What’s your motivation for learning Japanese?

I’ve always been really interested in languages and have wanted to learn at least 1 major language from each major region of the world. Turns out that’s really hard to do. After losing interest in Spanish and then French, I ended up learning quite a bit of German in HS, messed around with Esperanto last summer, and finally set my sights on Japanese for this year.

I picked Japanese because, quite frankly, most of the non-English media I consume is in Japanese and I recently imported some PC-98s which I want to play and experiment with (write new software and make expansion cards for), which is essentially impossible without a firm grasp on the language. I hope and expect to make it much further with Japanese than with my previous languages because I generally get a lot more exposure to it and have a lot more practical use for it.

With German, there’s not really much in the way of movies or shows worth watching that aren’t already in English, I don’t have any other German speakers to talk to, and most Germans know English anyways. I mostly just found it nice to read German stories and poetry in their ‘Muttersprache’, but otherwise I haven’t gotten much use out of it. Esperanto is also cool and very easy to learn, but once again, most speakers I know already speak English and there’s even less in the way of Esperanto-exclusive media. I’ll probably be learning more Esperanto in the future, but it’s definitely more of a novelty for me than something actually useful.

Japanese on the other hand has a very large corpus of movies, shows, anime, manga, light novels, books, music, games, and so on, which either catch my interest already or which I have not yet been exposed to, in large part due to the fact that I don’t really know much Japanese yet. I’m very excited to explore what the culture has to offer in addition to being able to use Japanese to work on various projects with the PC-9801s. Not to mention, the langauge itself is very interesting and very different from any of the other languages I’ve tried to learn in the past.

(Sorry, this ended up being a much longer explanation than I had anticipated… :sweat_smile:)

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Originally, was definitely motivated in highschool to study some Japanese because of anime.
Now however I’m studying more kanji to help in my daily life because I live in Japan XD

I’ve heard the same regarding Japanese prisons, the conditions have been bad in the past. I’m unsure what conditions are like nowadays, as I’m more focused on what goes on in the court itself, but that’s something I’m interested in reading up on.

Dr. Johnson does go into detail regarding conditions for death row inmates in Japan, and those conditions sound absolutely awful. Regarding your last bulletpoint, it’s interesting that you brought up release dates. What you said is still largely accurate, the U.S. has many factors that play into your release date (overcrowding, good behavior, time served credits, etc.) and Japanese sentences are pretty straightforward. When looking at the death penalty, however, the systems are reversed. In Japan, death row inmates are not informed of their execution date until it’s happening. This is “intended” to make inmates less afraid but most interviews with people who were on death row (mostly those who were exonerated since media is almost never allowed to see the inmates or the executions) revealed that most people would rather know when they’re set to die rather than be surprised with it. On the flip side, the U.S. death row makes execution dates well known to both the inmate and the public.

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Totally off topic, but if I’m thinking of the right thing they had a lot of really freaking cool looking games on those. Watching this was like a mind blowing trip and I don’t even like pixel art all that much.

short video essay on youtube, buuuut definitely nsfw content

Also, hentai. I warned you. It starts on a very silly tone and doesn’t pull any punches with sexual content.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVpX2y6KjwA

It’s pretty wild seeing that some of those names and series are still relevant today.

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At this point, I’m learning Japanese for its own sake. I have always been fascinated by the various aspects of its intricate writing system, especially kanji. I’m very grateful to have found WaniKani because it provides me with a fun and effective way to learn kanji. Gamifying the learning process makes me much more motivated to devote my free time to studying!

Also, becoming fluent in any East Asian language is a big accomplishment for a native English speaker, and it is still quite a rare skill for a non-Asian person to have. Thus, becoming fluent in Japanese would set me apart from my peers in a positive way.

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My initail reason was video games. (yes a generic reason i know) I got super tired of waiting years for fan translations for them only to be dropped randomly, for them to come out after a few years only to be edited machine translation poetry, or for groups to decide to translate sequels to games which have references to the first game which you miss out on because you cant play it.

I figured if i just put in a year or two of work i’ll no longer have to deal with it.

Al least that was my initial reason, now i’m doing it just because its fun. Its nice to see actual progress towards a goal and to actually be able to see sentences and be able to understand what they say. That rush of oh, wow, i can actually understand what that means is pretty nice.

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I moved to Japan a month ago and am living in the more rural side of Japan where it’s difficult if you don’t speak Japanese. I couldn’t speak or read any Japanese really before I moved here and only knew Hiragana and Katakana, so as you can imagine I’m currently undergoing a major self taught crash course. I’m actually astonished how much from just the first four levels of WK I’m seeing around me. So mainly I’m learning so that I can survive. Being able to watch anime without subtitles and read manga would be a big plus.

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Reading light novels and understanding vtubers. I didn’t want to always rely on translations for them, so I started out wanikani a week ago along with Genki 1.

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Slice Of Life .
Make My Character So Depressed In Season 1

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Ya Waiting For the full Release

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I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that! I currently have no intention of working using Japanese, or living there, traveling there one day would be fun though! The thought of learning Japanese was appealing for a long time as I got more and more into anime, but, with kanji and all that I decided against it… until I got obsessed with reading Ascendance of a Bookworm hah, waiting for the translations is a painnn, and while it with its’ current pace will be finished by the time I’m able to learn in Japanese, I’d still love to be able to read Miya Kazuki’s original writing, on top of the Japanese web novel, side stories, fan books, audio drama adaptations and she’s quite active on Twitter too!

It’s currently one of my main if not the only reason why I’m learning the language, but it’s more than enough to motivate me! (:

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I think “I enjoy systems” is the root of most of my interests: science (I studied chemistry, wanting to become an academic); programming (I became a software developer instead); strategy games; transport, especially railways. Languages are fascinating as they’re the systems of human thought itself.

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Literally same- started it at first for the pop culture but continued to study it because I honestly admire how beautiful the language is.

Its strange because its not like I’m planning to live there long term or anything, I just think its a hobby and it keeps my mind fresh. My favorite part is learning a meaning for a word I already knew (such as kamikaze, Uranus as lit. Sky king star, typhoon, etc.). Language is just interesting in general and Japanese is the one I’ve stuck with the most!

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I also have dabbled with the though of learning Korean… the writing system is extremely simple (especially after learning Kanji) and I’ve heard that the grammar is also pretty similar to Japanese with the usage of particles and sentence structure and whatnot.
However, what I think I fail to understand is just how complex a language is. I think my goal is to get proficient enough in Japanese to be able to read Korean language books in Japanese, therefore practicing both. I’m already struggling to find time for Japanese so another language will probably have to wait haha

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I want to be able to read things that haven’t been translated into English (or other languages I speak), like doujinshi and video games. I don’t want to have to rely on the mercy of translators. In addition to that I like studying languages, but without that first motive, I’d probably be studying a different one.

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I get what you mean. It took me about 3 years of being conversationally fluent in my 2nd language for me to actually pick up Japanese as well. I’m planning my language learning journey to probably go on for decades if I don’t lose interest in that time. It just feels like I’ve come to terms with the fact that language learning takes a lot of time and dedication and I’m ready to devote a lot of my life to it if I keep enjoying it.

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It was there at the right place and time.
Choirs (and singing in general) essentially became outlawed during covid so the time I would have spent memorizing music I now spend memorizing Kanji. Now it’s a habit and I love it. So I’ll see it through. Goal is N1. Who knows…was never into Manga or Anime but am reading my first Manga and I’m hooked. Wish I had spent more time looking at them in Akihabara but there is always next time. Makes me wonder what other passions I have that I just haven’t been introduced to yet…I guess it’s a good reason to live by the philosophy of “yes”. If someone asks you to try something just say “yes”…you just never know…

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It sounds like I share motivations with a lot of people here:

  • I like systems and learning them, including music, games and language.
  • daily Japanese study provides a good distraction from anxiety, especially during these past few years.
  • I love the culture. Traveled there as a teenager and have loved the country ever since. Hoping to go back in the next few years.
  • as a continuation of the last reason, learning a new language opens up an entire new world. Even if I never get to visit the country again, my life has been permanently enriched by all of the music, manga, anime, literature, ideas and people that learning Japanese has brought me in contact with.
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I wasn’t doing anything in life and figured learning a new language would be interesting. Of course, that language would have to be Japanese. I also want to to give back to the community by translating novels, manga, and other cultured media for others to enjoy.

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Mostly to consume media. Novels, Manga, Music. I got into Japanese culture initially through anime, but the goal never was to that end. I want to partake in and consume the culture and ideas.

Similarly for my interest in other languages like french (though there is a closer culture connection for me to french).

Somethings can not be translated well at all (music, poetry, literature) and I want to get as close as I can to the original authors thoughts and ideas through their work.

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