Why I refuse to speak Japanese in Japan

Daniel says he speaks Japanese well, passed JLPT N2 in 2011, narrowly failed N1, then stopped studying. He avoids Japanese publicly because English is easier for videos, avoids subtitles, reduces anxiety, and shifts communication burden onto staff. He also finds Japanese identity-discordant, vague, inefficient, difficult to pronounce, and feminized by learning mainly from women.

Language avoidance extends his broader social anxiety into a deliberate customer-versus- performer boundary.