Hello, first of all, I should introduce myself and explain my dream to you in detail...

My name is Arnaud, I’m 20 years old, I’ve studied cooking, and I’m a huge fan of Japan, its culture and its language.

 Today I need to explain my dream to you: living there is my dream, but that’s not why I’m setting up this fundraiser.

 I’m setting up this fundraiser to support part of my dream, which is to speak Japanese through total immersion. This involves attending a language school, finding a small place to live, using public transport, making friends and, ultimately, living a perfectly normal life whilst abroad for three months. 

Why I chose Japan:

As mentioned above, I’m a huge fan of Japanese culture, but to be sure of myself, I decided to go there in 2023 with my older sister, and we absolutely loved the trip.

 A year later, I decided to go back, but this time on my own for a month, cut off from the world, fully immersed in the culture. That’s when I decided to pursue my dream. I also met my girlfriend there; we’ve been together for almost a year now, but it’s a bit tricky day-to-day with the distance.

 We try to see each other regularly every three months by going on short trips, but financially, after a while, it just isn’t sustainable at all.

 Now I’m going to explain the budget side of this little dream:

Let’s start with the plane ticket, which cost me €604.74. I’m not including the plane ticket in the budget; I’m showing it to you to prove that this isn’t just a fleeting dream.

Next comes the school, called La Toshin Language School, a small, inexpensive school but one of the best, offering four hours of lessons a day from Monday to Friday, costing €925.12 per term. All lessons will be in Japanese to ensure total immersion, and the course culminates in an exam recognised by the French government (the JLPT Level 5).

As for accommodation, it’s located about fifteen minutes’ travel time from the school. I chose this place primarily for its proximity, so as to waste as little time as possible and focus as much as I can on this project; and above all, it was one of the cheapest options. The price for three months, including water, electricity and Wi-Fi, is €2,716.12.

Link to the accommodation: https://japan-monthly.com/monthly/detail/62102000070001.html

As for transport, I’ve calculated the cost of travelling back and forth between the school and the accommodation, which comes to a total of €140 for three months. I also plan to make the most of it at the weekends, but that isn’t included in the calculations as it’s just an extra. 

Food: to stay healthy, I’ve budgeted around 200 euros a month. As food is cheaper in some respects, the budget isn’t huge.

which makes a total of: €3,981.32 for three months

There you go, you have a detailed budget plan with screenshots of the steps I started taking last month. I’m funding this project as much as I can, but as I work as a temp, my salary varies a lot, which causes me constant stress that I might not be able to realise my little dream. 

Thank you for reading. Every donation, no matter how small, is a huge help. Please do share this as widely as possible. I’ll keep you updated as much as I can via my news feed.

And here are a few photos from my trip to Japan: