Making friends in Japan

September 21, 2024

Have you heard this before? ↓

It's hard to make friends in Japan.

I've seen this sentiment floating around the internet more than a few times 👀

Regardless of how generally true or untrue that statement may be, I think there are many ways we can turn making friends in Japan a much more achievable task, whether we're here on vacation or planning to stay long-term.

Also, on a personal note, I think making friends can be kinda tough overall. And needing to do it in a different country probably doesn't make it easier.

I know I wish someone had written a guide for me, at least.

So let's talk about some things we can do!

The language barrier

Honestly, I don't think there's a huge problem relying on technology to translate for you while you're on vacation and talking to random people at a bar.

That said, in my personal experience, I've found the ability to communicate without needing to rely on translation apps to be a much more fulfilling experience throughout my early travels and my current life in Japan. If you're reading this newsletter, I'm willing to bet you do or will feel the same ^^

So, one of the biggest steps you can take is learning Japanese. I've found that the more you can communicate in Japanese, the easier it is to make friends.

This has become a big motivation for me to keep making progress in my personal studies. So I hope you'll join me in pressing this button ^^

You'll need an account to press the above button if you don't have one yet! Start your journey for free:

By the way, I notice I find myself copying the audio I hear in NativShark a lot after I hang out with friends and stumble on the ability to express myself in a certain way.

I do what this article says, really:

Sounding more natural when speaking Japanese

…but after I get a bit tired of that or my motivation drops a bit, I also find myself going back to my normal routine of doing reviews on the faster side. Both of these are fine to do ^^

The most important part is showing up, so I try not to worry much past that most of the time 💪

What type of friend do you want to make?

If you want a friend who's willing to go out and party pretty often, then a bar might be a good spot to start the search. From there you can refine the types of bars you might go to and that changes who you're likely to meet there.

For example, an international bar or 英会話えいかいわ (English conversation) bar is likely to be full of people from all over the world.

People who go there are likely to speak a language other than Japanese as their native language. And Japanese native speakers are likely to be interested in learning English or another language as well.

Alternatively, you're more likely to run into people who exclusively speak Japanese if you walk into a bar at random (this seems to be the case in Fukuoka and many other smaller cities and towns at least. Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo may vary).

Of course, if you want sporty friends, you'll want to find groups who play a bunch of sports. Artist friends? Find an artist cafe. Developer friends? Engineering cafe. And so on and so forth ^^

Going out and meeting people

The above options can certainly be nice. But it's good to cast a wide net! You're likely going to have to meet a lot of people before you find the handful that really click with you.

Meetups that get posted online are another way to do this.

Before we get into that though, I want to remind you to always be cautious when meeting people from the internet.

I wouldn't get overly paranoid about it. But just keep best practices in mind. Stuff like meeting in public spaces, having lots of people around at all times, listening to any alarms that go off in your head, etc.

Helpful search terms

交流会こうりゅうかい
A 交流会こうりゅうかい is a meetup / social gathering. You can add some words before 交流会こうりゅうかいto help specify what you're looking for as well.

For example, a 国際こくさい交流会こうりゅうかい (international meetup) can be a good way to find a language partner.

カフェ会かい
A カフェ会かい is similar to a 交流会こうりゅうかい, it just happens specifically at cafes.

You might find cafe meetups that are only called this, or you might find them divided into types.

For example, I've seen stuff like...
友活ともかつカフェ会かい (friend-making cafe meetup)
恋活こいかつカフェ会かい ('searching for love' cafe meetup)...

....and even stuff like フリーランスカフェ会かい (freelance cafe meetup).

I know that last one might be a bit outside of the scope here though. I just thought it was interesting

Lots of potential to meet people at any of those!

You might have already noticed this, but 会 can attach to a lot of things to turn it into a type of meetup/club. 読書会どくしょかい (book clubs) can be pretty fun if you like books and are feeling confident with talking about them in Japanese ^^

Apps

I don't have a specific app to recommend here, but there are plenty of meetup apps where people organize group gatherings similar to the above.

You might find some cool events on the various apps~

公民館こうみんかん

Try looking up your local 公民館こうみんかん (community hall)! There should be a bunch of interest-based clubs called サークル.

There are a ton of interesting options at these.

Here's a small sample of the things I found when looking them up:

all types of sports including soccer, tennis, volleyball, table tennis, etc.
classes for cooking, language, etc.
dancing and groups that do plays
traditional Japanese things like 茶道さどう (tea ceremony), 書道しょどう (calligraphy), and even 詩吟しぎん (a traditional form of singing poetry)

So be sure to give them a try! Searching "公民館こうみんかん　サークル" should do the trick. You can also just walk in and ask about サークル, they should be able to give info about what's going on and when.

Have you tried making friends in Japan on a trip or if you live here? How did it go? Did you do something I didn't mention?

I'd love to hear about it in the #newsletter channel of the community!

To access the #newsletter channel in the community:

1. Create a Discord account
2. Join the NativShark Community Discord
3. Click here to open up the #newsletter channel

An inky book cover

When you buy books in Japan, they usually ask you if you want a paper cover for it.

I've said お願ねがいします plenty of times with no issue, but one time the cover had ink or something on the inside of it, and it got on the book. I wasn't entirely sure how to explain the situation to them or if they would even believe me. Thankfully they did and I was allowed to return it.

Anyway, this conversation turned into a Dialogue on NativShark, and I just ran into it in my personal studies which was exciting ^^

Here's the part I was nervous about explaining:

But there's a whole conversation involving returning it and the replacement for the book being out of stock (which is what happened to me )

Be sure to check out the full Dialogue here:

Book Store Dialogue

If the above Japanese is difficult for you, all you need to do is keep hitting the Study Now button and you'll understand it when you get there. When using a comprehensive study resource like NativShark, it's just a matter of time and consistency. The above is from a Dialogue in Phase Three, Unit 212.

NativShark goodie bag

Japanese with Niko

Niko released a new video about a piece of Okinawan music! 👀

Japanese Music Breakdown: Okinawan Chanting

NativShark Units

4 new Units have been added to Phase Three ^^

As always, these Units are filled with vocab with their own unique contexts that help you understand Japanese at a deeper level, any relevant new kanji, and natural conversations called Dialogues at the end.

They also have the following lessons:

Thanks for reading all the way to the end!

Happy studies,
Ty & the NativShark team