have i learned japanese?

You might think that's a stupid question to ask, and that unless I've lived in complete isolation and dropped out of all the courses I took, which of course I didn't, there's no way I haven't been learning a lot.

And yes, without a doubt, I have learned some Japanese. When I first came here, although I did attempt to use Japanese in everyday situations, such as going to the store, bank, post office, etc., I would always have to prepare a sentence or two beforehand in order to succeed in delivering whatever it was that I wanted to say. And then, when I thought that I had presented my issue clearly enough, the person I was talking to would of course reply. And I would have no idea what they just said to me.

Now, although I might still have to check some key vocabulary if I need to sort out a problem with, for example, a SIM card or a similar type of technical or bureaucratic issue, I'm always able to pull through the conversation and leave the store with exactly what I came there for.

And when I'm talking with friends, the contrast to before is even greater. At my arrival, I was far from being able to carry out a casual conversation in Japanese. It would take me ages to build up a sentence in my head, and when I finally got it out of my mouth, in a few seconds the other person had replied and, again, I had got none of it.

Now, I just speak without thinking about it too much, and what has really gotten a lot better is understanding. This, I think, is thanks to all courses at school being conducted in Japanese, so that now I don't have to struggle to understand every word; it's pretty much automatic.

Still, if someone asks me if I speak Japanese, I say 'a little bit'. Why? Clearly I speak more than just a little bit, don't I?

I'm guessing that feeling has a lot to do with my previous experiences with language learning and speaking in foreign languages. Although, in addition to English and Japanese, I've been learning Swedish, French, and even a little bit of Italian along the way, the only foreign language I've actually been using in real communicative situations before the exchange, is English. And the thing with English is that before having to use it in real life, I had studied it for 10 years; so I was an advanced-level learner already. I was hearing it on TV every day, reading books and stuff...

So I've never been in a situation where I would be acquiring a language simultaneously as I go about my daily life trying to cope in the said language. In a situation like this, you just have to come to terms with the fact that you're probably fucking up every sentence that comes out of your mouth - because if you start spending time trying to come up with grammatically flawless sentences, the conversation's pretty much dead. Instead, you just got to keep talking in hopes that one day all these mistakes will have made you a fluent speaker.

So the reason why I don't feel like I speak Japanese that much is that I'm comparing it with English. Which is just absurd. Although my English is far from being perfect or native-like, it doesn't even feel like a foreign language anymore. Of course I'm not going to reach the same level with Japanese (which is also much more difficult to learn than English, in my humble opinion) with just a few years of studies plus half a year spent in Japan. So here's also a lesson in life - do try your best, but don't have unrealistic expectations based on your language learner history, or worse, how other people around you learn and use the same language. Chances are you're not gonna reach native speaker level ever, but the important thing is to be able to communicate, isn't it? And that's certainly something I have achieved now!