Learning Japanese by studying hunting in Japan!

 狩猟免許試験例題集

Starting a new journey! Hunting in Japan 🙂

There is a widespread misconception about hunting in Japan – I grew up believing this misconception. It goes something along the lines of that there is no hunting or firearms in Japan! But that is not true – it is more difficult to navigate the licensing/testing and bureaucracy – but there is a dedicated and thriving community of hunters throughout Japan. Fully licensed to own and use their firearms, kept at home, to responsibly and sustain wild game. From deer, bear, and wild boar to small game and bird hunting, local municipalities and prefectures partner with these local hunting associations to control wild game populations and limit agricultural destruction.

A shotgun shell in Tokyo?!

My first introduction to this culture was walking down a wooded trail in Kanagawa, the prefecture just south of Tokyo. I found a recently fired shotgun shell! We were about 45 minutes from downtown Tokyo, 45 minutes from the famed Shibuya crossing and the Japanese Emperor’s palace grounds and here was a fired shotgun shell lying in the grass! I was amazed, but started asking questions, my wife asking in Japanese, and this world started to reveal itself to us. There IS hunting in Japan! Done with privately held, though heavily regulated, firearms! My mind was blown.

The hunting exam

So here I am. A couple of years down the road and living in Northern Iwate, the Tohoku region and starting my study for the hunting exam. To be honest, this is going to be hard. Though I can navigate through daily life in Japanese, I am not ‘fluent’, certainly not any great expert in actually reading Japanese! And I am committed to studying up for this exam that certainly qualifies as one of Japan’s toughest, and highest regulated, recreational pastimes!

Learning Japanese thru hunting

It occurs to me to kill two birds with one stone – I study Japanese daily, striving to make any gains I can to ‘level up’ my Japanese skills. And now I want to start studying for the Japanese hunting exam! So let’s do both – learn Japanese WHILE studying for the hunting exam. Which brings me to this new project:

Lessons in Japanese, about hunting

The photo at the top of this post is one of the Hunting study texts, probably the most important one as it contains many sections of ‘sample tests’ directly from past exams. These questions, while not identical to the ‘next’ hunting exam, are similar enough to warrant using this textbook as the foundation for my studying.

 狩猟免許試験例題集

Illustrated Hunting License Examination Sample Questions

So this post is the introductory post for a new project. As an experienced teacher, Master’s in Education, licensed to teach in the great State of Alaska, and holding several certificates for Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) – I have enough experience to turn this textbook into a guide for learning Japanese, using ‘hunting in Japan’ as the foundational subject matter. The following posts of this project will be the hunting exam questions, broken down into key Kanji, critical vocabulary, and pivotal Japanese grammar. I will also include a lesson plan pdf with each lesson and an Anki deck of flashcards you can add to our collection and start working with. We will learn how to speak Japanese a little better, AND study for the Japanese hunting exam! Win Win!

Please join along if you are working to expand your Japanese skill range beyond just the ‘Hello, I am from (some other country), my name is xyxyxy and where is the bathroom?’ If you are looking for a specific Japanese ‘level’ I will be targeting, I suspect we will be in the N4-to-N3 range, though a great deal of the VERY specialized vocabulary may fall in the N2 or N1 range. The grammar, however, should be pretty straightforward – there is no dramatic love triangles or Shogun assassination plots to thread!

If you want to obtain a copy of the textbook I am using, you can purchase a copy here:

Japan Hunter’s Association

If you are in Japan and planning to take this exam, please contact your prefecture and find out when the next ‘Hunting workshop’ is, the cost of the workshop will include this textbook and likely one or two others.

Section 3: Hunting Equipment Knowledge ————>>