Dec 22, 2017
How do you get the most information?
I thought about this before because I have been frustrated about being the last person to know, or frustrated that I don't know important things about my own town I'm living in because I can't read Japanese well enough. I mostly rely on other people telling me and posters at the library. otherwise, I don't know about any events in my town. What about everyone else? Do you just stay out of the loop? What frustrations have you had?
Best Answer
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on Dec 23
Yeah, that's tough, and even when we can read some Japanese it's not really enough most of the time. For local information, my coworkers and students tell me about some events or things like typhoons coming. I also have the benefit of a Japanese husband to explain the (very few) things he thinks I should know about. We get a couple free papers in the mail as well. Do you get those? You can probably pick them up at the library at least. One we get is Hot Pepper, which is mostly ads about local restaurants, but the other (広報 / kouhou) public information paper has a lot of local events. I guess it's been good practice to look for the things I do understand or learn how to read what I'm interested in finding. I recommend checking these because ours has tons of free events for kids especially. The most frustrating part for me is that I sometimes feel too socially awkward to join classes or events with my limited Japanese. Maybe it's just the mental effort it takes to be social in another language? I want to participate more & feel like a part of my community here.
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on Dec 23
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on Dec 24
We get a local newsletter that is delivered to our house weekly. I think one of our neighbors organizes it actually - and it usually has information about upcoming events in there. My husband can read Japanese so usually I can get the jist of what the event is about based on pictures/dates and so forth and I ask him to explain the rest to me! I also follow our local city office page on Facebook, and thankfully the "see translation" button is very helpful! I'd probably be lost without that. We also often hear about events through our daughter's school. It is definitely a challenge for me since I can't speak or read Japanese very well, but thankfully our neighborhood is pretty accommodating and pretty open with letting residents know what is going on in the area :)
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on Feb 1
4 Answers