My French Language Learning History

2026-05-01

Studying French in Japan

France has long enjoyed steady popularity in Japan, and I had assumed that French as a language remained popular as well. However, I have heard that in recent years, researchers specializing in French have faced even greater difficulties in the job market than those in German.

How I Began Learning French

I began studying French in my first year of university. At the time, I watched the NHK television course on French taught by Professor Mitsuru Ōki.

Later, in my third year, my academic advisor happened to be a graduate of the French Department at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and his French proficiency was exceptional. Unfortunately, mine was not. I struggled even to read French passages cited in academic papers.

I began studying French more seriously after entering graduate school. Even then, my efforts were modest: reading lecture notes by Saussure, the founder of structuralism, and working through an undergraduate French textbook given to me by a French instructor. I was also given a copy of The Little Prince in French and read through it.

It was only after I started working that I truly began studying French in earnest. On my commute each morning, I read Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. At first, I could barely manage one page per hour. Eventually, I reached a pace of four pages per hour.

Today, the full text is available on Wikisource, and it is easy to convert it into a PDF and load it onto a Kindle. Back then, however, there was no such convenience. I bought a physical copy of the book and read it with a dictionary at hand.

• Jules Verne (Wikisource)

After being transferred to a new position and becoming busier, I gradually drifted away from French for a while.

Looking Ahead

By chance, I have made friends from Belgium and France. I would like to improve my French in order to communicate with them more naturally. Of course, their English is far better than mine—but even so, I would like to speak with them in French.

There are still many books—especially works of French literature—that I want to read. My interest in French continues to grow.