Results of the 60-days challenge on Japanese: was it worth it?

     It's been a week and a half since I came back from Japan. I spent 27 days there visiting a variety of cities all around the country, from Tokyo to Kanazawa, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, Kobe, Hiroshima, Sapporo and more. I enjoyed an adorable trip and was able to meet old friends, make new friends and spent pleasant days discovering that beautiful land. But concerning to language learning, the most interesting part of everything was that I was able to enjoy the trip entirely in Japanese. Like really! For the first minute until the last one I was just using Japanese.

     Since I reached Japan on November 1st and talked to the first person I met there I started speaking Japanese and then never stopped. I talked in Japanese with people at the airport, with my beloved friends that went there to see me, with every shop attendant of convenience stores and so forth. After some days, I was convinced that I could live my entire life speaking in Japanese with no need to rely on English anymore. Since then, I was finally convinced that I was fluent in my forth language (if I count somehow my poor Spanish as the third one :p).

     I graduated college with a focus on translation, so I was way better at reading than at speaking. But then, 60 days before departing to Japan I decided to start this challenge focused on listening and speaking. And it was TOTALLY worth it! I was so confident and comfortable speaking in Japanese, like I could finally say to myself that I was fluent in this language I've been dedicating my life to. Of course I'm sure I still have a lot to learn, but I was so happy to recognize that I was in the country, living the language and having the best time with native speakers (and even with other foreigners that speak Japanese). There were some moments when I used English in Japan, but those were mainly with friends that didn't speak Japanese, or in moments when I really wasn't being able to convey some information properly. 

     I'm sure that the concentrated effort that I put onto my studies during the last months were crucial to this success. Obviously that my knowledge acquired in the last 4 years had a fundamental role in everything, but those 60 days were the key stone for my incredible experience in Japan. So after 60 days studying and 27 practicing in Japan the result was better than I'd though. I feel confident and prepare to live my life there! What's the best!

     Also, an important news from that is that now that I am not feeling guilt for don't being as good as I wanted in Japanese I am finally free to step towards my fifth language: French! And I'm already focusing on it, so let's see where does it go :)