Having lived in Japan for a mere 10/11 months I am learning how to speak the language to avoid confusion when on my own, to better myself and (most importantly) to know when people are talking about me. I am now surrounded when at home by three women – Reiko and her sister and mother. Her father is in another city in Japan at work.

Learning a foreign language involves a lot of copying and imitating. This is especially true when you are not formally learning it through a course but are instead by your own choice or not immersed in the language daily .

Living with three women I hear and learn a large proportion of my Japanese by listening to the family communicate. Of course they use expressions of a feminine nature which when used by a member of the opposite sex sound like I am emulating Julian Clary AKA The fairy.

I often get told I am a camp by the expressions I (unintentionally) use. This is made worse by the average Japanese male in comparison. The average Japanese male is rude, self obsessed and mentally never progresses past puberty. If I ask the train station manager for assistance with a sumimasen and thank you, I sound like a 60 year old women. A Japanese man on the other hand (apart from not asking for assistance in the first place) would thrust a map under the nose of a worker and jab at the desired destination until the worker relented and found it out for him. In a restaurant if I ask for a glass of water I nod in a gesture of thanks. A Japanese man would turn and blow cigarette smoke in the waiters eyes. It`s just what they do.

Being English I am brought up on a certain level of manners which if not the airs and graces of an aristocratic duke, is above the stone age manners of a Japanese man. It`s just this politeness, combined with my women`s Japanese, will soon have me batting for the other team.