By Terumi Kai (甲斐輝美) — Founder of Japan Language Factory (JLF), creator of the Terumi Method.
Let me speak to the part of you that has already half-given up.
Maybe you have read the previous posts in this series — and something in you wants to begin.
But another voice is louder.
“I’m too busy.”
“I’m too old.”
“I’m just bad at languages. I always have been.”
I want you to know — I have heard all three of these, hundreds of times, from people exactly like you.
So today I want to look each one in the eye.
And tell you the truth.
“I’m too busy.”
I believe you.
You have a business. You have a family. You want your weekends.
You probably do not have hours and hours every week to give to anything new.
You do not need them.
The Terumi Method requires 10 minutes a day.
Not 10 hours. Not 10 sessions.
10 minutes.
Ten minutes of muscle memory training — listening to native Japanese, then repeating it back. That is the entire daily commitment.
Most of our students do this in their car. On a walk. While making coffee. In the gap between meetings.
You do not need to add a new chapter to your life.
You need to add 10 minutes.
So I will ask you the only honest question that matters here.
Do you have 10 minutes?
Because if you do — your “I’m too busy” was never about time.
It was about whether you believed it would actually work.
“I’m too old.”
Some of our students are over 80 years old.
Read that again.
Over 80. Speaking Japanese for the first time in their life. And telling me — directly — that age has nothing to do with this.
We have students with full-time jobs, kids, spouses, military deployments, executive schedules. We have people training for moments they have not lived yet — the retirement they want, the trip they have always promised themselves, the version of life that requires Japanese to unlock.
But let me ask you something else.
Imagine your life one year from now — but with even a little Japanese under your belt.
The phone call you can finally make.
The neighbor you can finally talk to.
The hospital you can finally walk into without fear.
The cafe you can sit in and actually be a part of.
That is not just learning a language.
That is the difference between living in Japan with quiet anxiety — “what if something happens?” — and living in Japan with quiet confidence.
Ten minutes a day.
That is all it takes to start moving from one to the other.
You are not too old.
You are exactly the age of someone whose life is about to get easier.
“I’m bad at languages.”
Almost every student who comes to me with this story tells me the same thing.
“I tried Spanish in high school and it didn’t stick.”
“I tried French and gave up.”
“I tried an app for a year and got nowhere.”
So I always ask the same question.
How were you studying?
And the answer is always the same.
Textbooks. Apps. Grammar drills. Tests.
Of course it didn’t stick.
I told you earlier in this series — that entire industry is built to push you toward a test, not toward a conversation.
You did not fail at languages.
The method failed you.
I have students with dyslexia — students who cannot even spell well in English — who are thriving in the Terumi Method.
Because the Terumi Method does not require reading. It does not require writing. It does not require you to be “good at school.”
It requires you to listen, and to speak.
Two things every human being on Earth was born to do.
If you have ever told yourself you have no talent for languages — please hear me clearly.
You do not have a talent problem.
You had a method problem.
And the method is now fixed.
So let me put this together.
You are too busy? You need 10 minutes a day.
You are too old? We have students over 80.
You have no talent? We have students who cannot even spell in English — and they are speaking Japanese.
The three big walls in your head — they were never real.
They were built by an industry that needed you to believe them.
Because if you ever stopped believing them, you would walk away from the textbook, the test, the app, the certificate — and start actually speaking.
Like a child does.
Like 5,000 of our graduates already have.
There is only one real requirement to start.
Not money. Not time. Not talent. Not age.
Just this:
You must not hate Japanese people.
If you genuinely love this country — if some part of you lights up at the thought of sitting across from a Japanese person and being yourself in their language — then everything else is solvable.
Time? We have a system for that.
Age? We have students twice yours.
Talent? You already have everything you need — it was waiting in your body the whole time.
The only question left is whether you are going to stop arguing with yourself…
and finally begin.
— Terumi
The Founder Letters — a 9-part series by Terumi Kai (甲斐輝美), founder of Japan Language Factory.
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About the author
Terumi Kai (甲斐輝美) is the founder of Japan Language Factory (JLF) and the creator of the Terumi Method — a speaking-first approach to Japanese that has graduated over 5,000 students worldwide, including learners from Amazon, Google, ANA, Mitsubishi, Lufthansa, and the U.S. military. Japanese by birth, Terumi Kai has lived and worked across three continents, and writes about language, culture, and identity at terumikai.com.