What language should I learn after Japanese (Maybe Korean?)

WaniKani
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I have a feeling I am going to be the only one who suggests this, but you could look into languages such as Latin or Ancient Greek.

I have personal experience in Latin so trust me when I say that it’s not that dissimilar to Japanese. This may sound odd at first, but the way the verbs conjugate is very consistent with the rules as it is with Japanese. Furthermore, the declensions of different nouns and adjectives make the grammar really easy to grasp, and in this way, Latin is significantly easier than Japanese. The only slightly annoying thing is memorisation, there is a fair bit of this in Latin. That being said, you have made it to level 59 on WaniKani, so I am going to assume this won’t be an issue for you.

Okay, this is all terrific, but all for naught if there is no valid reason to learn an ancient language, so, what are the reasons? I’m going to bring up three major reasons, if you tick just one of these boxes, I recommend considering it:
1. It gives you access to some of the greatest literature and narrative design in the history of the world.
2. It will widen you English Vocabulary and give you a deeper look into European etymology.
3. If you want to learn other European languages (specifically, Romance languages) it will make learning all of them a ton easier.

Finally, I would like to add one key reason not to learn an ancient language:
and that is if you want a language in which to actually communicate with a modern society. Of course, this seems glaringly obvious, however I there will always be one person who points this out if I do not. That being said, it is enough to justify not learning the language: if you have no interest in any of the above reasons I listed, I would agree that you should look elsewhere, perhaps to a more modern language.

I hope this has helped bring these widely overlooked languages into your consideration.

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I second this idea of learning another language in the one you learnt previously!

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This makes a strong case for learning Latin to help with business development I would think. Being able to pick up multiple languages after learning Latin very well seems like a way to open up to new markets or job positions. The thinking is kind of like ‘Well if doesn’t work out in Spain, I can always check out Portugal’. No idea how to stay motivated during that learning phase though. Is it easy to find a copy of some good books in Latin? Never looked so I really don’t know.

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I am from the UK and currently studying Latin and Japanese for my GCSEs. The books I am using are the “Latin to GCSE” books and I would strongly recommend those regardless of whether you are taking the GCSE or not. By the time you have completed both books you should be fully able to read Latin with the only real downside perhaps being a slightly limited vocabulary, however there are plenty of vocabulary supplements on platforms such as Memrise.

With regards to your point of helping open other European markets, I should have prefaced my point of ‘helping to learn other Romance languages’ with the notice that other, modern Romance languages do this to a varying degree as well. So perhaps, if your aim is strictly pointed at business opportunities, it would be better to skip to a modern Romance language such as French or Spanish.

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Didn’t someone ask if you could skip WK levels so they could recommend it to their Japanese teacher, who they said was an American studying for N2… I am not sure what kind of job that would actually be, or if it was more of a “tutor” thing.

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How about using Japanese to learn the next language? :slight_smile: It allows you to continue to practice and learn and ideally should keep you from confusing Japanese and whichever language you choose.

I expect most resources for learning Ainu would probably be in Japanese too.

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I teach Japanese despite being around intermediate level. I’m not sure if this will help you understand it or accept it any easier, but there are a few reasons why this is possible.

Most importantly, if I didn’t do it, there would basically be no Japanese courses available to the general public in my region. And there are people who need a teacher to guide them, make them study materials, correct their writing etc, not unlike how some people do better at gym with a personal coach and specialised equipment, while other people are perfectly fine just training at home.

Also, the material I teach is not so difficult that it would be completely out of reach for someone at an intermediate level. Hiragana, katakana, pronunciation, particles, counters, numbers, conjugations, greetings, self-introduction, eating at a restaurant, shopping, etc…

Thirdly, I do it for my own benefit, as it’s not like I don’t improve while doing it. There is nowhere you can learn as much as by teaching others. My ability to understand and explain beginner level material has grown by leaps and bounds since I started this. And seeing students grow and get better helps me stay motivated in my own studies.

Oh, and one more thing that just came to me – as someone who’s still in the middle of studying the language, I have the advantage that I still remember what it was like to be a beginner, what things were difficult for me, and how I got to understand them, so I can empathise a bit better with why people starting out are struggling to understand something. I think it would be a bit harder for someone who is fluent and hardly even has to think about their language use.

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Thank you everyone for your kind words. I do agree with you that I should study a language that I have an interest in and have motivation to maintain my studies. As there are quite a few students in my classes that have a Korean background, it would be good to try and communicate with their parents in Korean without the use of a translator.

Your support over the years has been incredibly helpful in my Japanese studies and Japanese teaching. I feel so much more confident and knowledgable as a Japanese teacher with this fantastic resource.

Learning never stops <3

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Correcting mistakes is what would seem to be the most difficult aspect for an intermediate learner trying to teach. And when reading a text aloud as an example, I would need to double check the sentence level pitch accent to be sure I wasn’t teaching something incorrect. That would be my biggest concern… Passing on my own mistakes to students.

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Why are you asking us as we know little about you or your goals? Besides, the answer is obvious: having learned the most difficult language of the East, your next task is ǃXóõ!

No seriously, it’s spelled with an exclamation point, look it up! Give the world’s most consonant heavy language some love!

Go ǃXóõ!

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Well, I’m not teaching Japanese at an intermediate level, so that’s not really a problem.

As for pitch accent, yes, I do worry a bit about that, but again, this is only a small fraction of what they hear and I encourage immersion early on.

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As you noted, you have concerns about pitch accent, and so correcting the spoken Japanese of the students would seem to be difficult. Regardless of if it’s beginner or intermediate or whatever.

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I’ve found that usually any problems tend to self-correct as they listen more and more. We don’t focus as much on mistakes, it’s more important for me to get them engaged and practicing regularly.

In fact, I think it’s quite okay and natural to make mistakes and getting them pointed out too much can be counterproductive. It’s just part of the normal process of language learning.

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So… I guess all of the teachers we’re shipping to Japan for Interac and JET meet these qualifications? Nah, they don’t. Honestly, a shocking majority of students that start to learn Japanese will never progress past the basics, simply because they don’t live in an environment that requires it. Heck, even a lot of foreigners living in Japan fail to learn anything beyond the basics. Someone with Intermediate skills, whether “accredited”, “certified”, or not, likely has the prerequisite knowledge to teach the basics. For a lot of students, just figuring out where to start is often the hardest part.

A lot of the popular online Japanese learning resources used today are in fact created and maintained by unaccredited / uncertified individuals or teams. Have you checked to see if the people at Tofugu hold any educational credentials? While concern and caution is understandable, there’s no need to be so hostile about someone doing what they can to spread knowledge of this language that we all love and enjoy. We should be coming together as a community and improving things. Anyone can “tut tut” someone’s efforts.

Wanikani in fact had various errors and issues when it was first launched, but we didn’t beat them down because “they had no business teaching stuff”. We instead contributed feedback where we could to improve the product that we’re all enjoying today. And yes, we “poor souls” paid for an untested, beta app that had issues and was created by unaccredited individuals. How unfortunate we are.

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May I recommend taking a break from this conversation, @Starker and @Killua099? It’s rather derailing the thread and it’d be a shame to see the thread locked because of further increasing heat.

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ALTs are 1) native or near native level and 2) assistants to licensed teachers. It’s not really an apt comparison. No one is sending intermediate English learners to be the main teacher in an English class in Japan. (Though admittedly some classes might get an education that seems like that’s who taught them.)

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Learn Russian dude.
It’s very different from both English and Japanese, so no mixup of words.
With Russian, you can comfortably go to half a dozen Eastern European countries.
I’m probably biased, cuz I’m from Ukraine.

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This is a false dichotomy. A book is a resource. A website / web app is a resource. A teacher is a resource. You may pay for any of these things if they require it. If they are helpful to your efforts, they are good resources, if they aren’t they’re bad resources. You should assess your teachers, paid or otherwise, the same as any other resource.

Most users here don’t know a lick of Kanji. WK can teach them anything with them being none the wiser. Same with Cure Dolly. Same with a University’s Japanese program. Same with the local Kaiwa club. If Wanikani isn’t good, word would get out. If Cure Dolly wasn’t good, word would get out. If @Starker isn’t good, eventually word will get out amongst @Starker’s students. Being critical of @Starker here does nothing to benefit those students, or the other users here, especially if you’ve never audited any of @Starker’s classes or curriculum.

@Starker and @Killua099 Let’s please put this to rest. At this point, it’s not helping anyone, and everyone’s opinions have been duly noted. No need to open a thread just to get it locked. :slight_smile:

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OP, could you expand some on what you’re looking for in a language? In your shoes I’d try consuming media from all over the world until you find something that makes you interested in learning more about the place it’s from.