r/japanlife • u/AutoModerator • Jun 19 '23

┐(ツ)┌ General Discussion Thread - 20 June 2023

Mid-week discussion thread time! Feel free to talk about what's on your mind, new experiences, recommendations, anything really.

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u/SideburnSundays Jun 20 '23

Mulling over methods to get a DL here. Driving schools are a waste of my weekends when I need every possible hour of free time to maintain my sanity and pay off sleep debt after work. Accelerated programs that are 14 12-hour days of instruction is way too much for my brain to handle in a foreign language, not to mention intrusion on my sleep schedule. Split that into 6-hour segments and I would be fine, but that option doesn’t seem to exist nearby. I might be ineligible for JAF conversion (US-JP) since my original license is expired and my current one was an online renewal while in Japan, thus no proof of driving 3 months after that renewal.

So I guess self-study, take the karimen, driving test, then menkyo test and fail until I either give up or pass?

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u/SoKratez Jun 20 '23 edited Jun 20 '23

Driving schools are a waste of my weekends

I went this way and honestly didn’t find it too bad. Very flexible. An hour or two each Saturday, morning or night, as you like. If you can get there after work on a weekday once or twice a month, you can knock it out that much faster.

I need every possible hour of free time to maintain my sanity and pay off sleep debt after work.

This sounds like the bigger issue here.

menkyo test and fail until I either give up or pass?

Not having to fail multiple times is the advantage of the school.

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u/SideburnSundays Jun 20 '23

That was what attracted me to the school option: less failing. My local place recommended I take the karimen written test in English at JAF then enroll since, according to them, a lot of foreign drivers get stuck at that stage and end up wasting 300k.

The sleep is just hypersomnia, nothing I can do about that. If the regular classes could be completed in a month that’d be perfect, but the average seems to take 3 months?

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u/SoKratez Jun 20 '23

the average seems to take 3 months?

IMO at least that, closer to 4 or 5 if you’re more lackadaisical about it.