I came across this quote a little while ago: “The person who learns language without learning culture risks becoming a fluent fool,” and it struck a chord with me.

When I was a university student learning Japanese, I was learning it in America. For a lot of people in that Japanese class trying to learn it, the textbook and the teacher were about as close as they were getting to any Japanese culture.

Near the end of my third year taking Japanese, our teacher began a section of learning that discussed how to use the language.

For example, I learned it’s common for Japanese people to say to someone trying to speak in Japanese to them, “Oh, your Japanese is so good” no matter how bad it might be.

In America, the polite response would be, “Thank you” followed possibly by something like, “That’s very kind of you to say.”

Of course you can say such a thing in Japanese, but it’s a social faux pas, I learned. In Japanese culture, traditionally you’re supposed to be entirely dismissive of your abilities, no matter how good you might think they are, and say, “Oh no, I’m not good at it yet at all.”

The textbooks didn’t have this kind of nuance to it. Everything was simply about getting you to be able to speak Japanese, but not to speak Japanese like a Japanese person would.

I have to say, most people in my class thought the entire thing was a fantastic waste of time. I remember some openly complaining to the teacher, “Why are we even learning this? What does this have to do with learning Japanese?”

But I coveted those packets she made for us with these kind of golden tips, and when I first started living in Japan, I referred to them as often as I could. I still have them on a bookshelf alongside my Japanese textbooks.

After living in Japan for nearly 16 years, I’m still encountering unspoken societal rules that my friends and family have to remind me about. It’s a frustrating and probably neverending lesson, but if I’m going to live here, I want to try to be as understanding, open-minded, and accomodating as I can. Learning another culture and language, I realized years ago, is a journey that lasts a lifetime.

I think the moral of the story is: It’s not enough to simply learn another language. If you want to really try and connect with native speakers, you have to learn how they use that language.