NEW DELHI: In the middle of Laxmi Nagar market is a single room, easy to miss in the chaos, that holds a few chairs. Seated are young men and women from Delhi, UP and Haryana, busy polishing ‘Ikura desu ka’ and ‘tetsudatte kuremasu ka’, Japanese phrases that translate, respectively, to ‘how much is this’ and ‘can you help me’.Some labour on the ‘u’, only to be reminded by the teacher not to dwell on it. “Not ikoora. Suppress u, stress ra.”It’s not an easy lesson for this group of native Hindi speakers but motivation is strong, so they keep at it. Getting spoken Japanese right will earn them a ticket to a job that will pay more than anything they are likely to get here.With curbs on immigration rising in the West, Indians have in Japan been presented with a destination in the east that has a high demand for young workers, especially in caregiving and blue-collar occupations like plumbers and electricians. In Aug this year, the Indian and Japanese governments signed a pact for potential exchange of 5 lakh personnel in five years, including 50,000 skilled workers.And with jobs beckoning, Japanese language teaching has taken off in NCR, not just in physical classrooms like the one in Laxmi Nagar but in online listings of tutors saying ‘Konichiwa’ to not just Japan job seekers but also those preparing for JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) and anime fans as they promise proficiency tailored to the learner’s need.
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According to data with Japan Foundation on language education abroad, the number of Japanese learners in India went from 5,446 in 2003 to 52,946 in 2024. The total number of teachers – at primary, secondary and higher education levels – has risen from 256 to 5,446 in the corresponding period.Owing to its ageing population, Japan needs caregivers at hospitals and for eldercare. Salaries in these jobs, converted to INR, begin at about Rs 80,000 a month. A nursing qualification is not mandatory; basic proficiency in the language – which is the N4 level – is enough.Sudha Rotili has already secured a job and will be flying to Hokkaido soon. While pursuing a master’s in maths from a Delhi University college, she felt her degrees might not be enough to get a good job abroad and enrolled in a Japanese course earlier this year. “My friend, who is a nurse, learnt it last year and now works in Japan as a caregiver. I thought this was something I could do. It would also give me a headstart abroad,” Sudha says, adding she will make a saving that will also let her remit money back home.Japanese has three scripts – Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Though it has almost no similarity to languages widely spoken in India, some teachers say it comes easier to native Hindi speakers because the grammar is similar. “They do not have to first think of translating to English and then Japanese, they can do a Hindi to Japanese translation in their minds,” says a teacher.Anushka, a 21-year-old nursing graduate learning Japanese at a centre in Okhla, doesn’t know if that worked to her advantage, but is confident about holding a basic conversation in Japanese. “Watashi wo namae wa Anushka. Hajimemashite (My name is Anushka. Nice to meet you),” is how she introduces herself to make her point.Anushka says her lack of fluency in English made her apprehensive about attempting to take on Japanese. But once she dived in, she began enjoying herself, downloading an app to practise and watching Japanese TV shows.Jaspreet Kaur, a first-year political science student, says she is ready to take up any job in Japan for the exposure. She enrolled at the Okhla centre this year and will start applying for jobs soon.Divesh Birla, who has been teaching Japanese since 2007, says he gets two kinds of students – schoolkids who want to pick up a language early, and of late, adults who are learning for the purpose of employment. Birla, who teaches at Govt Polytechnic College in Haryana, says many students are coming from lower-income backgrounds. “They feel like a job in Japan will be their family’s ticket to a good life,” he says. Ambica Gupta, who runs Masaru Institute for Japanese language in Faridabad, says though she has been teaching for the last 12 years, it’s only in the last four that she has seen a boom in interest. “I used to have just two-three students per class, but from 2021, every batch has 10-15 students. I don’t want to make the classes bigger, but there are more people expressing interest. Every batch is full,” she says.Shrishti Arora, who started NEC Institute in Lajpat Nagar seven years ago, adds: “I’ve noticed that people who come to us are not just interested in learning the language, they are serious about the opportunities it can get them. They inquire about jobs and higher studies.” (Additional reporting by Ayantika Pal)
