Does anyone here happen to speak Japanese? I'm interested in learning the language but am unsure of which dialect to study or if I should just learn proper japanese (if there is such a thing.)

There's only one Japanese term that I know of.

Don't learn Japanese.

Why?

Just listen to a lot of J-Pop

Pain in the *** to learn. Most of the people I know who know it learned 90% of it from anime hahaha.

Because the Japanese are a bunch of xenophobes, the language has no use outside the small bit of islands, your classes will be full of weeaboo anime nerds, and even if you master the language, you'll never be accepted in any form into Japanese society.

Its a very useful buisness language you know.

And it really depends where you go in japan if you will be accepted or not. Surely no one will gain the tom cruise last samurai status, but you can get respect from them if you are very respectful and really udnerstand their culture through and through.

I've been doing a lot of work for UniLang for Finnish and such, you can start there for information of the language and eventually decide if you want to take classes or not. As with any language, it requires dedication and preferably a native to talk to. My recommendation is to save that language for later until you know at least one language fluently. A language that's easier for the English speaker (like German).

Good luck.

Most of the time an English speaker can figure out what a german is talking about without knowing the language. I ask for a lot of reasons. My current workplace gets a majority of our raw supplies from Japan, and they come here sometimes, always with a translator.

Also, I would like to go there someday, and be able to actually enjoy the places outside of tourist locations. I don't need to be able to write it, but speaking and reading would be nice.

learningjapaneseithinki'mlearningjapaneseireally think so.

hahah should have expected that sooner

There are wapanese already translating every TV show worth watching, so don't waste your time unless you're a linguist.


No, they didn't. They just think they did. In reality they sound like otaku morons. It's a huge thing in anime to develop characters through how they use (or, rather, misuse) the Japanese language. A lot of the phrases are wrong, they throw in a lot of meaningless words as catchphrases (meaningless, as in they have no dictionary definition), the grammar is poor, it's designed for children to understand and it varies wildly between everybody sounding thuggish or everybody sounding overly-formal.

No it's not, learning Japanese is useless because everybody you do business with will either have a translator retained 24/7 or they will speak English. English-speaking foreigners are a delight because it gives the English-speaking Japanese businessman a change to practice. It's actually a shrewd business decision to conceal the fact that you know the language.

We're not talking about a group of amicable Russians who find it flattering that you took the effort to learn their language. We're talking about the Japanese. Japanese language and Japanese culture is for Japanese people.


Edit: Actually yes, you should learn Russian. It's an awesome language and it's only Schedule II.

jon must everything be an argument with you? seriously dude. chill pills, they work wonders.

If you're going to learn a language because it's USEFUL, learn Spanish.

I studied Japanese Language and Culture for a year.

As far as speaking and grammar goes, it's one of the easiest languages in the world.

Writing is a bit harder, especially the complex characters of the Kanji. The two phonetic alphabets (Hiragana and Katakana) are easy enough to learn. The problem with Kanji is that combined Kanji have totally different meanings and pronunciations.



Nonsense. You can learn the entire grammar of the language within a few weeks. Japanese is such a regular language (there are hardly -if any- irregularities) that it's really easy to learn.

This. Only kids in school, and not often then, speak like they do in anime. It's essentially like saying that everyone in America talks like they do on forums. Retarded catchphrases and vague references are not regular communication.



There is a reason Japanese find Americans hilarious, and this is part of it. It's rare that an American actually speaks Japanese in such a way that it sounds natural. You can understand it as well as anyone, and you still won't catch all the little nuances that they add in.

Thanks for the real input there man, I appreciate that.

Jon, I appreciate your views that were directed towards my post and not others replies. I however would consider my want for learning japanese more of an interest in the culture than as a job related task. I genuinely enjoy learning about the japanese culture, and I'm not talking about Anime (I don't even like Anime...)

Also, JM... Spanish is NOT useful. If you're referring to America's Mexican illegal immigrant problem, they don't even speak spanish. If you learn Spanish you are speaking what they speak in spain. Mexican Spanish is an insane blend of God knows what cultures and terms. I took two years of spanish in high school and after finding out that none of the hispanics around here could even understand what I was saying (and i was saying it right) I figured I had wasted my time.

hmmmm yase when i post something that is ill-informed and outside of my spectrum of knowledge and another person calls me out on my bull crap that person obviously needs to "chill out" hmmm hmmm *clucks to himself*

That's pretty much why I learned the minimal amount of Japanese that I know, but believe me when I tell you that it's not going to provide a significant amount of motivation. The more you know about Japanese culture - like, actual Japanese culture, not the kind of crap you hear from people who attend otakon - the less you'll be inclined to learn about it. Specifically the fact that you will never be able to use the language in any way, shape or form.

Here's the thing: there's a certain culturally-ingrained tendency in Japan to be downright servile towards guests and visitors. Often times this is mistaken for being welcoming or open-minded about other cultures. If I tell you, right now, that anything resembling ancient Japanese culture is dead and gone, their entire society is structured around base consumerism, and the fact that they are obsessed with the french aesthete (rather than the lie about Japanese wanting to be Americans), and that they hate you (specifically) you know basically everything.

Jon`C is correct. If you're going to learn Japanese, you might as well be learning three different languages at once, based on the formality of the person you're going to talk to.

The one important thing most Japanese teens think is threatening their culture is individualism. They all believe close groups are better than being the individual. This will make it harder for a foreigner to learn a language in a group in which they don't belong.

Otaku people don't learn Japanese, they just pick up a few phrases that is subbed awesome and start repeating it over and over again to each other.

I think that could be very well true. Most countries have undoubtedly(sp?) lost much of their own history to consumerism, capitolism, free market economies. I don't know what it is about Japan that I like so much, I can't say that I know anyone from there or even how they act. I do however love the architectural style of their homes, buildings, and cities. I was not aware of the apparent 'group' culture you explained. It's not entirely unlike here though, everyone has groups, perhaps they are just the least likely to branch from them?

I have a few friends that speak Japanese and are interested in Japanese culture. They learned it by taking years of Japanese at college, not from anime, so they actually do know something about it. But because they're so biased towards liking it I feel that they can't fully realize the kind of wisdom you're presenting about Japanese culture.

They did go to Japan and did make real friends there. But since it was a university they went to (via whatever exchange program) I am willing to bet they were exposed to a much more westernized Japan.

Are you a little overweight? A little underweight? Have you lived in another country for any length of time? Are either of your parents not purebred? Do you live outside of the area where your dialect is spoken? Do you have an accent? A speech impediment? An odd personality? A poor complexion? If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions you should be pretty happy you weren't born in Japan.

Here's a fun fact you'll pick up early on while learning Japanese: it's severely impolite to disagree with someone. The default response for any statement or question is "that is true" but the actual meaning of what they're saying must be inferred by how it is said. Oh, and it's highly impolite to be too other- or self-referential. If you are hot, for example, you would say "Hot."

The Japanese language is based on the Japanese culture, which places such a high emphasis on homogeneity that nobody has any idea what anybody else is saying. Because it doesn't matter. Because everybody must share the same opinion even if they don't.

Honored guest + Tokyo + university where they were in the "in group" and the Japanese were in the "out group."

Is it bad that my interest has been piqued upon hearing another culture basically acts like our junior high students, but probably worse?

Please Jon, go on. I wish to learn more. For instance, how do they generally view Americans, considering our overbearing individuality, love of conflict, and tendencies towards heated arguments?

For a country that has a strong sense of adaptivity and is quite willing toward new ideas and foreign thinking, which pretty much stems from the culture's fondness of impermanence and how vulnerable they could be as a small island nation, the social backwardness in this day and age is somewhat surprising. The comment that Japan today has very little touch with the traditional Japan generations ago is very true, and, to add that, even back then ancient Japanese culture did take in very much from its neighboring Asian countries, such as China and Korea. They had to observe its neighbors, even at times Japan did its best to isolate themselves, because after all, they are on small little islands with limited resources. To say that Japanese culture is "Westernized" is true but to a certain extent; I would agree that Japan definitely takes in a lot of Western ideology but what they take in, they make it their own. So, in other words, the Japanese society of today could be considered more of a unique formula where it isn't tied down by traditional Japanese ways of life but isn't a completely "Western" civilization. This may be obvious, but few people seem to think the Japanese are just a Asian version of us. They are not.

America has a diverse population, clearly, but to expect the Japanese to be the same is silly. I never fully understand exactly why such a first-world and an advancing society is also known to be be the most xenophobic, especially in this age of internationalism. Surely it is a conglomeration of vastly numerous amount of reasons. You probably even have to consider the land of Japan itself. It being a overpopulated series of islands with the highest population density in the world is probably a given as a factor. But looking further into it, you can see the homogeneous nature of this society even greater. For example, the land for agriculture is incredibly limited on the islands and more so due to the mountains, thus industrial and agricultural sides of Japan are placed together, almost hand in hand. Another example is found in how the cities of Japan grow compared to European ones; in a typical old European city, you notice how the layout is easily defined by function and social classes to the point you know exactly where the residential areas, business places, industrial districts and so forth are. Now in a Japanese city, growth is quite chaotic and everything is integrated a strange homogeneous blobs, almost as if it was just cells rapidly growing. Even in destruction, the Japanese city, as a whole, just efficiently picks itself due to this nature. Long before WWII and the nukes, traditional Japanese buildings were made of wood, which were very susceptible to climate changes, and even after the ancient eras, the homogeneously tight culture allowed itself to effectively recover from disasters and changes.

echoman, your post seems to be incomplete.

Jon'C, not to doubt your credibility, but how do you know all of this? Did you live in Japan or is this from talking to people who have been there? I want to reference you and use your information incase I come into contact with a Japanophile.

Jon basically hit the nail on the head. I'm glad I read the thread instead of just posted. Japanese is a pain in the *** to learn. I picked it up really fast once I was there by watching television and associating it to the words I did know from studying on my own. It only worked with my host father, as it was very conversational and casual. Everyone I met that was in government spoke an almost foreign Japanese. I also learned how much I hate their culture the more I learned. They consider the old and disabled to be a burden on the society, and see the children of the elderly and parents of the disabled to keep them at home and care for them. Disabled kids in rural Japan don't learn anything and often become retarded on top of being disabled.

Once you finally experience and understand the xenophobia, you'll really hate it. The language is literally built around hating people, and negative connotations and presumptions about others. It's not polite that they say very little, it's derogatory. As you get to know a younger Japanese person, you realize how little they respect eachother there.

If you still really want to learn, I suggest watching Japanese Morning news and learning phrasings and language from websites. The more immersed you are, the more you'll pick up and understand.

I've been studying Japanese for 5+ years now. It's not too hard, and it is rewarding to make progress, but I'm sure that can be said with learning any language.

One thing to remember is that once you start, you need to keep at it DAILY. Also, there are a lot of helpful resources to get you started. I started out by using the Pimsleur audio lessons, which I found at my local library for free. Along with those 90 something lessons, Japanesepod101.com is also an excellent place to pick up some Japanese.

As you learn it, you'll begin to identify the more proper Japanese and the more casual Japanese. It all has a place, and there's really no way of getting around it. Learning how to speak really polite Japanese isn't too hard, and if you start with something like Pimsleur, you'll learn the uber polite Japanese, and then it might be easier to pick up on the more casual Japanese since it's generally not as long and drawn out.

Also, some flashcards or something really helps with learning to read the kanji, but even after 5 years I've yet to seriously consider writing it myself. (although, with a computer, typing is way easier that writing since it does all the work. )

Agree 100%, at least if you're American.

All hail the mighty and powerful one whose word is the ultimate authority of the universe that ever being should adhere to! Praise be his name and his unfailable words of wisdom!

this is why everybody here thought the zoners were retarded

As people have already said, spot on about the Japanese people loving to have a chance to practice their english. My oldest brother lived in Japan for a year teaching English to Japanese kids, and from his stories it sounded like he was almost a celebrity. He said it soon wasn't a surprise for people to get excited when seeing him (even if they didn't know him) and to try out the english greeting they had learned. Also, he didn't know much Japanese at all going over there, but was able to survive alright. In fact, he loved it so much he's going back for another three years at the end of the month.

I started learning Japanese like five years ago. A lot of my friends here are Japanese. A lot of the people I met in college speak Japanese, and a lot of those people were transfers from Japan. My college roommate is Japanese and from Japan. I also (coincidentally) met someone at my college who went to the high school I exchanged-programmed at in Japan.

A lot of what Jon and others are saying about the culture, etc. is true, but it's most noticeable and "true" in a practical sense if you look at it from an outsider's perspective. Maybe it's because the majority of my interaction has been with Japanese people with at least some western exposure, but honestly in day-to-day interaction it's something very forgettable. Even when I was in Japan and going to Japanese high school, it wasn't very noticable. Maybe it was because I'm Asian and they can't tell the difference before I open my mouth -- I dunno. Maybe it's also because of my mentality and upbringing, or whatever, but things like what Kirby pointed out -- about the the 'hatefulness' in the language and their perspective on family and such -- don't seem outlandish, or shocking to me at all, but rather quite normal and to be expected. I guess what I'm saying is that the culture rift (that is strongly perpetuated by the perceived Japanese xenophobia) that many people feel between themselves and Japananese people is a lot less strong for me, and at least as a young person I identify with the culture there a lot more.

(With regards to adult culture, I am about as foreign as everyone else. I just wanted to note though that though it might be "impossible" for a foreigner to effectively use honorific speech in Japanese, keep in mind that in this day in age, many, many Japanese kids (I wouud even dare to say the majority) don't learn how to properly use honorific speech until they grow up and have to get a job (since that's really when you NEED to start using it or you'll never advance) -- which is actually a lament of some of the older generation (that kids are getting 'more and more impolite') So, the difference is in that Japan everyone is exposed to it since childhood but doesn't "properly" learn it until adulthood, whereas foreigners would probably learn it from scratch in adulthood.)


I'm not sure how well I articulated that but yeah. I guess my point is that for me it was very worth it and I probably learned more Japanese by having a lot of Japanese friends than from my classes.

[Oh yeah and reading/writing is pretty easy for me cuz I'm Chinese and went to Chinese school when I was a kid so Kanji is pretty intuitive. Even though my literacy is at the level of like a first grader because I'm lazy.]

I sort of disagree with a large part of this post, but this is based on my own impressions and experience and I don't know what you are basing your observasions on and whether they might be more accurate as a whole, so I can't say that you're wrong. I'll go through why I disagree, though --

1st paragraph -- for the overweight/underweight/etc, I would have to say that the mentality is more akin to clique mentality than to "OMG OUTCAST THEM THEIR WEIRD" mentality. Just like in America how people classify people as "emo" or "gangster" or "stoner". I would agree that very noticable weight differences, or obesity, would probably garner a bigger response than in the US because there really just aren't that many morbidly obese people in Japan.

"Do you live outside of the area where your dialect is spoken?"
Again, this would depend -- there are some who would find (for example) a Kansai dialect attractive, while others would have negative impressions of those who spoke it -- I'd say that this isn't exclusive to Japan but applicable everywhere, including the US.

Do you have an accent? A speech impediment? An odd personality? A poor complexion?
Accent -- same thing in America, although I can see why it'd be stronger in a homogeneous Japan. Speech impediment -- if it weren't for the political correctness in America it'd be the same too. Odd personality -- isn't this true everywhere? Poor complexion -- I don't know anything about this. In general, though, what I'm trying to say is that I don't agree that the prejudices against people who fall under these categories are necessarily any more pronounced in Japan than they are elsewhere.


"Here's a fun fact you'll pick up early on while learning Japanese: it's severely impolite to disagree with someone. The default response for any statement or question is "that is true" but the actual meaning of what they're saying must be inferred by how it is said. Oh, and it's highly impolite to be too other- or self-referential. If you are hot, for example, you would say "Hot.""

Like I mentioned in my previous post, this is just something that I accepted as normal and didn't find strange or "wrong" at all. If you interpret Japanese via an American English perspective, then yes, it does seem like they're trying too hard to not disagree. But when you're in Japan and everyone knows that "Yes, but..." means "No but that doesn't work for anyone else!" it pretty much equates to the latter and no one is having any fantasies that by not saying it out loud that he or she is being more polite. It's just the way that people are "used" to doing it. It's not that in Japan disagreeing is a dire blasphemy; it's just the way that disagreeing is done is different.

For your "hot" thing, it's more like saying "It's hot." Being too other-referential = impolite is mostly true (It'd be more true to say that being *direct* is impolite), but that's just an Asian thing in general -- it's true in China and Korea too. Being too self-referential is not being impolite (in most cases), it's just because ... I don't know how to articulate this, because it's another one of those things that just feels more "nautral" to me. Like, for instance, when you leave "I'm" out of "I'm hungry." In most cases who else would you be talking about? Of course you're talking about yourself ... so why bother saying it?

"The Japanese language is based on the Japanese culture, which places such a high emphasis on homogeneity that nobody has any idea what anybody else is saying. Because it doesn't matter. Because everybody must share the same opinion even if they don't."

As aforementioned, because people are "used" to talking in such a way, people are able to understand each other. Again, if you try to interpret Japanese while thinking in English, it'll make less sense. The last two sentences are just sort of bitter-sounding absolutes so all I can say is that I don't think so haha.

I clicked this thread fully intending to say just that, Ford.

Pommy, great information there I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I was pondering the same thing about speaking in japanese but thinking in english. I have heard people who learn MANY different languages have problems if they think in their native language. Apparently it's easier if you learn the language without constantly translating meanings in your head to your native tounge.

Jon'C - I would also like to know where or how you gained such views, as much as I respect them.

This thread is making some good ground for me heh.

So it's all well and good that you've had a pleasant experience with the Japanese and their culture, but I'd like to ask a few things and point out a few things based on my experiences.

First and foremost, I lived in Japan in Naha (Okinawa's capital city on one of the southernmost islands near the US Military Base in Okinawa) for a short time. Around 6 months. I don't claim to be an expert on Japanese culture, nor do I really speak Japanese anymore. I went there as a foreign exchange student, and returned for a wrestling tournament a year later.

The main thing that I take issue with from your post is that you're Chinese. That may sound harsh, but when you post that, "Maybe it was because I'm Asian and they can't tell the difference before I open my mouth -- I dunno." you couldn't be farther from reality. Much of Japan's ingrained xenophobic culture is based on the hatred of the Chinese. They as a culture have been hating the Chinese since the height of the Edo empires, and will continue to hate the Chinese until Japan no longer exists.

There are even public signs posted on numerous buildings (admittedly you'll see it most dominantly on bars and brothels) that proclaim to be open only to men of pure Japanese blood. They then go on to specifically call out "No chinese blood or other outsiders". I wish I could find a reference picture, but this guy's blog post does a pretty good job of documenting my point.

You never got the slightest feeling of "bakka gaijin syndrome"? I know when I was there, outside the people I was formally introduced to, I not only felt it but heard it on the street.

edit: What do you know!? The same guy who's blog I linked had a picture of one of the signs I was referring to!

http://www.debito.org/edensign030707.jpg

Hey Jedi, if you're going to learn a new language, wouldn't Chinese make more sense? Unless your just going to use it for all your manga and anime, then nm.