When I started my CIP, I didn’t really know what to expect from it. To be honest, after the initial meeting with my CIP contact, I wasn’t really looking forward to it at all. It wasn’t because farming didn’t seem interesting or fun, but because I had such a hard time following along with what he was saying. My Japanese isn’t what you would call good. Of course, I knew that in theory, I should slowly improve as the program goes on, but still, I had my worries. What if I couldn’t talk to anyone there? Or no one understands me because my Japanese is so terrible?

During the first weekend, I admit that I didn’t really make a lot of effort to talk to the other people there. It was intimidating and I was afraid of making a lot of mistakes and embarrassing myself. However, they were really nice and would ask me simple questions about myself. Since I didn’t know what else to say, I just asked them their questions back at them. It wasn’t much, but it was at least something I thought. As time went on, it became a little easier to talk to the Japanese people. I found that it was better to talk to someone one on one versus in a group. It was less scary that way. Also, I adopted a strategy of asking them questions so I wouldn’t have to talk all the time.

In the end, I’ve learned that in order to progress with my Japanese, I need to stop worrying about how I can’t speak Japanese perfectly. People will respond to my efforts, and if I do make mistakes (which is inevitable), then they will be kind enough to correct them so that I won’t do it again in the future.