Intellectual challenge. Knowing a language which everyone is scared is very cool. Especially being able to read kanji and write kanji is utmost coolest thing. I have started to study Korean basics a few weeks ago. Japanese is still my main learning language.
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If you click the ‘hide answers’ button, you can revote. Also multiple answers will be squares instead of circles!
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other: i don’t even know anymore
Well actually I do, I hate it as much as I love it, which is a lot
wait isn’t that how drugs work
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I wanted to be able to read books in japanese and watch anime without subtitles. I also find japanese culture interesting.
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I want to be able to understand Japanese music would be the short answer I give to people who ask.
Music is my passion and hopefully will lead me to be able to work with Japanese artists.
(Live and Studio technical aspects are the things i’m passionate about in the industry).
Being able to understand the people and the culture and how that leads into the creation of their creative works.
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I wouldn’t say I want an intellectual challenge, but I think that’s what fits the best here. I just really like languages, and Japanese is one that’s very different from what I can already speak 
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I feel like I’m coming home. It’s just that I went from one Japanese thing to another and now it’s like a constant stream of things/people that I seem to really resonate with. It kind of has a momentum of its own so I’m just going with it.
The strange thing is that I didn’t have much interest a few years ago. I’d learnt Japanese in high school and wasn’t that interested, and after I was in china for 6 weeks I had a short trip to Japan booked and I ended up just coming home instead because I was sick of traveling. It’s weird how things change.
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Or spice it up with 「我輩はペンである」
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To answer the question, my original reason was more or less intellectual challenge. That is, I wanted to keep my mind sharp. Now it’s also largely to read books and manga in Japanese.
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The idea was to make a proper attempt at a genuinely challenging language, also as brain exercise. I had already tried Modern Standard Arabic with its natty triconsonantal word formation (even got OK at pronouncing 'ayn) and Standard Chinese with its nifty coverbs. In the middle of Standard Chinese I got sucked into the world of sumo via a friend and decided Japanese was much more relevant.
A book of Japanese proverbs may help there. I’m fond of 「七転び八起き」 myself!
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My main reason was to make me feel less inferior. So many people around me can speak 2 languages and here I am with only one language up my sleeve. By learning another language I would finally be able to consider myself an equal to many of my peers. Additionally, it’s also because of I am ethnically Asian so feel like I am obliged to learn an Asian language.
I do know these reasons sound disingenuous but I do really like Japanese culture and the language. I am also really interested in how people can process and comprehend two or more completely distinctive languages.
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Other: I’m just sick of other people saying things for me. I’d hate to live in a world where I have to hear the other half of the story from someone other person or machine.
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Um, are you a professional wrestler in Japan?
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Well it started as wanting to learn it before I took a (still to-be-taken) trip to Japan with my friends, but by this point it’s just kind of the thing that I do. I take the fact I’m learning it for granted. This is my life now.
I went with the “sake of learning” answer since I was wanting to learn a language for a while and just needed a reason. Dutch and French before it both didn’t stick.
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Not yet, but, I will be one day soon!!! Seeking admittance into a Dojo.
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I want to travel / move to Japan for a relationship and my career (am currently in Korea).
Also, as a language instructor, I have found a growing desire to also be a language learner. Japanese (and Chinese) always intimidated me in the past. However, I appreciate the phonics of the language and am intrigued by the written system. In addition, I subbed for a Japanese language instructor’s classes a few years ago when I hardly knew any Japanese. I still know very little but am motivated due to people I know.
I think “I want to communicate with Japanese people” should have been on this list.
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Multiple reasons, I guess because I wanted to do it properly now. The interest was always there. So that’s why I picked it up and put it down several times.
Didn’t want to lose out on the opportunity to work on it while I’m still recovering from a long period of dealing & not dealing with depression. So the challenge part was the reason. It was a good excuse to put my renewed concentration to use. Also it was something I could do for myself and felt like it was a good test if I could handle studying and maybe finish my degree.
There’s more reasons like wanting to absorb Japanese media on my own without translations and wanting to return to Japan for vacation, but those are more like good target goals.
So far I’m doing pretty good. I haven’t skipped a day studying. Of course some days are slower than others, but that’s alright. Not a race, it’s a marathon.
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I work in the nuclear industry and get to travel there occasionally to teach. Originally, it was to learn enough to be polite but I found it really scratched my itch for learning new things. It also overlapped nicely with some of my other nerdy hobbies.
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I answered with the pop culture answer because it was the closest, but the explanation is a little deeper than that. I grew up in Canada but really I’ve been consuming Japanese media almost exclusively for probably 22 years of my 27 years alive. I have vivid memories of watching subtitled Sailor Moon movies and playing Final Fantasy 4 before I could even read. Basically my whole life I’ve tended towards Japanese media such that at this point their aesthetic and thematic qualities have totally shaped me inside and out. I feel like I owe it to myself to learn the language for that reason alone, since I’ll always love their collective imagination.
On a related note, the real functional reason I want to learn Japanese is so that I can communicate with creators that have heavily shaped my life to tell them how much their work has meant to me (Ryukishi of 07th Expansion being a primary example) and so that I can eventually work with Japanese writers and musicians in my own creative work, since they aesthetic views are so similar to mine (there are so many doujin musicians that I adore).
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Being able to communicate with the Japanese I meet through my hobbies is my reason.
To elaborate: I have picked up Shogi (Japanese chess) as a hobby a couple of years ago. Since I actively play and go to the European championship each year and so on, I meet a lot of Japanese people (notably professionals), who speak little to no English. After a couple of years of needing a translator (which, even though they are present at the events, are not always available), I would like to be able to not need one.
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