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stumptowny · Joined: 29 May 2011 Posts: 310

I have friends on both sides of this debate but wanted to open it up to a broader community... by success I mean romance / hooking up / fwb... obviously if you can't communicate the depth of your relations are limited hence this is less about long term, serious dating. some friends have argued it doesn't matter one iota if you speak Japanese... while my fluent friends have either said they lost their nerve with girls because they do speak japanese or it has no influence either way.. I just can't imagine how not speaking Japanese can be as prolific..

Pitarou · Joined: 16 Nov 2009 Posts: 1116 Location: Narita, Japan

Learning Japanese requires an enormous investment of time and effort. If you're only purpose in being here is to bump reproductive organs, you'll get better bang-for-your-buck if you learn the ways of the Pick-Up Artist, instead. (Go read The Game by Neil Strauss if you don't know what I'm talking about.) But then you won't be able to speak Japanese. Tough call, huh?

Perhaps the best strategy is to learn just enough Japanese to get by, find a girl who speaks even less English than you speak Japanese, and live with her. You'll save on rent, too. In the end, you'll learn enough Japanese to figure out that you're hopelessly incompatible, but only after many free Japanese lessons and organ-bumping sessions.

BTW I've no idea what I'm talking about. I was married before I came to Japan.

nightsintodreams · Joined: 18 May 2010 Posts: 558

It really depends where you are and what types of girls you're going for, doesn't it?

If you want to pick up a girl at a gaijin bar/ night club, then you'd probably be best to stick to English. In my experience though, the girls who can speak English are generally pretty slutty or/and only want to date you because you're a gaijin and they can practice their English.

I think it also really depends what level you're at, once you're at the level where Japanese people are genuinly impressed by your language ability and you can crack a few jokes, make the odd witty response and be a bit cheeky in the language on the fly then speaking it definately helps. If you're still saying stuff like "WA-TA-SHI ha BEER WO NOMIMASUUUU!" then you'd probably be better off not using it, but then you're not going to improve very much if you don't use it.

Anyway, speaking Japanese has definately paid off for me on the women front. There are a number of girls that I've flirted with, dated and hooked up casually with who did not speak any English with me, I find it very hard to imagine being so successful with them had I not spoken Japanese.

RM1983 · Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 360

I suppose mathematically it is obvious that Japanese at least helps. I have no clue of the official numbers but I guess the number of girls who are comfortable using English socially is....low.

So you widen your potential dating base many times over.

Obviously people "get by" without it though, and if you go to those international parties I get email invites for every week then you might well not see the need to. In Tokyo at least there is a hard to miss English speaking community.

Sadly, Im taken, but personally I would be getting bored of the whole gaijin party scene by now if I were single.

nightsintodreams · Joined: 18 May 2010 Posts: 558

Tell me about it, English beggar central. Wouldn't catch me dead at one of those events.

RM1983 · Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 360

nightsintodreams · Joined: 18 May 2010 Posts: 558

My friend got invited to a parade in Kagoshima called "Genki Gaikokujin and friends", so he invited me to the Facebook event just to prove to me such a thing existed. You'd think that even free oral wouldn't be enough to persuade any self respecting human being to attend such an event, but low and behold it was actually a popular event that had been running for a few years.

Where's a suicide bomber when you really need one, eh?

nightsintodreams · Joined: 18 May 2010 Posts: 558

http://www.minc.ne.jp/kics/eng/genki-gaikokujin/genkigaikokujin.html

stumptowny · Joined: 29 May 2011 Posts: 310

PUA or whatever.. not interested.. not that an american book on bar pick ups has a shot here with japanese culture.. good luck with that..

places to meet people... international parties are a joke... they had their hay day was in the 90's, I've been told, when there were many curious japanese and little gaijin to swoop them up.. nowadays, after the party, you are left with flaky people's contact info and the inevitable courtship challenges. same as meeting people anywhere in japan. courtship is very flaky/unreliable here.. doesn't matter where you begin. it does seem to matter if the other person has traveled/lived abroad...

the crux of my topic though is: does learning japanese hinder your chances since you are clued in to culture no no's? what's the point of learning japanese if you can't approach people out of fear of making a cultural faupaux?

some of my friends get lots of action and they speak little or no japanese.. because they actually never learned it.. and don't feel it is necessary

rxk22 · Joined: 19 May 2010 Posts: 1629

Oh gaijin hook up parties. Went to one once, was pretty lame. It was full of lame guys, and girls, as bad as it is to say, were rejects in some way from Japanese society. Just a meeting of desperate people imho.

As for Japanese language ability, I think it depends on you and how you wield it, or just use English and not care.

For me, I before I met my wife, was 100% oblivious. I got a massage once, and when I left the shop, the girl came out and told me how muscular I was. I didn't even register that was showing interest. Why? Because I am a fool! Rolling Eyes

rxk22 · Joined: 19 May 2010 Posts: 1629

TokyoLiz · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1548 Location: Tokyo, Japan

You said "opposite sex". I'm that.

It's fascinating and frustrating to date Japanese guys who don't speak English well or at all. I tried and cried Sad

I am seeing a Japanese guy who is comfortable speaking English and another language besides Japanese. I am also conversant in Japanese. Communication is no problem, and when I meet his family, I do my best to set them at ease and talk to them.

If you're only interested in bumping uglies, some alcohol and making eyes at a girl should work fine.

steki47 · Joined: 20 Apr 2008 Posts: 1029 Location: BFE Inaka

TokyoLiz · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1548 Location: Tokyo, Japan

My colleague in Vancouver worked in Kamakura in the 80s. He was on the way home from an enkai with a female foreign friend. She lap danced on a salaryman on the Yokosuka Line and went home with him. Her language ability was "Biiru mo ippai." So really, it's not that hard.

Didah · Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2014 12:10 pm Post subject:

Hi OP,

The genius engineering students in the white lab coats at Waseda University may have a solution to your language conundrum -- they are working on a time machine that will transport you back to Tokyo in the late 1970s and 1980s to a Roppongi that was actually fun to go to and there were no language barriers because all the young ladies back then liked very much English and gaijins were still somewhat of a novelty. You didn't even have to know how to say more beer. That was before you were tripping over all the hustlers that line the Six Trees and make your skin crawl.

Gambatte Kudasai