When I tell people that I have a degree in #Japanese Studies, everyone assumes that I have been to #Japan several times. Surely I have spent an exchange year in Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto like all Japanese students do. Even though student me was always broke, had to supplement her pocket money by waiting tables for the rich and still felt like Japan was on another planet, I must have spent some time there, right? But why? Why is lived time in the native environment of one's language seen as the holy grail of language learning?