Idaho → Japan → The World

Living
between
languages

A student's honest account of full-immersion exchange, English acquisition, and what it actually feels like to think in a second language.

Read the blog
9mo
Idaho immersion
準1級
Eiken achieved
Chiba
Law & Economics
追いハム
Online alias
"The hardest part wasn't the grammar. It was learning to be wrong, out loud, every day."
— From the blog

Who is
oi-ham?

✈️

Exchange Student

9 months at Idaho Arts Charter School. Full immersion, no Japanese allowed.

📝

Freelance Writer

Writing about English learning, study abroad, and entrance exams on Crowdworks.

🎓

University Student

Faculty of Law, Politics & Economics at Chiba University. Class of 2028.

⚒️

Tinkerer

Building small web tools and learning to code. This site is the experiment.

Latest writing

What 9 months of full-immersion actually did to my English

Everyone says immersion works. But what does it actually feel like from the inside? I kept notes. Here's what changed—and what didn't.

The grammar mistake that made my class laugh

And why I'm grateful it happened on day three.

How I passed 準1級 after coming back from Idaho

The test is in Japanese. My brain was in English. Here's how I navigated that.

Small tools,
big ideas

Web apps for language learners — vocabulary drills, listening tools, and whatever else seems useful. Under construction.

Visit the lab →
⚙️
App coming
soon