Re: [Lingo] 遅過ぎる

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

s smith writes:

 > point.  But then I think I'm particularly dense when it comes to 
 > learning a language.

Could be.  Some people are.  OTOH, maybe you just haven't met the
right teacher yet.  *chuckle* I'm sure Kubera of the Lokapalas (Roger
Zelazny, _Lord of Light_ about p. LAST-3) could help.

 > I'm also 64, which doesn't help.

No, it doesn't.  But then, being 18 doesn't help, either; basically
the brain starts dying to language learning at puberty, and achieves
its minimum by the time one starts college, I'm told.

 > Also, it almost felt like learning to read/write was discouraged.

Until recently, it was discouraged by Japanese teachers.  Many still
think that you have to go through the full six years of elementary
school training to learn the 6 year's worth of kyoiku kanji, although
some have started to clue in that things can work differently.

 > Right now I'm mostly studying Japanese on my own -- having completed all 
 > the courses the local JC has several times.  I've reached a point with 
 > my Japanese where I'm constantly encountering kanji i know in words I 
 > don't know.  It feels like my vocabularly (and sometimes my brain :) is 
 > exploding.  But it's almost entirely reading.  I have a few Japanese 
 > friends but don't really spend time in 日本会話.

Well, you should ask them for the favor.  Dunno if it wil work for
you, but I've found that attempting to produce Japanese is a very
important component of understanding it.

 > I'm also studying the culture.  Currently I'm reading "Reprogramming 
 > Japan" by Marie Anchordoguy.  Do you know it?  Fascinating book...

No, I know the author but not the book.  I'll have to take a look.

 > Long term, I'd like to get back to Japan for at least a couple of
 > years. How realistic is this for an old guy?  What are chances of
 > finding a job where I also have time to experience the culture?

Well, that depends on your skills and income needs.  As an extreme
example, if you have University teaching credentials (which doesn't
necessarily mean "have Ph.D., will lecture"; "native English speaker"
used to be almost enough, nowadays you need more than that), you can
be quite comfortable indeed (as you evidently don't need job security
measured in decades, and many such contracts are 2 or 3 years), and
actually work less than a 40 hour week.  I suspect that on the
strength of native English and say a decade of business experience at
the top of middle management to lower executive level, and a fair
amount of hustle you can probably find part time lecturer jobs in a
couple of the crap MBA and MPP programs that are sprouting like
mushrooms on a half-decayed log ... if you can stand the smell, you
can probably make about USD 40-50K/year without too much trouble.
Most of your "cultural experience" might end up being "riding the
train to the next job", though. :-)

So from where I stand, I don't see a lot of "round peg in round hole"
type "jobs", but I think there are a lot of income opportunities for
somebody with hustle.