, and it's become quite satisfactory. The number of users is gradually increasing. However, I'm only earning a few thousand yen in revenue. I'm actually operating at a loss due to server costs and other expenses.
Even so, in the future I want to have more users use this app and be able to make a living solely from developing this app. I currently study English for only 1 hour daily. Reading news in English, listening to news on podcasts, writing diaries on LangJournal - I've made just these things routine even now.
My current goals are to deliver the app to many people and to become able to speak English better. These are my two points. This concludes my English learning experience story. I plan to write a continuation of this blog in a few years. I hope I can make better reports at that time.