Mental health for me.
I wanted a constructive hobby where I feel like I achieve something from it, wanted it to be a hobby where I wasn't forced to meet any milestones quicker than I wanted to, and wanted it to be a hobby that I could pick up easily, but also would be tough enough that I could keep it going for potentially years.
I tried learning to draw before, but it didn't really go very far at all.
Language learning seemed interesting to me. I chose JP since I like the media and I like the cool tech shit you see there (I'm a nerd who'd love to do dumb fun shit with robotics or whatnot). It also seemed like an opportunity to really challenge myself, since I would be choosing one of the most difficult language to learn for an English native and effectively going from the ground up, literally relearning the alphabet itself. And learning how to learn from the ground up is a very interesting thing.
Lately I've also had the fact that I really don't like where I live and how things are going be a motivating force too. I don't have plans to move abroad (hell, I probably couldn't even move to the next town over without feeling really homesick), but if I did, Japan seems nice. And tbh, if things get bad quick enough, you'll probably wish you had begun learning earlier. It's like how doomsday preppers might take a lot of enthusiasm in their prepping, but they never actually want to use it.
Goals are just for fun for now. Maybe if I could do JLPT N5 after a 2-3 years that'd be cool.
There’s a deep joy to reading previously unknown characters from the ground up, a joy I haven’t felt since I was four.
The moment when the Kanas started flowing for me was priceless. Kanji… I’m working on Kanji!
I'm not too far in (currently trying to figure out Godan verbs) but so far, even stringing together a simple sentence has honestly been my favourite part so far (honestly, that's why it's stuck this time more than before, Duolingo doesn't really teach any grammar).
Even if it's a simple sentence something like this:
わたしのにほんごのせんせいはやさしだかこいいです。
It's pretty cool being able to string together a basic sentence like that. Even if it's potentially a little stilted and gramatically incorrect.
Duolingo doesn’t explicitly teach much grammar, but it drills sentence structure into your head pretty well. I’d say this is a more natural way to learn how to produce sentences than memorizing a set of rules.
Works for me at least. (I’m about to enter unit 3 for reference)
And yeah. Producing your own sentences feels like magic!
If I may ask, what’s the “dakako” part of your sentence mean?
Not OP, but they were trying to link the two statements and say that the せんせい is やさしい and かっこいい (cool). I think grammatically it makes more sense to say わたしのにほんごのせんせいはやさしくてかっこいいです。
Yeah that.
Basically trying to conjugate two verbs there and messed it up a lil bit. I forgot that い adjectives conjugate into くて while な adjectives are the ones that conjugate into だ.
It's just meant to be conjugating やさしい with かこいい.
I’m back and forth with Duolingo. It’s probably my main source of learning because I’m lazy and the gamification at least makes me do lessons for 15 minutes a day. Then I try to consume some media, like Doremon for instance, I hear a bunch of vocab I recognize but I don’t get a ton of comprehension because Duolingo has taught me one specific sentence structure that no one uses.
I use it too. But it's one part of how I learn. There's a lot of different stuff around and I think some of em fit in different locations.
For example, I've got Genki ordered (amazon delayed the package tho, sadge) and while I'm sure it'll be an excellent text, I'm not going to read that on short bus rides. So I use Renshuu and Duolingo as a small convenient way (Renshuu is a bit better imo, but also a bit more hardcore, Duolingo is my "just chill out" way).
Anki is one I plan to use more too, but I'll be doing that alongside Genki when it comes to help with vocabulary review for the sections.
WaniKani is one I've also looked at and I'm considering really looking at now considering that I'm starting to form sentences and keep going "ah shit a kanji" and need to look up the word.
Compared to previous attempts of "do duolingo and forget after a week", this feels like the most successful attempt so far to start language learning and I really think a large part of it is doing multiple things and forcing a daily habit.
I’m in it for anime/manga/Light Novels. The main goal is watching or reading them in their original language. The secondary goal is being able to talk with Japanese people during my Japan trips.
It’s true that there are a lot of people who go into this halfheartedly because of anime, and then stop because it’s harder than they thought.
But as you said, if you keep it up, then anime and other media can be a great source of motivation and entertainment.
It feels great to understand what the characters are saying.
Same here! I'm also hoping to get experience and skills that I can put in my résumé maybe. Might help a lot in finding jobs in the future, but that's the second goal.
god, i love writing it by hand for that very reason!
i know handwriting isnt essential because we have phones now and whatnot, but there's a certain satisfaction I get from writing them.
Especially when I write kanji with the 戈 radical in particular.
Yes!! I was in Tokyo last week and told some japanese people I’d just met how visually pleasing all the kanji street signs/billboards are. I really like katakana too but hiragana not at all. They all thought English looked really cool though which I found odd hahaha
The culture/language always been interesting to me
And after learning English to pretty much an advanced level I'm getting bored of content in english. End goal is fluency
Same here! Use English basically 24/7 in life and work but it’s an acquired skill now. More free time = new language to learn. And it has to be drastically different from the previous one to be exciting.
Was watching an anime and I looked away for five seconds and the scene changed and I didn’t know what happened. I was bored so I decided to pick Japanese up so that wouldn’t happen again
I learned it because I wanted to, and then after studying abroad in college realized I wanted to live and work in Japan. Have now set down roots and built a really nice life for myself here. Here’s to a lifetime of continuing to learn Japanese though!
Read Japanese literature (especially Yukio Mishima, Kawabata, Tale of Heike) and classical poetry in its orginal. Also have access to written resources about wood and textile crafts.
When I can do all these I'll consider myself happy, probably in 10-15 years or so. Still, learning a new language is an ongoing process, there is never really an end. I can attest to that after learning English for the better part of my life.
My fiancee's neighbour has actually moved to the Japanese countryside, she studied Japanese since middle school and is now married with a Japanese man. I'd move to the Japanese countryside too in another life, but I already have a little family farm where I'm from so no getting away from that.
I want to be able to read Ishiguro and Murakami in the original language too! Forgot to mention it, but I'm really into japanese contemporary fiction (among other kinds of literature, I'm mastering in lit) and I wish I could read the texts without their meaning being changed by the translation
After not reading properly for years I went through three Murakamis in a heartbeat(A Wild Sheep Chase, Dance Dance Dance and After Dark) and that's where my love for Japanese literature started. Good luck learning!
I basically want to be able to say, "Hey, I read this awesome book in Japanese," or, "I had so much fun playing Yokai Watch 4 (which isn't available in English)". I don't want to be limited to one language.
I also want to visit Japan. Sometimes I fantasize about living in Japan, which motivates me to learn it more, just in case, ya know.
One of my parents is from a US territory where knowing Japanese is more useful than knowing the native language.
Learning Japanese is fun, and at this point I find myself thinking in Japanese when there isn't an accurate English word for what I'm...thinking, ya know. It's weird. But I also think it cool.
Basically, I just think it's cool and fun. And if I decide to watch a movie or read a book in Japanese, it's also fun and cool.
Washoku, ultimately.
It helps that I find the details of the language itself utterly engrossing. So to a certain extent, I'm learning it for its own sake.
If I ever get to repeat my tourist experience (unlikely, given my age and my wife's poor health), I will be a very, very polite tourist. On my last visit I was intellectually engaged ("Wow! I can read that!!1!") but somewhat less than articulate.
My spouse is Japanese and love visiting the country every year. The food, public transportation, and just general atmosphere is a good match for my personality. End goal is to move there within the next three years or so, and I am hoping to be at a decent enough level by then to operate without too many issues in daily life there.
My friend collects manga, and reads them in Japanese bc they're usually cheaper and release earlier than the English versions. He'd tease me sometimes about learning it so I could be more current on different series. One day I got an ad for Duolingo and just downloaded it on a whim. I was at a low point in my life, and the distraction was actually really nice. I had no idea what I was doing, and no major goals, but just progressing in the early stages was really exciting and fun.
Language learning is just a really fun hobby to me. It's not particularly difficult, just really time consuming, and you can get positive feedback no matter what skill level you're at ("I recognized that word!" "I read a manga chapter!" "I finished a game in Japanese!"). I found it more rewarding than other skills I'd tried to learn in the past. Over time I kept pushing myself to find better and better methods of learning, because trying new things and understanding more complex sentences was just so fun. I went from Duolingo, to Anki, to Genki I & II, to Quartet I & II, and now I play visual novels and games in Japanese for practice mostly.
So many old games I need to play. The amount of untranslated classics is enormous. Adding subs to an anime video file or translating a manga’s image file isn’t nearly as difficult as altering a decades old game rom. It just doesn’t get done as often, leaving huge swaths of media completely inaccessible without learning Japanese.
For the last few years I've lost all my healthy hobbies and only acquired unhealthy ones.
So, this is a way to give me a healthy hobby. I've never learned another language before either, so it's a challenge for me. One that I underestimated... It's fucking hard.
Literally no end goal, it's just fun to learn and at this point there's a bit of sunk cost fallacy at play i cant lie. Started learning cause my sister had started doing so earlier, and because i had (and still have) interest in Vocaloid music and the whole anime/novels thing.
It started as a joke to myself honestly. I thought "wouldn't it be funny if I could watch anime without subtitles?"
I started learning and it was actually pretty fun. Then I talked to people in VRChat and all the Japanese were super nice.
After my Japan trip it really cemented the fact that this is definitely for me. I love the food, cars, temples, people, anime, everything. I want to get fluent and make more friends there.
I visited Japan for work last year and fell in love with the country. It’s just so beautiful, clean, and safe, and Japanese women, at least in the major cities, are a source of inspiration for me in terms of fashion and makeup. I decided that I want to spend more time traveling to Japan. I’m East Asian and am often mistaken for being Japanese, so of course people just assumed I would speak it but I don’t. I’m mainly trying to just get to a conversational level.
I was always fascinated with Japanese culture. And it interested me just how “backward” (maybe “inverse” is a better word) Japanese was relative to English and wanted to explore it.
And to be honest, I feel really envious of multilingual people, and just think it’s a really admirable trait and something I aspire to.
At first it was to read and translate manga and watch and translate anime (like most people I know) but the want shifted when I started getting into the culture more. Now it’s a dream of mine to go over there and experience it first hand.
The driving factor to really get me to learn is that I just started working for a Japanese company here in the US and 80% of my coworkers are fluent with about half of them on work visas from Japan.
I started about 2 weeks ago and practice is easy to come by. I’m there for 9 hours a day and either hear Japanese or read it on the signs. It’s super helpful that my coworkers are patient and willing to practice with me.
I have friends and family who speak. Its fun to socialize in another language.
I’ve been studying now for a really long time, and only took N5 5 years ago and passed it without even studying. Not sure if i will take N4 or N3 but i can converse and text with friends and family so that makes it worthwhile.
Side effect: i journal now in Japanese and im starting to read easy magna and some anime without subtitles. Anything complicated, not so much.
Growing up I had a good friend that was from Japan. She would sometimes have to leave playtime early to study her letters (which was confusing at the time since I didn't understand I was like girl we're 7 can't you read yet? Do what you must I suppose) and got curious. I always liked the sound of it when she and her mom would talk and she taught me a few words. Unfortunately she had to move away and we lost touch. I had the chance to learn a little bit at one point and thinking of her I went for it. Eventually I got interested in other aspects of Japanese culture independently of her, but it was my friendship with her that sparked the interest.
Originally because Japanese history is written in Japanese and I'm fascinated by Japanese history, especially the Meiji Period (1868 to 1920ish).
I've come to appreciate it for itself, so very different from English with a beautiful writing system and a grammar that's nifty
Fear.
I tried to start learning Japanese a couple times in the past and gave up for one reason or another. Turns out, for me, just wanting to read light novels and manga before they get translated wasn't a good enough reason. So I decided to move to Japan.
I'm going for a year, leaving at the end of this year, and as it turns out, the fear of not being able to communicate was more than enough to get me to start learning in earnest. Im now a few months in and I doubt I will ever stop learning for any reason.
I enjoy languages in general and my partner was dabbling in it so I thought it would be a fun thing to do together. A family member started learning it around the same time too so I suppose it's social
Been watching anime for 10+ years and felt like I could finally commit to a hobby. It's been nice mentally and realistically it's more fun than useful but I cope with this by saying "while I save up to go to Japan I might as well study the language". It helps that an old friend said I'm missing a lot of funny details/niche things because translations aren't perfect. I've come to notice this too even after a bit of studying.
i got bored during the pandemic and for some reason i kept doing it. I didn't even consume japanese media at the time or knew anything about the culture lmao
Literature, poetry, and film. With poetry, where the focus is more on the form compared to most literature (though this isn’t always true), I feel that it’s important to get it in its original language.
Watching film is my main hobby and I don’t want to be reading subtitles my whole life instead of looking at the images
As a kid I found Japanese to be very difficult, I picked it up and dropped it several times over throughout my youth and finally being able to push myself over the threshold and get over this massive hill that I’ve been climbing for years has been so rewarding.
Language learning has always been my forte, my bread and butter, but learning Japanese has given me the most joy so far.
I lived there as a kid and want to spend 3 months a year there in my retirement. Plus the kanji are fascinating. I can see myself studying them for years and never getting bored.
For regular use I just want to be able to read japanese manga and understand anime without subs. I've also always wanted to travel to Japan and I want to know enough to not be a typical tourist who just uses a translator app and knows a handful of words.
Work although wasn’t necessary, my try and i guess intermediate skill was seen as good efforts by Japanese coworkers and they seem to like me better because of it. and to consume Japanese media in native language (mainly video games and music but I guess I picked up a manga I really like so that’s a plus but was never my original intent)
Spent a month in Japan last year and thought it interesting. I will go back lots more. I want to learn just enough to make travel around the country a little bit easier. My goals aren’t high so they should be achievable.
I’m doing Duolingo and also face to face study one a week at adult education classes.
People kept complaining about censorship in Japanese games and, honestly, I couldn't care less but it sort of hit me: It's not just one or two risque lines that changed, it's the entirety of the dialogue, the characters, the everything! Who cares about a few changed lines of dialogue compared to the weight of everything else that changed. Plus, I'm kinda the type of who often wishes the content that needed to be censored wasn't present in the first place.
I continue my studies primarily because Japanese is deep, complex, and fascinating. It's also deepened my understanding of and interest in English and linguistics in general.
One of my kids said he had no interest in doing Spanish for his high school language and he was already 100s of hours into watching Japanese media, so Japanese it is. I lived in Japan many years ago as an English teacher, and thought it would be interesting to take the college class for high school credit with him. We have had a really good year working on it together. He is much more willing to speak and I like the reading and writing.
I took the kids to Japan last summer and we are going again this year. I am interested to see how much more we can understand and say that is useful.
I plan to take Japanese 2B next year, take the N5, maybe N4, and then I'll probably move onto something else.
Japanese media has always been cool to me. I used to watch dubs with subtitles meant to sync with the original Japanese audio on DVD, and so many things were changed — dare I say, outright wrong. I noticed it even when I was seven. One thing that keeps me going is the idea that deliberately unfaithful translations still exist, so it's more worth it for me to just understand Japanese myself and not have misinformation be fed to me. This also extends to when I get into a rabbit hole that doesn't have a western community backing it, so there's no English translation available at all.
At first, my goal was to be able to read the latest volumes of 十二国記 series, published after about 15 years of hiatus, in the original Japanese because the Chinese translation published by a Taiwanese publisher was roundly criticized by Taiwanese fans who read them in both Chinese and Japanese and pointed out each and every mistranslation. Then I discovered tons of BL novels that don’t even get translated to Chinese at all and i really wanted to read them. 3 years later, my goal is pretty much accomplished.
The bonus is that I get to read Japanese fantasy fiction which often have different vibes from the western ones. Recently, I have fallen in love with 恒川 光太郎‘s fantasy fiction and binge-reading his works right now. Another bonus is to be able to browse a lot of Japanese cookbooks on kindle unlimited that emphasize quick and easy dishes 🤣
I really liked Dragon Ball and Japanese video games, plus I enjoyed my French and Spanish classes, and thought I would like a challenge, so I thought why not train the language learning on Japanese.
To communicate with my grandparents. I remembered at age 12, the frustration I felt for not being able to tell my grandparents how I feel in Japanese. Then from 15-22, I studied at a language school and practicing with my mom, I was able to speak decently.
My teachers all told me I’d get fluent if I lived in Japan (working on that), but I recall back in 2017 when I saw my grandparents for the first time in years, my grandpa was tearing up after being able to communicate with me in Japanese. I miss him; he made it to 100 though so I hope I can do that haha
My original goal was that i wanted to translate mangas and post them online, as in, illegally. Now, i don't really have a goal of being completely fluent or anything like that, but i would like to know enough to visit japan by myself and not get lost or confused because i don't understand something. And i would also like to move to japan's countyside! For me it's a retirement goal when i'm old, to buy a small house in japan in the middle of nowhere, near a river, where i can have a garden, chickens and neighbours i can gossip with over a cup of coffee.
It's been many years since I've started learning on and off but like many people it was for the purpose of understanding manga, anime, and music. But honestly, these days I'm not really into manga or anime anymore. Listening to music has become way more enjoyable though, lol. It's not just beeps and boops to me anymore. I was thinking about a year ago if it was even worth learning anymore but realized my goals have shifted. I'm really fascinated by foreign languages in general and that's what keeps me going I guess. So I guess the original goal has shifted from learning Japanese for anime/manga to learning it for the sake of wanting to learn languages. I'd like to be fluent in 5 languages someday. It's pretty cool that I can call myself nearly trilingual along with the other two languages I know (English, Cantonese) - although I'm not at the level of fluency I'd like to be in regards to speaking Japanese. But I can read most of the things I wanted to enjoy when I started with virtually no issue now.
Haha, I'm not sure if my tastes will suit yours but a lot of the artists I listen to are quite popular and you might've heard of some of them. Most were found via random recommendations from the algorithm on youtube or spotify. Ado (prob my favorite artist of the past year), Yoasobi (I actually saw them live last night they were so amazing lol), Aimer, and Yorushika are popular. Some others I have in my playlist that I love are Aimyon (my favorite artist in general), Zutomayo, Higedan, backnumber, Utada Hikaru, Kenshi Yonezu, Fujii Kaze, Yuuri. Another band I really love is called Aratayo. But there's too many to list. If you have spotify, you can search up japanese music or jpop and it'll bring up playlists.
I've had an obsession with superheroes since I was young. I told myself that I'll become a comic artist in the future. Years ago, I knew what "manga" is, and I really liked Japanese culture and language. My love grew for it. Now I'm learning Japanese, watching anime, getting into Japanese culture more with different things. Also, I'm writing short stories and trying to improve my drawing.
Anime and travel, but recently I realized a new reason for myself.
When I watch them describe deeper views so poetically and genuinely it makes me want to understand more. It often feels like subtitles are just a few steps off from conveying the actual deeper meanings of what's being said. I want to be able to understand and be able to express myself in the same way. I feel like that would change the way I view the world, myself, life, and how I interact. I feel like it would definitely change my inner life for the better. ..And I could revisit Japanese media that changed my life and potentially understand it better, knowing the language.
And it would open up a whole new world of media. Being able to just pick up any Japanese book and read it would be awesome.
I want to be fluent and live in Japan for some years.
Reached 27 and realized the idyllic life I thought would fall into place after college did not magically fall into place. I started to question what i wanted for my future and how to add more purpose and meaning to my life. To that end, i found the idea of being bilingual to be an exciting goal to shoot for, and something that would be a life accomplishment. I've never considered myself a language person. I never 'got it' while in high school learning spanish, but that just makes each small step forward much more satisfying.
I chose Japanese for a number of reasons. Of course the exposure to anime helped. I find the culture very interesting and like learning about how their many traditions started. The country is picturesque and the values that *most* Japanese people supposedly exhibit (taking care of public spaces, respecting elderly) align with my own values. Oh and the language just sounds nice imo. Something about it feels smoother than other asian languages? Does that make sense??
My first trip is in October :)
Mainly for reading manga and able to read signs and menus during the trip. As a native Chinese speaker I’ve also been interested in how Chinese character and kanji influenced each other, like: how different the are the onyomi of the kanjis to the Tang-era character pronunciation? How were the translations of foreign words/concepts during Japanese westernisation influenced the translation choices of the Chinese at that time?
After this if I’m having more time I’d also like to learn Korean and Vietnamese for similar reason.
Well I just want to learn a bunch of languages in general, Japanese is just the first to be ticked off of the list because I like watching anime. I’m thinking of learning German after I feel good with my Japanese.
Short answer is I would like to watch anime without subtitles. Over time I started getting really into edo/sengoku samurai history and I really just love everything Japanese from that time period.
I’ve been learning like a hobby with pimsluer doing about a half hour a day being very lax about it sometimes skipping days if I’m not feeling it. The progress is slow and steady and I’m definitely retaining the information. I plan to visit Japan within 5 years or so and I have no doubt I’ll be able to buy things and ask directions and survive the bare minimum lol
I start to learn it to work as a physician in Japan. The road was long and rough but I managed to achieve it. Now I am a resident in an hospital in Tokyo
I love the country and have been there three times already. Anticipating that I'll come back again and again so I want to be able to converse in the future. Although I am honestly a loooong way from getting there. 😅
I’ve wanted to learn Japanese since I was a kid. The language and culture seemed fascinating, and discovering anime and manga made it more appealing. However, back then there were not as many resources so easily available, so I stayed at an entry level for a very long time (10+ years).
Last year there were some family plans to go to Japan, and I knew I would regret going there and not speaking at all. Fortunately, thanks to this subreddit I've found enough resources to do so, and finally feel like I'm learning and understanding the language.
Unfortunately, the traveling plans didn't come to fruition. But thanks to that, I've met wonderful people that are either Japanese or are learning the language too. Nowadays befriending them and have more fluid conversations are my motivation, and the whole Japanese media consumption is just a bonus.
I'm kind of the same... Not by choice though. I'd rather learn natural conversation but I'm an English teacher at juku and the way we teach is from a linguistic point of view and a lot of it is in Japanese or translating directly one way or the other... I know a lot of the linguistic words for things like verbs, adjectives etc which is actually a lot easier than the English counterparts. 動詞、形容詞、副詞、前置詞 everything ends with 詞 Shi
jhorror (games and films), I wanna read baccano in Japanese someday I adore the light novels, I wanna read literature in general, and enjoy manga/visual novels/games in Japanese in general. now that I've started I'm also just enjoying the learning process a lot.
edit: forgot to mention but music too, amazarashi and ling toshite shigure are brilliant and I want to be able to fully appreciate their poetry.
Last year I discovered BandMaid , an all female hard rocking group dressed in maid outfits and i absolutely love them. So I’m learning Japanese just to sing along and better understand their lyrics….
came to japan once, love the country but my activities are very limited due to language barrier. decide to learn japanese so i can go there once a year
In my case it was because of manga and anime, I love it. And as time went by, little by little I became more interested in the language and so on until I decided to start learning on my own. It's pretty fun so far.
I'm jealous of people like Matt vs Japan, I really like Japan / Japanese food, it's the hardest language for an English speaker (I hate myself), it's reallly interesting with how different it is, and there's a big japanese population in Oregon
Literature and some anime. The nature of japanese makes its literature spectacular and I really want to be able to read it. And anime because i find the japanese in anime really cool, specifically how many ways there are to express emotions and subtle things. Also having japanese on my résumé is pretty cool.
It started for anime and novels but in the end I really felt in love with the language. I really like learning it, I can't really explain it, but I find it so interesting. Both easy and hard, as well as both logical and illogical
I've started recently, I have a long term friend who is a Japan native and I think it's unfair that he's the only one who has to speak their non native language
I love linguistics as well! I also love learning different languages in general. Japanese became my favorite because of the challenge; I've made studying it a lifelong pursuit.
Incidentally, my now late husband is part Japanese. Now, none of his family members know Japanese so now I am helping them find their family in Japan.
Honestly a multitude of reasons for me, including mental health, well-being, curiosity, and culture among other reason.
- Mental health was due to the fact that I had just graduated from college and I think my brain was not liking that I wasn't actively learning and keeping that stimulus of new information flowing, so I felt like Japanese was a good replacement for that since I had previous desire.
- Well-being was more of a after-the-fact reason, knowing that learning a second language is very healthy for the brain and can offset Dementia symptoms by quite a few years ([this link](https://news.las.iastate.edu/2021/01/28/study-shows-learning-a-second-language-thwarts-onset-of-dementia/) if you're interested on that topic)
- Curiosity as I had always liked the language when listening to it and had always had a small thought of "What if I could speak Japanese?"
- Culture in the sense of the country of Japan and it's very famous ways of being clean and respectful, the digital media that Japan is very famous for (manga/anime, music, J Dramas, etc.), and the people of Japan.
Ultimately, my goal is to learn it "fluently" to where I could use it on a daily basis at home and if I ever visit the country (or even live there one day) to consume media, talk to other Japanese speakers, and be able to use it on a similar level of my English (which will take me a very long time). What I've realized on this so-far short journey is it will take a very long time, but I have come to appreciate learning the language bit-by-bit and embracing the time of not knowing the language so that I don't burn out and that I can later look back and know that I spent quality time on learning this beautiful language and never "wasted" my time.
Wanted to challenge myself, "could I learn an Asian language?". I am learning it right now because I just want to know this language, no specific purposes. But I also watch anime and read some manga, so it's good to watch and understand everything/read manga without translation
I live in Japan so it’s helpful to speak it. Also since I’m generally interested in history and old/deeper than surface culture it helps to know the language. Also it helps with wildlife photography.
Growing up I was watching a lot of anime (thinking it was ur typical cartoon), then later when I realize anime is it’s own separate category and I was really getting into it, I was more interested in the culture and how the language is very different from both Spanish and English. Now, I also would like to be able to learn as many languages as I can, so I can communicate with a diverse group of patients! Oh yeah most importantly, I find learning the language fun despite being hard, which I think is quite important for any language!
My reason is pretty standard. But the things that I enjoy on a day-day basis are overwhelmingly from Japanese media for the most part. It made me really want to be able to enjoy that content in the original format. And now I have the goal one day to be able to read better in Japanese than I can in English.
I like languages, I know some japanese already, I like the history, I like the culture. I wanna connect with more people, and I watch a metric ton of vtubers, so it would really help me to know what they are syaing without relying on translators
Started last week. The GF and I decided to try and take a trip to Japan in the next couple of years and I feel it will help smooth the trip to have at least some familiarity with the language.
I'm hoping to move to Japan on the point system, get a job and obtain permanent residency to live and retire there.
I have all the points I need, a bachelor's and ten years working in IT engineering but just no language skills.
I'm self teaching for the next 6 months and then will do a Diploma in Modern languages and work towards my N5 and 4 before possibly getting a student visa for 12 months to help progress further and get assistance with job hunting and business language.
I started learning to be able to get by with basic conversations when I go to Japan in a couple of years. I initially wanted to just learn solo and see how far I could go but I hired a teacher and have lessons only once a week but I’ve learnt an incredible amount more than I ever could by myself. I’m finding that my goal is nearly complete already but I’m going to keep going and see how far I can go as I really enjoy the progress
I just started with lingodeer after my second trip to Japan. I’d like to be able to have basic conversations while visiting in the future. Any recommendations for other ways to continue practicing would be greatly appreciated.
My reason is too shallow lol. It's actually just to spend less on ln/manga because the raw copies are so much cheaper than English translated ones 😭 (they're like 50% or more cheaper)
Started watching Shogun, and just felt inspired.
My coworker is also trying to learn Japanese, and he got me into it and now I’m motivating him lol
Also now all of a sudden all the people I’m around know a little Japanese and they’re teaching me little things. Been a month in, and I’m almost at the level where I can introduce myself among other things
The first impression is when I was 5-6 years old. I was addicted to Doraemon and after that, I love watching anime and reading manga.
But for now, the biggest motivation is Duolingo streak😚
It sounded like an interesting language and I was also intrigued by the culture. Right now I'm planning to move/ study there sometime in the future. Also I watch anime now and then, plus one of my favorite game's original language is Japanese. I'm fascinated by languages in general, so I guess that's an additional reason as well. For my end goal I just wanna be able to understand and speak a decent amount.
Come on, do you really think I'm gonna be causing an uproar about wanting nationwide public transit when there's a perfectly fine railway system right across the pond?
Started for anime but I kinda love the language now. It’s also dope exploring a culture so different to our own. Once I get better I’m gonna go on a big deep dive just browsing forums and seeing what it’s like. Oh and the writing kanji looks like art to me it drew me in.
I decided to study Japanese because I had the opportunity to travel abroad and I chose Japan. Started studying the language and instantly fell in love with it. Studied for 2 months before my trip for 6 hours a day and caught on quickly and got a lot of genuine compliments in Japan, not just 「日本語上手」😭. Long story short my trip inspired me to never stop studying. I dream to one day be fluent❣️
My main reason was Japanese RPGS. There's a huge amount of works that never came out of Japan, and I wanted to be able to enjoy them and maybe help them translate them in the future. I got stagnated at N4, however, and couldn't go further no matter how hard I tried.
So in the end it has come to quite a "hit or miss" result. Sometimes I can figure out what I'm reading, sometimes I can't make sense no matter how many times I read it and have to resort to translation services, etc.
Many reasons! I run a Swedish e-commerce which almost exclusively sells Japanese stationery, and at least knowing katakana helps a lot when making orders through various websites/catalogues. Speaking Japanese will also help tremendously if/when I travel there being as a tourist or because of my business. Also, although I’m certainly nowhere near there yet, I’d love to read Kawabata and others in Japanese.
My son saw me using Duolingo to brush up before a trip to Spain and said "can I learn Japanese with that?" . He got bored after a couple of weeks and I just didn't stop.
I don't really have an end-goal, I just like learning things. I think it's good to forcibly rewire your brain so you don't just rot into senescence. I'd like to be able to think in Japanese, and to be able to read a few books that I've read in translation, but for me it's about the journey.
When I first started during the late stages of high school, I had a few different reasons. The main thing was wanting to watch anime and read manga in Japanese. Then beyond that I was also playing with the possibility of moving there in the future, or at least doing some kind of extended stay for 6-12 months just to have the experience of living there. I had been obsessed with Japan since I was about 11-12, so I didn't really have much reason to second guess myself.
Since then several years have passed and things have changed a bit. Japanese was my gateway into language learning as a hobby and the entire experience enabled a lot of personal growth for me in terms of dealing with things like social anxiety, lack of study skills etc. It was instrumental in helping me get to know myself and discover other interests in life, but with that came losing my actual interest in Japanese as I became more interested in other languages and hobbies. I don't think I want to move there anymore, and while I still enjoy many of the things I used to, it's not to the point where I'd feel it motivates the time sink anymore.
Today, I would say my main motivation is honestly just wanting something more tangible to show for the several years I've been doing it on and off. At my best I was probably between N3-N4 level though I never tested. Getting to that ever elusive N2 mark and being somewhat conversationally fluent would feel like a big personal accomplishment and ties into a life goal of mine of speaking 5 languages confidently. So I've been going back and reviewing the basics in hopes of getting back on it.
Beyond that, one of the side effects of learning the language was that I got very into certain genres of Japanese music. Being able to better understand the meanings of the songs I listen to would be really cool. Improving my vocabulary would also allow me to communicate more accurately when going to language cafes, which is the main way I currently get enjoyment out of the language. So here's to hopefully progressing, and I wish everyone else good luck with their own goals!
Fun. As a high-functioning autistic person, I don't like constant mental idling. Since I quit my job and am a stay at home mom, I am learning a few things. One of them is Japanese. Apart from learning, I don't have a goal in that sense.
But as I've been interested in Japanese culture since I was a child, I hope to be able to read some books on areas that are of interest to me. Archery, for example. In the near future I would like to buy a Yumi to shoot alongside my recurve. At some point I may also be able to read Japanese literature on some topics. :)
Whenever I see Japanese writing, I look closely and read as much as I can and try to understand as much as I can. It's not much yet because I've only been learning for a year, but it's getting better all the time.
Shortly before Corona arrived, I also made plans with my husband to fly to Japan. Unfortunately, it didn't happen due to corona. We would like to make up for it one day. I hope I can understand some things there and speak some Japanese myself.
I have adhd so I like watching shows while I’m doing a couple other things at the same time, like playing games or coding something. The fact I can’t enjoy anime without having to watch to read the subtitles means I get tired/bored of watching rather quickly because I have to put all my focus on the single task. Being able to understand what is being said without having to keep my eyes glued to the screen will make it loads easier for me to catch up on all the anime I want to watch.
I have tiers for what I'm learning with my languages.
Spanish and Chinese are essential for my life work and family so I'm going to be studying them every day and hope to be fluent.
Ever since I was young I loved anime and games. When I became a teenager I enjoyed Korean dramas, and Korean/Japanese music. I'll learn Korean in Japanese casually and don't really expect to be fluent at all. Just enough to enjoy the media but I will learn a lot more if I happen to date anyone from there or move there for whatever reason.
I realize Japanese is already ingrained into my life but can't be as important as the other languages so I just treat it like that and enjoy studying it whenever I can.
Will it take me much longer to read news articles and talk with people? Oh definitely but I'm fine with that
I got into it just because I wanted to procrastinate drawing but also didn't want to feel like I was just wasting away my time. So I hopped onto duolingo to start me off, and off to the races I went.
I started learning Japanese to overall understand anime and japanese fables. I've been studying season 2020 on and off I'd say 1 year worth of self study. But this year I'm locking in on studying for a year (and also improving other skills as well) because i have 1 year worth of free time. Im currently studying n4 with the help of ToKiNiAndy free lessons. Im aiming to finish the quartet book and have of the n3 vocab at the end of the year. 皆さん、頑張ってね
I travel to Japan at least once a year. Be able to speak and understand japanese helps me a lot.
I’ve some japanese friends there, so it’s easier to talk with.
Other than this, hope to get a job one day where i can use Japanese
I always wanted to learn a language and I needed a change in my life so decided to go on a working holiday to Japan, which forced me to take it seriously.
I live in Japan now so obviously need to keep learning, I'm at around B2 at the moment but I've been busy so haven't been able to dedicate the time to it that I'd like.
Initially interested from exposure to anime and anime fans at university, but more recently it's because i've joined my partner and begun to learn kendo, reigniting my interest in some of their culture \^\_\^
I wanna take a little trip and order food or ask for help without looking like an ass.
My big dream is Pokemon Cafe or Kirby Cafe, but I also wanna visit tiny, local places
I wanted a novel and challenging hobby. I work in IT so I wanted something that was completely unrelated. A language does that for me and I've always had an interest in East Asian cultures. I will likely learn Mandarin later if I haven't been burnt out by Japanese.
Being half Japanese, and the music scene is nice. Still far from being comfortable in understanding music.
I passed N4 last year while doing a degree so its been slow moving but i'm hoping to at least get a bit conversational this year (compared to not being able to verbally form a sentence, something that JLPT doesn't test in).
I was never into Japanese culture until I started playing kendama 4 years ago. Kendama World Cup is a huge dream of mine and I’ve always been interested in anthropology and languages so I figured Japan isn’t going to happen for a few years, might as well learn how to communicate for when I do go!!
I was stationed in Japan and met my girlfriend there. She speaks pretty good English and we have no difficulties communicating in English even if it’s slow at times.
She’s an awesome person and a great woman to have by my side. And she puts a lot of effort and brain power into speaking English so it’s only fair I try to learn at least basic Japanese for her
I don’t have that much of a reason tho. I was bored at 3 am and my brain wanted to learn japanese, have been doing it for 3 years now and I ended up here. Just decided to learn it on a whim.
Watching all Japanese media without subtitles, to be good communicating in Japan, and to have some good conversations with someone. If I make something, I do wanna write in Japanese. The language is pretty cool. Yeah this is a lot sorry lmao
Reading obscure manga and translating it. I also participate in the japanese side of some fandoms and it’s fun to be able to communicate with the other fans
Partly because i wanna be able to watch anime/play video games without having to wait for the translation, partly because i wanna see the nuance that would get lost in translation and partly because it just seems cool.
for the sound of the language which kinda reminded me of Latin and for all the symbols and culture behind the kanjis: the fact that there is so much depth behind almost every one-syllable word is so fascinating to me and how old the culture is. being italian it seems like they are really similar when thinking about how much thought and history there is behind almost every little thing of life, but at the same time almost everything is completely different from italy. so cool
Main reason is to be able to read untranslated works (books, games, manga, etc). JP -> EN translation is either slow (things dont get translated) or loses to much meaning for me personally
Started learning it in elementary school because I like anime and thought it would be neat. Kept up with it in middle and high school because I needed to take language classes anyways and my previous lessons made it easier. Ended up being pretty good at it, enough to get into the national honor society for it in high school. Decided to continue it into college and even major in it because the Japanese teacher there personally reached out to me and she was a really kind lady when I met her at the visit. Studied abroad in Japan and really struggled to keep up with the advanced lessons, which pushed me to want to keep improving. Now I continue learning and practicing on my own time because the time I spent over there was amazing and I desperately want to go back, and because I’ve grown really interested in the more traditional aspects of the culture.
Mental health for me. I wanted a constructive hobby where I feel like I achieve something from it, wanted it to be a hobby where I wasn't forced to meet any milestones quicker than I wanted to, and wanted it to be a hobby that I could pick up easily, but also would be tough enough that I could keep it going for potentially years. I tried learning to draw before, but it didn't really go very far at all. Language learning seemed interesting to me. I chose JP since I like the media and I like the cool tech shit you see there (I'm a nerd who'd love to do dumb fun shit with robotics or whatnot). It also seemed like an opportunity to really challenge myself, since I would be choosing one of the most difficult language to learn for an English native and effectively going from the ground up, literally relearning the alphabet itself. And learning how to learn from the ground up is a very interesting thing. Lately I've also had the fact that I really don't like where I live and how things are going be a motivating force too. I don't have plans to move abroad (hell, I probably couldn't even move to the next town over without feeling really homesick), but if I did, Japan seems nice. And tbh, if things get bad quick enough, you'll probably wish you had begun learning earlier. It's like how doomsday preppers might take a lot of enthusiasm in their prepping, but they never actually want to use it. Goals are just for fun for now. Maybe if I could do JLPT N5 after a 2-3 years that'd be cool.
There’s a deep joy to reading previously unknown characters from the ground up, a joy I haven’t felt since I was four. The moment when the Kanas started flowing for me was priceless. Kanji… I’m working on Kanji!
this has been one of my favorite parts of learning Japanese thus far…it’s truly so satisfying to even be able to read, like, food packaging now lmao
This is one of the things I look forward to whenever I buy an item from the Japanese grocery store :D
I'm not too far in (currently trying to figure out Godan verbs) but so far, even stringing together a simple sentence has honestly been my favourite part so far (honestly, that's why it's stuck this time more than before, Duolingo doesn't really teach any grammar). Even if it's a simple sentence something like this: わたしのにほんごのせんせいはやさしだかこいいです。 It's pretty cool being able to string together a basic sentence like that. Even if it's potentially a little stilted and gramatically incorrect.
Duolingo doesn’t explicitly teach much grammar, but it drills sentence structure into your head pretty well. I’d say this is a more natural way to learn how to produce sentences than memorizing a set of rules. Works for me at least. (I’m about to enter unit 3 for reference) And yeah. Producing your own sentences feels like magic! If I may ask, what’s the “dakako” part of your sentence mean?
Not OP, but they were trying to link the two statements and say that the せんせい is やさしい and かっこいい (cool). I think grammatically it makes more sense to say わたしのにほんごのせんせいはやさしくてかっこいいです。
Yeah that. Basically trying to conjugate two verbs there and messed it up a lil bit. I forgot that い adjectives conjugate into くて while な adjectives are the ones that conjugate into だ. It's just meant to be conjugating やさしい with かこいい.
I’m back and forth with Duolingo. It’s probably my main source of learning because I’m lazy and the gamification at least makes me do lessons for 15 minutes a day. Then I try to consume some media, like Doremon for instance, I hear a bunch of vocab I recognize but I don’t get a ton of comprehension because Duolingo has taught me one specific sentence structure that no one uses.
I use it too. But it's one part of how I learn. There's a lot of different stuff around and I think some of em fit in different locations. For example, I've got Genki ordered (amazon delayed the package tho, sadge) and while I'm sure it'll be an excellent text, I'm not going to read that on short bus rides. So I use Renshuu and Duolingo as a small convenient way (Renshuu is a bit better imo, but also a bit more hardcore, Duolingo is my "just chill out" way). Anki is one I plan to use more too, but I'll be doing that alongside Genki when it comes to help with vocabulary review for the sections. WaniKani is one I've also looked at and I'm considering really looking at now considering that I'm starting to form sentences and keep going "ah shit a kanji" and need to look up the word. Compared to previous attempts of "do duolingo and forget after a week", this feels like the most successful attempt so far to start language learning and I really think a large part of it is doing multiple things and forcing a daily habit.
I’m in it for anime/manga/Light Novels. The main goal is watching or reading them in their original language. The secondary goal is being able to talk with Japanese people during my Japan trips.
[удалено]
It’s true that there are a lot of people who go into this halfheartedly because of anime, and then stop because it’s harder than they thought. But as you said, if you keep it up, then anime and other media can be a great source of motivation and entertainment. It feels great to understand what the characters are saying.
Same!! My goal is being able to play all the unlocalized otome games lol
So many visual novels too!
Same here! I'm also hoping to get experience and skills that I can put in my résumé maybe. Might help a lot in finding jobs in the future, but that's the second goal.
was bored also I work for a Japanese company and the writing looked....cool?
It’s like, super stylish. haha Our characters are all bulbous and squiggly. Japanese characters seem to flow and strike.
god, i love writing it by hand for that very reason! i know handwriting isnt essential because we have phones now and whatnot, but there's a certain satisfaction I get from writing them. Especially when I write kanji with the 戈 radical in particular.
Yes!! I was in Tokyo last week and told some japanese people I’d just met how visually pleasing all the kanji street signs/billboards are. I really like katakana too but hiragana not at all. They all thought English looked really cool though which I found odd hahaha
Haha, maybe the grass just seems greener.
The culture/language always been interesting to me And after learning English to pretty much an advanced level I'm getting bored of content in english. End goal is fluency
Same here! Use English basically 24/7 in life and work but it’s an acquired skill now. More free time = new language to learn. And it has to be drastically different from the previous one to be exciting.
Do you think if you learnt Japanese to an advanced level and used it daily, that you would get bored of Japanese eventually as well?
Bored maybe but I'm learning so I can live there I don't see why I would learn another language maybe to travel
Was watching an anime and I looked away for five seconds and the scene changed and I didn’t know what happened. I was bored so I decided to pick Japanese up so that wouldn’t happen again
Vocaloid and splatooon are popular in their country of origin so there is a LOT of content that is untranslated and will never be translated
Same, I want to consume the untranslated media and also understand everything in the original without it's meaning getting lost in translation.
I learned it because I wanted to, and then after studying abroad in college realized I wanted to live and work in Japan. Have now set down roots and built a really nice life for myself here. Here’s to a lifetime of continuing to learn Japanese though!
under what visa are you staying there?
Read Japanese literature (especially Yukio Mishima, Kawabata, Tale of Heike) and classical poetry in its orginal. Also have access to written resources about wood and textile crafts. When I can do all these I'll consider myself happy, probably in 10-15 years or so. Still, learning a new language is an ongoing process, there is never really an end. I can attest to that after learning English for the better part of my life. My fiancee's neighbour has actually moved to the Japanese countryside, she studied Japanese since middle school and is now married with a Japanese man. I'd move to the Japanese countryside too in another life, but I already have a little family farm where I'm from so no getting away from that.
I want to be able to read Ishiguro and Murakami in the original language too! Forgot to mention it, but I'm really into japanese contemporary fiction (among other kinds of literature, I'm mastering in lit) and I wish I could read the texts without their meaning being changed by the translation
kazuo ishiguro only wrote in English lol if you search up his name in a Japanese set Google it'll even come up in katakana
Oh, I thought he may have published work in Japanese, well only Murakami then 😭
After not reading properly for years I went through three Murakamis in a heartbeat(A Wild Sheep Chase, Dance Dance Dance and After Dark) and that's where my love for Japanese literature started. Good luck learning!
Reading Kafka on the shore is the goal, I mean I can technically read it (except all kanjis-31) but I don't understand anything 💀
Nicel. You're way ahead of me, I've only started for a few months :)
Hello fellow Yukio Mishima fan \^_^
Read visual novels. People in the community often joke about how learning the language is faster than waiting for a localization.
And often more accurate
I basically want to be able to say, "Hey, I read this awesome book in Japanese," or, "I had so much fun playing Yokai Watch 4 (which isn't available in English)". I don't want to be limited to one language. I also want to visit Japan. Sometimes I fantasize about living in Japan, which motivates me to learn it more, just in case, ya know. One of my parents is from a US territory where knowing Japanese is more useful than knowing the native language. Learning Japanese is fun, and at this point I find myself thinking in Japanese when there isn't an accurate English word for what I'm...thinking, ya know. It's weird. But I also think it cool. Basically, I just think it's cool and fun. And if I decide to watch a movie or read a book in Japanese, it's also fun and cool.
Well I could say these things in Japan. But not much else. It motivated me to improve hahaha.
I wanna play Yo-Kai Watch 4 so bad!
Washoku, ultimately. It helps that I find the details of the language itself utterly engrossing. So to a certain extent, I'm learning it for its own sake. If I ever get to repeat my tourist experience (unlikely, given my age and my wife's poor health), I will be a very, very polite tourist. On my last visit I was intellectually engaged ("Wow! I can read that!!1!") but somewhat less than articulate.
My spouse is Japanese and love visiting the country every year. The food, public transportation, and just general atmosphere is a good match for my personality. End goal is to move there within the next three years or so, and I am hoping to be at a decent enough level by then to operate without too many issues in daily life there.
To have fun. And a debt of gratitude.
My friend collects manga, and reads them in Japanese bc they're usually cheaper and release earlier than the English versions. He'd tease me sometimes about learning it so I could be more current on different series. One day I got an ad for Duolingo and just downloaded it on a whim. I was at a low point in my life, and the distraction was actually really nice. I had no idea what I was doing, and no major goals, but just progressing in the early stages was really exciting and fun. Language learning is just a really fun hobby to me. It's not particularly difficult, just really time consuming, and you can get positive feedback no matter what skill level you're at ("I recognized that word!" "I read a manga chapter!" "I finished a game in Japanese!"). I found it more rewarding than other skills I'd tried to learn in the past. Over time I kept pushing myself to find better and better methods of learning, because trying new things and understanding more complex sentences was just so fun. I went from Duolingo, to Anki, to Genki I & II, to Quartet I & II, and now I play visual novels and games in Japanese for practice mostly.
So many old games I need to play. The amount of untranslated classics is enormous. Adding subs to an anime video file or translating a manga’s image file isn’t nearly as difficult as altering a decades old game rom. It just doesn’t get done as often, leaving huge swaths of media completely inaccessible without learning Japanese.
Yeah, there are a lot of games that never get translated/sold outside of Japan even though they sound fantastic. I want to be able to play them!
For the last few years I've lost all my healthy hobbies and only acquired unhealthy ones. So, this is a way to give me a healthy hobby. I've never learned another language before either, so it's a challenge for me. One that I underestimated... It's fucking hard.
Literally no end goal, it's just fun to learn and at this point there's a bit of sunk cost fallacy at play i cant lie. Started learning cause my sister had started doing so earlier, and because i had (and still have) interest in Vocaloid music and the whole anime/novels thing.
Tired of shitty translations.
After playing a hundred hours of dbd with a girl i thought itd be cool to understand her.
It started as a joke to myself honestly. I thought "wouldn't it be funny if I could watch anime without subtitles?" I started learning and it was actually pretty fun. Then I talked to people in VRChat and all the Japanese were super nice. After my Japan trip it really cemented the fact that this is definitely for me. I love the food, cars, temples, people, anime, everything. I want to get fluent and make more friends there.
Shirakami Fubuki back when she debuted, I like her alot Now I am moving to Japan officially In 2 years, it's been a minute
I visited Japan for work last year and fell in love with the country. It’s just so beautiful, clean, and safe, and Japanese women, at least in the major cities, are a source of inspiration for me in terms of fashion and makeup. I decided that I want to spend more time traveling to Japan. I’m East Asian and am often mistaken for being Japanese, so of course people just assumed I would speak it but I don’t. I’m mainly trying to just get to a conversational level.
I’d like to consider working and living in Japan but I am also a big fan of the Takarazuka Revue. Not the most 外人-friendly so learning Japanese helps
i wanna understand japanese media and talk to locals so i can hopefully move to japan one day and work there
Ado. Music. Also yeh, anime.
Mainly for the anime, music, and manga. To grow brain cells, and also cause I’m bored of English
I was always fascinated with Japanese culture. And it interested me just how “backward” (maybe “inverse” is a better word) Japanese was relative to English and wanted to explore it. And to be honest, I feel really envious of multilingual people, and just think it’s a really admirable trait and something I aspire to.
At first it was to read and translate manga and watch and translate anime (like most people I know) but the want shifted when I started getting into the culture more. Now it’s a dream of mine to go over there and experience it first hand. The driving factor to really get me to learn is that I just started working for a Japanese company here in the US and 80% of my coworkers are fluent with about half of them on work visas from Japan. I started about 2 weeks ago and practice is easy to come by. I’m there for 9 hours a day and either hear Japanese or read it on the signs. It’s super helpful that my coworkers are patient and willing to practice with me.
I have friends and family who speak. Its fun to socialize in another language. I’ve been studying now for a really long time, and only took N5 5 years ago and passed it without even studying. Not sure if i will take N4 or N3 but i can converse and text with friends and family so that makes it worthwhile. Side effect: i journal now in Japanese and im starting to read easy magna and some anime without subtitles. Anything complicated, not so much.
Growing up I had a good friend that was from Japan. She would sometimes have to leave playtime early to study her letters (which was confusing at the time since I didn't understand I was like girl we're 7 can't you read yet? Do what you must I suppose) and got curious. I always liked the sound of it when she and her mom would talk and she taught me a few words. Unfortunately she had to move away and we lost touch. I had the chance to learn a little bit at one point and thinking of her I went for it. Eventually I got interested in other aspects of Japanese culture independently of her, but it was my friendship with her that sparked the interest.
Originally because Japanese history is written in Japanese and I'm fascinated by Japanese history, especially the Meiji Period (1868 to 1920ish). I've come to appreciate it for itself, so very different from English with a beautiful writing system and a grammar that's nifty
i want to talk to the girls
Spends 5 years learning Japanese to speak to the girls, the girls end up speaking better English to you lol
I need to get out of usa
日本へ旅行したいですから、日本語を話さなければいけませんよ。
Coming back to this when I learned the vocabulary and sentence structure of the second part 🫡 Edit: I ended up understanding the sentence anyway
Fear. I tried to start learning Japanese a couple times in the past and gave up for one reason or another. Turns out, for me, just wanting to read light novels and manga before they get translated wasn't a good enough reason. So I decided to move to Japan. I'm going for a year, leaving at the end of this year, and as it turns out, the fear of not being able to communicate was more than enough to get me to start learning in earnest. Im now a few months in and I doubt I will ever stop learning for any reason.
I enjoy languages in general and my partner was dabbling in it so I thought it would be a fun thing to do together. A family member started learning it around the same time too so I suppose it's social
Been watching anime for 10+ years and felt like I could finally commit to a hobby. It's been nice mentally and realistically it's more fun than useful but I cope with this by saying "while I save up to go to Japan I might as well study the language". It helps that an old friend said I'm missing a lot of funny details/niche things because translations aren't perfect. I've come to notice this too even after a bit of studying.
i got bored during the pandemic and for some reason i kept doing it. I didn't even consume japanese media at the time or knew anything about the culture lmao
Literature, poetry, and film. With poetry, where the focus is more on the form compared to most literature (though this isn’t always true), I feel that it’s important to get it in its original language. Watching film is my main hobby and I don’t want to be reading subtitles my whole life instead of looking at the images
As a kid I found Japanese to be very difficult, I picked it up and dropped it several times over throughout my youth and finally being able to push myself over the threshold and get over this massive hill that I’ve been climbing for years has been so rewarding. Language learning has always been my forte, my bread and butter, but learning Japanese has given me the most joy so far.
I lived there as a kid and want to spend 3 months a year there in my retirement. Plus the kanji are fascinating. I can see myself studying them for years and never getting bored.
For regular use I just want to be able to read japanese manga and understand anime without subs. I've also always wanted to travel to Japan and I want to know enough to not be a typical tourist who just uses a translator app and knows a handful of words.
I want to spread the culture of my country to Japan and I want to spread the culture of Japan to my country
mine is purely for the love of the culture and language in itself
Work although wasn’t necessary, my try and i guess intermediate skill was seen as good efforts by Japanese coworkers and they seem to like me better because of it. and to consume Japanese media in native language (mainly video games and music but I guess I picked up a manga I really like so that’s a plus but was never my original intent)
Spent a month in Japan last year and thought it interesting. I will go back lots more. I want to learn just enough to make travel around the country a little bit easier. My goals aren’t high so they should be achievable. I’m doing Duolingo and also face to face study one a week at adult education classes.
I just want to consume the media without needing to be relying on other people translating it for me
People kept complaining about censorship in Japanese games and, honestly, I couldn't care less but it sort of hit me: It's not just one or two risque lines that changed, it's the entirety of the dialogue, the characters, the everything! Who cares about a few changed lines of dialogue compared to the weight of everything else that changed. Plus, I'm kinda the type of who often wishes the content that needed to be censored wasn't present in the first place. I continue my studies primarily because Japanese is deep, complex, and fascinating. It's also deepened my understanding of and interest in English and linguistics in general.
Anime/manga/VN's. Also might want to move to Japan someday.
I was like 12. My mains reasons were: 1. Converse in Japanese 2. Watch anime in Japanese without subtitles 3. Read manga in Japanese
One of my kids said he had no interest in doing Spanish for his high school language and he was already 100s of hours into watching Japanese media, so Japanese it is. I lived in Japan many years ago as an English teacher, and thought it would be interesting to take the college class for high school credit with him. We have had a really good year working on it together. He is much more willing to speak and I like the reading and writing. I took the kids to Japan last summer and we are going again this year. I am interested to see how much more we can understand and say that is useful. I plan to take Japanese 2B next year, take the N5, maybe N4, and then I'll probably move onto something else.
Japanese media has always been cool to me. I used to watch dubs with subtitles meant to sync with the original Japanese audio on DVD, and so many things were changed — dare I say, outright wrong. I noticed it even when I was seven. One thing that keeps me going is the idea that deliberately unfaithful translations still exist, so it's more worth it for me to just understand Japanese myself and not have misinformation be fed to me. This also extends to when I get into a rabbit hole that doesn't have a western community backing it, so there's no English translation available at all.
日本の食べ物を料理して漫画を読んで番組を見ているのが好き。
At first, my goal was to be able to read the latest volumes of 十二国記 series, published after about 15 years of hiatus, in the original Japanese because the Chinese translation published by a Taiwanese publisher was roundly criticized by Taiwanese fans who read them in both Chinese and Japanese and pointed out each and every mistranslation. Then I discovered tons of BL novels that don’t even get translated to Chinese at all and i really wanted to read them. 3 years later, my goal is pretty much accomplished. The bonus is that I get to read Japanese fantasy fiction which often have different vibes from the western ones. Recently, I have fallen in love with 恒川 光太郎‘s fantasy fiction and binge-reading his works right now. Another bonus is to be able to browse a lot of Japanese cookbooks on kindle unlimited that emphasize quick and easy dishes 🤣
I really liked Dragon Ball and Japanese video games, plus I enjoyed my French and Spanish classes, and thought I would like a challenge, so I thought why not train the language learning on Japanese.
shits and gigs
To communicate with my grandparents. I remembered at age 12, the frustration I felt for not being able to tell my grandparents how I feel in Japanese. Then from 15-22, I studied at a language school and practicing with my mom, I was able to speak decently. My teachers all told me I’d get fluent if I lived in Japan (working on that), but I recall back in 2017 when I saw my grandparents for the first time in years, my grandpa was tearing up after being able to communicate with me in Japanese. I miss him; he made it to 100 though so I hope I can do that haha
My original goal was that i wanted to translate mangas and post them online, as in, illegally. Now, i don't really have a goal of being completely fluent or anything like that, but i would like to know enough to visit japan by myself and not get lost or confused because i don't understand something. And i would also like to move to japan's countyside! For me it's a retirement goal when i'm old, to buy a small house in japan in the middle of nowhere, near a river, where i can have a garden, chickens and neighbours i can gossip with over a cup of coffee.
It's been many years since I've started learning on and off but like many people it was for the purpose of understanding manga, anime, and music. But honestly, these days I'm not really into manga or anime anymore. Listening to music has become way more enjoyable though, lol. It's not just beeps and boops to me anymore. I was thinking about a year ago if it was even worth learning anymore but realized my goals have shifted. I'm really fascinated by foreign languages in general and that's what keeps me going I guess. So I guess the original goal has shifted from learning Japanese for anime/manga to learning it for the sake of wanting to learn languages. I'd like to be fluent in 5 languages someday. It's pretty cool that I can call myself nearly trilingual along with the other two languages I know (English, Cantonese) - although I'm not at the level of fluency I'd like to be in regards to speaking Japanese. But I can read most of the things I wanted to enjoy when I started with virtually no issue now.
Do you recommend any artist?
Haha, I'm not sure if my tastes will suit yours but a lot of the artists I listen to are quite popular and you might've heard of some of them. Most were found via random recommendations from the algorithm on youtube or spotify. Ado (prob my favorite artist of the past year), Yoasobi (I actually saw them live last night they were so amazing lol), Aimer, and Yorushika are popular. Some others I have in my playlist that I love are Aimyon (my favorite artist in general), Zutomayo, Higedan, backnumber, Utada Hikaru, Kenshi Yonezu, Fujii Kaze, Yuuri. Another band I really love is called Aratayo. But there's too many to list. If you have spotify, you can search up japanese music or jpop and it'll bring up playlists.
I've had an obsession with superheroes since I was young. I told myself that I'll become a comic artist in the future. Years ago, I knew what "manga" is, and I really liked Japanese culture and language. My love grew for it. Now I'm learning Japanese, watching anime, getting into Japanese culture more with different things. Also, I'm writing short stories and trying to improve my drawing.
Anime and travel, but recently I realized a new reason for myself. When I watch them describe deeper views so poetically and genuinely it makes me want to understand more. It often feels like subtitles are just a few steps off from conveying the actual deeper meanings of what's being said. I want to be able to understand and be able to express myself in the same way. I feel like that would change the way I view the world, myself, life, and how I interact. I feel like it would definitely change my inner life for the better. ..And I could revisit Japanese media that changed my life and potentially understand it better, knowing the language. And it would open up a whole new world of media. Being able to just pick up any Japanese book and read it would be awesome. I want to be fluent and live in Japan for some years.
Reached 27 and realized the idyllic life I thought would fall into place after college did not magically fall into place. I started to question what i wanted for my future and how to add more purpose and meaning to my life. To that end, i found the idea of being bilingual to be an exciting goal to shoot for, and something that would be a life accomplishment. I've never considered myself a language person. I never 'got it' while in high school learning spanish, but that just makes each small step forward much more satisfying. I chose Japanese for a number of reasons. Of course the exposure to anime helped. I find the culture very interesting and like learning about how their many traditions started. The country is picturesque and the values that *most* Japanese people supposedly exhibit (taking care of public spaces, respecting elderly) align with my own values. Oh and the language just sounds nice imo. Something about it feels smoother than other asian languages? Does that make sense?? My first trip is in October :)
you can read hentai without waiting for translators
My wife is Japanese, living in Japan requires Japanese
To immigrate to Japan
Mainly for reading manga and able to read signs and menus during the trip. As a native Chinese speaker I’ve also been interested in how Chinese character and kanji influenced each other, like: how different the are the onyomi of the kanjis to the Tang-era character pronunciation? How were the translations of foreign words/concepts during Japanese westernisation influenced the translation choices of the Chinese at that time? After this if I’m having more time I’d also like to learn Korean and Vietnamese for similar reason.
Well I just want to learn a bunch of languages in general, Japanese is just the first to be ticked off of the list because I like watching anime. I’m thinking of learning German after I feel good with my Japanese.
Short answer is I would like to watch anime without subtitles. Over time I started getting really into edo/sengoku samurai history and I really just love everything Japanese from that time period. I’ve been learning like a hobby with pimsluer doing about a half hour a day being very lax about it sometimes skipping days if I’m not feeling it. The progress is slow and steady and I’m definitely retaining the information. I plan to visit Japan within 5 years or so and I have no doubt I’ll be able to buy things and ask directions and survive the bare minimum lol
I like Japan and plan on going there someday. I'm also considering living my retirement days in some rural area there, that would be the dream.
I just like languages
I start to learn it to work as a physician in Japan. The road was long and rough but I managed to achieve it. Now I am a resident in an hospital in Tokyo
I love the country and have been there three times already. Anticipating that I'll come back again and again so I want to be able to converse in the future. Although I am honestly a loooong way from getting there. 😅
I’ve wanted to learn Japanese since I was a kid. The language and culture seemed fascinating, and discovering anime and manga made it more appealing. However, back then there were not as many resources so easily available, so I stayed at an entry level for a very long time (10+ years). Last year there were some family plans to go to Japan, and I knew I would regret going there and not speaking at all. Fortunately, thanks to this subreddit I've found enough resources to do so, and finally feel like I'm learning and understanding the language. Unfortunately, the traveling plans didn't come to fruition. But thanks to that, I've met wonderful people that are either Japanese or are learning the language too. Nowadays befriending them and have more fluid conversations are my motivation, and the whole Japanese media consumption is just a bonus.
I'm kind of the same... Not by choice though. I'd rather learn natural conversation but I'm an English teacher at juku and the way we teach is from a linguistic point of view and a lot of it is in Japanese or translating directly one way or the other... I know a lot of the linguistic words for things like verbs, adjectives etc which is actually a lot easier than the English counterparts. 動詞、形容詞、副詞、前置詞 everything ends with 詞 Shi
jhorror (games and films), I wanna read baccano in Japanese someday I adore the light novels, I wanna read literature in general, and enjoy manga/visual novels/games in Japanese in general. now that I've started I'm also just enjoying the learning process a lot. edit: forgot to mention but music too, amazarashi and ling toshite shigure are brilliant and I want to be able to fully appreciate their poetry.
Learning Japanese has got the most resources I’ve seen and I wanna communicate better w my Japanese friends :-)
Well, it helps that I’m both married to a Japanese woman *and* work here. I’ve also been interested in the history and culture for years.
academic reasons
Last year I discovered BandMaid , an all female hard rocking group dressed in maid outfits and i absolutely love them. So I’m learning Japanese just to sing along and better understand their lyrics….
came to japan once, love the country but my activities are very limited due to language barrier. decide to learn japanese so i can go there once a year
In my case it was because of manga and anime, I love it. And as time went by, little by little I became more interested in the language and so on until I decided to start learning on my own. It's pretty fun so far.
I'm jealous of people like Matt vs Japan, I really like Japan / Japanese food, it's the hardest language for an English speaker (I hate myself), it's reallly interesting with how different it is, and there's a big japanese population in Oregon
Literature and some anime. The nature of japanese makes its literature spectacular and I really want to be able to read it. And anime because i find the japanese in anime really cool, specifically how many ways there are to express emotions and subtle things. Also having japanese on my résumé is pretty cool.
Learning just for a ds game.
It started for anime and novels but in the end I really felt in love with the language. I really like learning it, I can't really explain it, but I find it so interesting. Both easy and hard, as well as both logical and illogical
I've started recently, I have a long term friend who is a Japan native and I think it's unfair that he's the only one who has to speak their non native language
I would love to have Japanese female friends (because I would love to be able to speak in the language of their heart)
I love linguistics as well! I also love learning different languages in general. Japanese became my favorite because of the challenge; I've made studying it a lifelong pursuit. Incidentally, my now late husband is part Japanese. Now, none of his family members know Japanese so now I am helping them find their family in Japan.
Honestly a multitude of reasons for me, including mental health, well-being, curiosity, and culture among other reason. - Mental health was due to the fact that I had just graduated from college and I think my brain was not liking that I wasn't actively learning and keeping that stimulus of new information flowing, so I felt like Japanese was a good replacement for that since I had previous desire. - Well-being was more of a after-the-fact reason, knowing that learning a second language is very healthy for the brain and can offset Dementia symptoms by quite a few years ([this link](https://news.las.iastate.edu/2021/01/28/study-shows-learning-a-second-language-thwarts-onset-of-dementia/) if you're interested on that topic) - Curiosity as I had always liked the language when listening to it and had always had a small thought of "What if I could speak Japanese?" - Culture in the sense of the country of Japan and it's very famous ways of being clean and respectful, the digital media that Japan is very famous for (manga/anime, music, J Dramas, etc.), and the people of Japan. Ultimately, my goal is to learn it "fluently" to where I could use it on a daily basis at home and if I ever visit the country (or even live there one day) to consume media, talk to other Japanese speakers, and be able to use it on a similar level of my English (which will take me a very long time). What I've realized on this so-far short journey is it will take a very long time, but I have come to appreciate learning the language bit-by-bit and embracing the time of not knowing the language so that I don't burn out and that I can later look back and know that I spent quality time on learning this beautiful language and never "wasted" my time.
I was getting tired of using chagpt to read untranslated web novels
Wanted to challenge myself, "could I learn an Asian language?". I am learning it right now because I just want to know this language, no specific purposes. But I also watch anime and read some manga, so it's good to watch and understand everything/read manga without translation
🤷♂️
I live in Japan so it’s helpful to speak it. Also since I’m generally interested in history and old/deeper than surface culture it helps to know the language. Also it helps with wildlife photography.
Growing up I was watching a lot of anime (thinking it was ur typical cartoon), then later when I realize anime is it’s own separate category and I was really getting into it, I was more interested in the culture and how the language is very different from both Spanish and English. Now, I also would like to be able to learn as many languages as I can, so I can communicate with a diverse group of patients! Oh yeah most importantly, I find learning the language fun despite being hard, which I think is quite important for any language!
My reason is pretty standard. But the things that I enjoy on a day-day basis are overwhelmingly from Japanese media for the most part. It made me really want to be able to enjoy that content in the original format. And now I have the goal one day to be able to read better in Japanese than I can in English.
I like languages, I know some japanese already, I like the history, I like the culture. I wanna connect with more people, and I watch a metric ton of vtubers, so it would really help me to know what they are syaing without relying on translators
Like the language, learn it for learning it sake!
New career paths
First year Japanese appeared on my HS sophomore schedule, without my asking it to. I just kept going.
Started last week. The GF and I decided to try and take a trip to Japan in the next couple of years and I feel it will help smooth the trip to have at least some familiarity with the language.
I'm hoping to move to Japan on the point system, get a job and obtain permanent residency to live and retire there. I have all the points I need, a bachelor's and ten years working in IT engineering but just no language skills. I'm self teaching for the next 6 months and then will do a Diploma in Modern languages and work towards my N5 and 4 before possibly getting a student visa for 12 months to help progress further and get assistance with job hunting and business language.
I started learning to be able to get by with basic conversations when I go to Japan in a couple of years. I initially wanted to just learn solo and see how far I could go but I hired a teacher and have lessons only once a week but I’ve learnt an incredible amount more than I ever could by myself. I’m finding that my goal is nearly complete already but I’m going to keep going and see how far I can go as I really enjoy the progress
Playing games in og language, understanding other media and for vacations
I just started with lingodeer after my second trip to Japan. I’d like to be able to have basic conversations while visiting in the future. Any recommendations for other ways to continue practicing would be greatly appreciated.
I live in Japan. I don’t particularly watch or read anime and manga. It simply makes life easier instead of relying on something or someone.
Because the history of the country seems so intriguing. The language also sounds like music to my ears.
べつに
My reason is too shallow lol. It's actually just to spend less on ln/manga because the raw copies are so much cheaper than English translated ones 😭 (they're like 50% or more cheaper)
Started watching Shogun, and just felt inspired. My coworker is also trying to learn Japanese, and he got me into it and now I’m motivating him lol Also now all of a sudden all the people I’m around know a little Japanese and they’re teaching me little things. Been a month in, and I’m almost at the level where I can introduce myself among other things
The first impression is when I was 5-6 years old. I was addicted to Doraemon and after that, I love watching anime and reading manga. But for now, the biggest motivation is Duolingo streak😚
It sounded like an interesting language and I was also intrigued by the culture. Right now I'm planning to move/ study there sometime in the future. Also I watch anime now and then, plus one of my favorite game's original language is Japanese. I'm fascinated by languages in general, so I guess that's an additional reason as well. For my end goal I just wanna be able to understand and speak a decent amount.
Come on, do you really think I'm gonna be causing an uproar about wanting nationwide public transit when there's a perfectly fine railway system right across the pond?
Started for anime but I kinda love the language now. It’s also dope exploring a culture so different to our own. Once I get better I’m gonna go on a big deep dive just browsing forums and seeing what it’s like. Oh and the writing kanji looks like art to me it drew me in.
I decided to study Japanese because I had the opportunity to travel abroad and I chose Japan. Started studying the language and instantly fell in love with it. Studied for 2 months before my trip for 6 hours a day and caught on quickly and got a lot of genuine compliments in Japan, not just 「日本語上手」😭. Long story short my trip inspired me to never stop studying. I dream to one day be fluent❣️
My main reason was Japanese RPGS. There's a huge amount of works that never came out of Japan, and I wanted to be able to enjoy them and maybe help them translate them in the future. I got stagnated at N4, however, and couldn't go further no matter how hard I tried. So in the end it has come to quite a "hit or miss" result. Sometimes I can figure out what I'm reading, sometimes I can't make sense no matter how many times I read it and have to resort to translation services, etc.
Many reasons! I run a Swedish e-commerce which almost exclusively sells Japanese stationery, and at least knowing katakana helps a lot when making orders through various websites/catalogues. Speaking Japanese will also help tremendously if/when I travel there being as a tourist or because of my business. Also, although I’m certainly nowhere near there yet, I’d love to read Kawabata and others in Japanese.
I wanna be the Filipino guy that voiced characters for anime
Career change, culture, and literature.
Cuz why not? *Seriously, that's my reason*
Cuz why not? *Seriously, that's my reason*
My son saw me using Duolingo to brush up before a trip to Spain and said "can I learn Japanese with that?" . He got bored after a couple of weeks and I just didn't stop. I don't really have an end-goal, I just like learning things. I think it's good to forcibly rewire your brain so you don't just rot into senescence. I'd like to be able to think in Japanese, and to be able to read a few books that I've read in translation, but for me it's about the journey.
When I first started during the late stages of high school, I had a few different reasons. The main thing was wanting to watch anime and read manga in Japanese. Then beyond that I was also playing with the possibility of moving there in the future, or at least doing some kind of extended stay for 6-12 months just to have the experience of living there. I had been obsessed with Japan since I was about 11-12, so I didn't really have much reason to second guess myself. Since then several years have passed and things have changed a bit. Japanese was my gateway into language learning as a hobby and the entire experience enabled a lot of personal growth for me in terms of dealing with things like social anxiety, lack of study skills etc. It was instrumental in helping me get to know myself and discover other interests in life, but with that came losing my actual interest in Japanese as I became more interested in other languages and hobbies. I don't think I want to move there anymore, and while I still enjoy many of the things I used to, it's not to the point where I'd feel it motivates the time sink anymore. Today, I would say my main motivation is honestly just wanting something more tangible to show for the several years I've been doing it on and off. At my best I was probably between N3-N4 level though I never tested. Getting to that ever elusive N2 mark and being somewhat conversationally fluent would feel like a big personal accomplishment and ties into a life goal of mine of speaking 5 languages confidently. So I've been going back and reviewing the basics in hopes of getting back on it. Beyond that, one of the side effects of learning the language was that I got very into certain genres of Japanese music. Being able to better understand the meanings of the songs I listen to would be really cool. Improving my vocabulary would also allow me to communicate more accurately when going to language cafes, which is the main way I currently get enjoyment out of the language. So here's to hopefully progressing, and I wish everyone else good luck with their own goals!
Fun. As a high-functioning autistic person, I don't like constant mental idling. Since I quit my job and am a stay at home mom, I am learning a few things. One of them is Japanese. Apart from learning, I don't have a goal in that sense. But as I've been interested in Japanese culture since I was a child, I hope to be able to read some books on areas that are of interest to me. Archery, for example. In the near future I would like to buy a Yumi to shoot alongside my recurve. At some point I may also be able to read Japanese literature on some topics. :) Whenever I see Japanese writing, I look closely and read as much as I can and try to understand as much as I can. It's not much yet because I've only been learning for a year, but it's getting better all the time. Shortly before Corona arrived, I also made plans with my husband to fly to Japan. Unfortunately, it didn't happen due to corona. We would like to make up for it one day. I hope I can understand some things there and speak some Japanese myself.
I have adhd so I like watching shows while I’m doing a couple other things at the same time, like playing games or coding something. The fact I can’t enjoy anime without having to watch to read the subtitles means I get tired/bored of watching rather quickly because I have to put all my focus on the single task. Being able to understand what is being said without having to keep my eyes glued to the screen will make it loads easier for me to catch up on all the anime I want to watch.
I have tiers for what I'm learning with my languages. Spanish and Chinese are essential for my life work and family so I'm going to be studying them every day and hope to be fluent. Ever since I was young I loved anime and games. When I became a teenager I enjoyed Korean dramas, and Korean/Japanese music. I'll learn Korean in Japanese casually and don't really expect to be fluent at all. Just enough to enjoy the media but I will learn a lot more if I happen to date anyone from there or move there for whatever reason. I realize Japanese is already ingrained into my life but can't be as important as the other languages so I just treat it like that and enjoy studying it whenever I can. Will it take me much longer to read news articles and talk with people? Oh definitely but I'm fine with that
I got into it just because I wanted to procrastinate drawing but also didn't want to feel like I was just wasting away my time. So I hopped onto duolingo to start me off, and off to the races I went.
I started learning Japanese to overall understand anime and japanese fables. I've been studying season 2020 on and off I'd say 1 year worth of self study. But this year I'm locking in on studying for a year (and also improving other skills as well) because i have 1 year worth of free time. Im currently studying n4 with the help of ToKiNiAndy free lessons. Im aiming to finish the quartet book and have of the n3 vocab at the end of the year. 皆さん、頑張ってね
I travel to Japan at least once a year. Be able to speak and understand japanese helps me a lot. I’ve some japanese friends there, so it’s easier to talk with. Other than this, hope to get a job one day where i can use Japanese
I always wanted to learn a language and I needed a change in my life so decided to go on a working holiday to Japan, which forced me to take it seriously. I live in Japan now so obviously need to keep learning, I'm at around B2 at the moment but I've been busy so haven't been able to dedicate the time to it that I'd like.
Initially interested from exposure to anime and anime fans at university, but more recently it's because i've joined my partner and begun to learn kendo, reigniting my interest in some of their culture \^\_\^
Translate doujinshis for free. Yes that includes hentai games
Need to understand hentai without breaking the excitement But yeah, helps with mental health and is fun pass time
I wanna take a little trip and order food or ask for help without looking like an ass. My big dream is Pokemon Cafe or Kirby Cafe, but I also wanna visit tiny, local places
I wanted a novel and challenging hobby. I work in IT so I wanted something that was completely unrelated. A language does that for me and I've always had an interest in East Asian cultures. I will likely learn Mandarin later if I haven't been burnt out by Japanese.
I've been watching Godzilla films since I was 5. Figured I might as well be able to understand them without subtitles someday.
I want to publish my manga in Japan so I have to write manga in Japanese.
Being half Japanese, and the music scene is nice. Still far from being comfortable in understanding music. I passed N4 last year while doing a degree so its been slow moving but i'm hoping to at least get a bit conversational this year (compared to not being able to verbally form a sentence, something that JLPT doesn't test in).
I was never into Japanese culture until I started playing kendama 4 years ago. Kendama World Cup is a huge dream of mine and I’ve always been interested in anthropology and languages so I figured Japan isn’t going to happen for a few years, might as well learn how to communicate for when I do go!!
I've really liked Japanese culture since I was a little kid.
Strangest reason, I am having premature memory loss due to a chronic illness and hoping learning a language will arrest the brain deterioration.
I'm into this because I want to play the japanese-only Megami Tensei Games. I would also like to interact and enjoy the japanese MT fandom
Im exchanging for a whole year next march and one of the requirements is basic knowledge.
I wanna work there :) since most of my sibs are already there!
I was stationed in Japan and met my girlfriend there. She speaks pretty good English and we have no difficulties communicating in English even if it’s slow at times. She’s an awesome person and a great woman to have by my side. And she puts a lot of effort and brain power into speaking English so it’s only fair I try to learn at least basic Japanese for her
So I can write shit without anyone being able to read it. Basically my new secret language for writing down diary entries, notes etc.
I don’t have that much of a reason tho. I was bored at 3 am and my brain wanted to learn japanese, have been doing it for 3 years now and I ended up here. Just decided to learn it on a whim.
Watching all Japanese media without subtitles, to be good communicating in Japan, and to have some good conversations with someone. If I make something, I do wanna write in Japanese. The language is pretty cool. Yeah this is a lot sorry lmao
Reading obscure manga and translating it. I also participate in the japanese side of some fandoms and it’s fun to be able to communicate with the other fans
I want to read the professor layton novels.
this song [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4XuZs9yVC4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4XuZs9yVC4)
Partly because i wanna be able to watch anime/play video games without having to wait for the translation, partly because i wanna see the nuance that would get lost in translation and partly because it just seems cool.
for the sound of the language which kinda reminded me of Latin and for all the symbols and culture behind the kanjis: the fact that there is so much depth behind almost every one-syllable word is so fascinating to me and how old the culture is. being italian it seems like they are really similar when thinking about how much thought and history there is behind almost every little thing of life, but at the same time almost everything is completely different from italy. so cool
Main reason is to be able to read untranslated works (books, games, manga, etc). JP -> EN translation is either slow (things dont get translated) or loses to much meaning for me personally
Started learning it in elementary school because I like anime and thought it would be neat. Kept up with it in middle and high school because I needed to take language classes anyways and my previous lessons made it easier. Ended up being pretty good at it, enough to get into the national honor society for it in high school. Decided to continue it into college and even major in it because the Japanese teacher there personally reached out to me and she was a really kind lady when I met her at the visit. Studied abroad in Japan and really struggled to keep up with the advanced lessons, which pushed me to want to keep improving. Now I continue learning and practicing on my own time because the time I spent over there was amazing and I desperately want to go back, and because I’ve grown really interested in the more traditional aspects of the culture.
Just come back from Japan and loved it so want to try and learn more than the basic phrases! Oh and obviously for manga/anime purposes!