I probably have just missed out on a really good job opportunity. 🙁

Monday night I received the following email:

Hi Kevin, I just called you and left a message. I am MR.TANAKA from Management Recruiters- Japanese. There is one job opening, requring language skills of English, Japanese, and Spanish. Your resume indicates you can speak all of them, so the position is fit with your background. If you are interested in the position, please either call or email me back. My contact is below. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon, MR.TANAKA

Management Recruiters Japanese America’s Premier Bilingual Japanese Recruiters 1800S. Rutherford Blvd., Ste 103 Murfreesboro, TN 37130 E-Mail: —@——-.—

Tel: (—) ***-**** Fax: (–) ***-**** http://www.mrjapanese.com

It sounded like a very interesting… almost tailor-made position for me. For those of you who may not know, Spanish and Japanese are my 2nd and 3rd languages of the 4 that I can speak (Mandarin is the 4th). I called Mr. Tanaka (not his real name) the next morning, very eager to find out more about the job and submit my resume for consideration.

I did expect Mr. Tanaka to ask me to converse in Japanese in order for him to gauge my skill. What I did NOT expect was how poorly I understood and responded. It was pretty disheartening, and a little bit embarrassing at the same time. After we were through, Mr. Tanaka thanked me, but did not ask me to submit a resume. I was a little disappointed, but not surprised. My japanese wasn’t up to par enough to be considered for the job. 🙁 …which sucks. I would have performed significantly better were it a spanish conversation (as i’m fluent), but I doubt Mr.Tanaka speaks spanish at all.

Upset about missing out on such a rare oppportunity, I sent Mr. Tanaka an email in an effort to prove that I was at least competent with Japanese… albeit not accustomed to speaking it. (Turns out, I made mistakes in writing that, too).

[ Thanks for my resume.(I meant to say ‘interest in in my resume’, but forgot to put that word in) It is regrettable that I did not understand most of the Japanese speech. In reality it was 2 years ago that I used Japanese. By your reaction the fluency you need is superior to my Japanese. I understood little but learn quickly.] I encourage you to consider me for other future positions. Thanks -kevin

I also attached my resume to the message. This afternoon, i received a reply from Mr. Tanaka:

[ Thank you very much for writing me that email in Japanese. It was difficult, wasn’t it. The differing use is really dreadful, isn’t it? Keep trying , keep studying. Yesterday was fun. ] I know how much it is difficult to master another language… I am having difficulty to improve my English. Anyways, it was quite good to talk to you. I enjoyed the conversation. Regards, MR. TANAKA

And so ends this particular story. If any of you know where I might go to improve my japanese (and mandarin too), then clue me in. Right now it just feels like a useless half-skill 🙁

-kevin