NEW DELHI: In the middle of Laxmi Nagar market, there is a single room, easy to miss in the chaos, with a few chairs in it. Seated are young men and women from Delhi, UP and Haryana busy polishing “Ikura desu ka” and “tetsudatte kuremasu ka”, Japanese expressions that translate to “How much does this cost” and “Can you help me” respectively?Some work on the “u” only to be reminded by the teacher not to dwell on it. “Not ikoora. Suppress yourself, stress yourself out, ra.”It’s not an easy lesson for this group of native Hindi speakers, but the motivation is strong, so they keep at it. If they can speak Japanese properly, they’ll get a ticket to a job that will pay them more than anything they’re likely to get here.With immigration restrictions increasing in the West, Indians have found Japan as an eastern destination with high demand for young workers, particularly in nursing and blue-collar jobs such as plumbers and electricians. In August this year, the Indian and Japanese governments signed a pact for the possible exchange of 500,000 employees within five years, including 50,000 skilled workers.And with new jobs coming up, Japanese language teaching has proliferated in NCR, not just in physical classrooms like the one in Laxmi Nagar, but also in online listings of teachers who say “Konichiwa” not only to job seekers in Japan, but also to those preparing for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) and anime fans, as they promise knowledge tailored to the learner’s needs.
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According to the Japan Foundation’s data on language teaching abroad, the number of Japanese learners in India increased from 5,446 in 2003 to 52,946 in 2024. The total number of teachers – at primary, secondary and tertiary levels – increased from 256 to 5,446 during the corresponding period.With its aging population, Japan needs nurses in hospitals and to care for the elderly. The INR-converted salaries in these professions start at around Rs 80,000 per month. A nursing qualification is not mandatory; Basic knowledge of the language – the N4 level – is sufficient.Sudha Rotili has already secured a job and will be flying to Hokkaido soon. While studying for a master’s degree in mathematics at a Delhi University college, she felt that her degrees might not be enough to get a good job abroad and enrolled in a Japanese language course earlier this year. “My friend, who is a nurse, learned it last year and is now working as a nurse in Japan. I thought this was something I could do. It would give me a head start abroad too,” says Sudha, adding that she will make a saving that will also enable her to remit money back home.There are three scripts in Japanese: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Although it bears almost no resemblance to languages widely spoken in India, some teachers say it is easier for native Hindi speakers because the grammar is similar. “They don’t have to think about translating into English first and then into Japanese, they can do a translation from Hindi to Japanese in their minds,” says a teacher.Anushka, a 21-year-old nursing graduate who is learning Japanese at a center in Okhla, doesn’t know if it was beneficial for her but is confident in carrying on a simple conversation in Japanese. “Watashi wo namae wa Anushka. Hajimemashite (My name is Anushka. Nice to meet you),” she introduces herself to make her point clear.Anushka says her lack of English skills warned her against learning Japanese. But once she got into it, she started having fun downloading an app to practice and watching Japanese TV shows.Jaspreet Kaur, a first-year political science student, says she is willing to take any job in Japan for the exposure. She enrolled at the Okhla Center this year and will be applying for jobs soon.Divesh Birla, who has been teaching Japanese since 2007, says he has two types of students: schoolchildren who want to learn a language at an early age and, more recently, adults who are learning to get jobs. Birla, who teaches at Govt Polytechnic College in Haryana, says many students come from lower-income backgrounds. “They feel that a job in Japan will be a ticket to a good life for their family,” he says. Ambica Gupta, who runs the Masaru Institute of Japanese Language in Faridabad, says that although she has been teaching for 12 years, it is only in the last four years that she has seen a boom in interest. “I used to only have two to three students per class, but from 2021 each group will have 10 to 15 students. I don’t want to increase the size of the courses, but there are more people expressing interest. “Every batch is full,” she says.Shrishti Arora, who founded the NEC Institute in Lajpat Nagar seven years ago, adds, “I have noticed that people who come to us are not only interested in learning the language but are also serious about the opportunities that the language offers them. They inquire about jobs and higher courses.” (Additional reporting by Ayantika Pal)
