St. Louis Japanese Language Meetup

Anyone out there struggling to learn Japanese by themselves knows it’s tough to learn it by your selves. It’s good when someone wants to study with you but it’s better if they already know it and it’s hella fantastic when a native speaker tries to help you out. Where can you go in St. Louis to get a helping hand with your Japanese without laying down cash and have a great time learning a fascinating language?

Why, the St. Louis Japanese Language Meetup that meets every week (Saturdays and Sundays respectively), in various locales in and around St. Louis! I’m aware that there are already anime fans familiar with the meetup group ‘cause I see you when you sign up and wave the anime flag on your profile. This post is to make others aware of the group and to let you no-shows know what you’re missing.

We meet every week in a location that is convenient for most members (lately on Sundays in the Central West End’s St. Louis Bread Co.) and we like to encourage new members to come to events, not just lurk on the site.

Our group has all levels of Japanese speakers from remedial, beginner (me), and junior and native speaker levels. All levels of speakers are more than welcome. This is a social event as well as a learning experience, so please don’t feel intimidated by your lack (if you have any) of skills; I don’t and I go every week! Everyone is very supportive and we have two native speakers who are very helpful and actually set up learning games and lessons. You just can’t get better than that!

As stated before, this is a social event as well as a learning experience so you get to meet other people with the same interests and have opportunities to chat when we’re not actively studying. We have many gatherings outside of the meetup, such as BBQs, dinner parties, and social gatherings at restaurants after the meetups themselves. The native speakers are always willing to share their knowledge of Japan with us, but be warned: No native speaker thus far that’s gone to the meetup has liked anime *sigh*, so don’t bother asking them about it.

There are many anime fans that attend, myself included, and we usually chat before or after the meetup so as not to waste our time with the native speakers yakking about anime.

So anime fans wanting to learn Japanese, but have been stuck trying to do it by yourself, haul yourself down to the St. Louis Japanese Meetup and finally understand what the hell your anime is really like in it’s native tongue. Then when you throw down with your friends you can say “I don’t need subtitles!”