buonaparte Wrote:I was stupid enough to begin and not to stop.

Same here.

TsugiAshi Wrote:I want to fend off Alzheimers and yell at people in Japanese as if it were my native language.

I want to be an elite and be superior to people who don't understand the language.

Like most things I do, I study Japanese largely because I'm a sucker for the sunk cost fallacy.

anotherjohn Wrote:Like most things I do, I study Japanese largely because I'm a sucker for the sunk cost fallacy.

x1000 times this

I study Japanese because I am a filthy otaku.

Initially it was because Valkyria Chronicles III didn't receive an English localisation; at least, that was what pushed me to get serious about learning Japanese. Nowadays, however, I simply enjoy speaking and reading in Japanese so much that I no longer require any particular reason to learn it further. If I ever do find myself in need of one, there's a lot of interesting literature that I can't wait to dig into!

1) as others have said in different wording, language study opens up new doors for enjoying cultural media that you wouldn't have access to otherwise. Or maybe you would have a dub, but the original is always way better than the dub (except for the movie inception... weird but true). I'm sure ESL people love the access that english gives them to hollywood movies and american tv.

2) also, more like a perk than a reason for study, saying someone "taught him(her)self an asian language" in western society is like a shortcut for saying that person is quite intelligent. obviously you don't have to be good will hunting to learn japanese, as we here all know... but that is the way it is treated, which is useful to say the least.

At first, I unexpectedly moved to Japan, and felt like I should pick up the language to communicate, instead of acting like another hard-headed tourist. Also, the language, spoken and written, was always aesthetically pleasing to my English-trained eyes.

Currently, I'm committed to achieving near-fluency... because some of my "peers" (not really "friends") already have. Failure would concede that I'm dumber than they are. Yeah, that's the honest reason, and I'm running out of other reasons.

normal porn

Flamerokz Wrote:normal porn

This just made my day.

Sauzer Wrote:

anotherjohn Wrote:Like most things I do, I study Japanese largely because I'm a sucker for the sunk cost fallacy.

x1000 times this

I didn't understand, so I looked up in wikipedia:

In economics and business decision-making, a sunk cost is a retrospective (past) cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered.
Many people have strong misgivings about "wasting" resources (loss aversion). In the above example involving a non-refundable movie ticket, many people, for example, would feel obliged to go to the movie despite not really wanting to, because doing otherwise would be wasting the ticket price; they feel they've passed the point of no return. This is sometimes referred to as the sunk cost fallacy. Economists would label this behavior "irrational": it is inefficient because it misallocates resources by depending on information that is irrelevant to the decision being made.

^Very interesting

Quote:It is a noble and exclusively human proclivity, the desire to persevere, the will to stay the course – studies show lower animals and small children do not commit this fallacy. Wasps and worms, rats and raccoons, toddlers and tikes, they do not care how much they’ve invested or how much goes to waste. They can only see immediate losses and gains. As an adult human being, you have the gift of reflection and regret. You can predict a future place where you must admit your efforts were in vain, your losses permanent, and when you accept the truth it is going to hurt.

Sunk Cost Fallacy


[Because...]
Japanese language and culture is frikkin' cool.

(People play CoD, World of Warcraft, or League of Legends, or Minecraft because of novelty. Scientists are "smart" because of their curiosity. Intrinsic motivation / curiosity differs greatly from Extrinsic motivation / practicality. One is genuine learning, the other is trying to fight for survival. Of course, there are ways to use extrinsic motivation to foster intrinsic motivation.)

The Science of Procrastination Revisted: Researchers Rethink Willpower.

Flamerokz Wrote:normal porn

I shouldn't of laughed.

The only academic reason is I'm studying engineering at university in Britain and well, Britain is sinking in political terms (discontent with the three major political parties etc.). The European Union, don't even get me started with it. I tried my hand at Chinese and well I managed to call a mother, a horse -Oops!- Korean was actually alright in terms of study however (and no offence to those from Korea,mainly those south of the border) but it "freaked" me out how much surgery was done. I understand that is "culture" but if I ever had children, I wouldn't want them going to get a template face and look like my 54 year old neighbour. Japanese is easier in terms of pronunciation, which I struggled with when I was force by the lovely high school I attended,made everyone take Spanish. I can't do the female/male/neutral parts of the romance languages so any language without it was a great pick.


Biggest two reasons, to one annoy my non-academic brother- mwahahaha - and two I have no idea what is going to happen to my home country of Scotland (by maternal descent) after September so I have to have an escape route. Currently I have Icelandic/British citizenship but I don't think I want to live in Iceland nor Britain for the rest of my life.

1) Was total anime/manga freak at the time of starting
2) The language sounds awesome, both cute and curse words alike.
3) Jpop/jrock is awesome and literally all I can listen to, because I miss it if I don't. And I am infatuated with some of the singers/guitarists, even the female ones (in a non-homo way, geez)
4) Realised that all my favourite things about Asia came from Japan (Ninja, samurai, sushi, curly roofs, video games, koi carp etc.)
5) Got into dramas last year. Who doesn't love Hana Yori Dango?
6) There are really cool shops over there, which is a big deal for me, a kid from a small town in the UK with a plethora of charity shops and cafes but not much else.
7) Immense, foe-crushing bragging rights XP
8) I'm too far into the black hole - I can never go back and be a normal English(wo)man.

I just joined.

I study Japanese because

1) I live and work in Japan.
2) I like studying languages.
3) I like things Japanese.
a) Washoku
b) Japanese literature
c) politics
d) history
e) economics/business
f) art
g) religion
h) cinema
i) tourist spots
j) traditional arts, such as go, calligraphy, painting, and tea ceremony
k) Hanshin Tigers, Samurai Japan, and Samurai Blue
4) Most of the people I've met.
5) I like the Japanese language.
a) writing
b) grammar
c) vocabulary
d) phonology
e) dialects

A lot of little things. What got me started was an obsession with the Japanese culture, which developed into wanting to be able to play Japanese video games that never make it over to America or take 2+ years, which also developed into wanting to read novels and manga, which developed into wanting to pass the JLPT N1 which developed into wanting to peruse a career as a translator.

I want to read some eroi eroge.

So that I can sing along with anime songs and understand what they mean ^.^

Because I don't want my brain to rot when I'm older!

I started because it always sounded cool and I thought it would be easy (yes, I know, very funny) because the phonology is really easy (it really is, if you already know how to speak Spanish, which happens to have every sound in Japanese minus the f part of the "ふ" sound and the distortions in the "う" sound).

I continue because of the just discussed reason: Sunk Cost.

to ナンパ jp girls in their own language !

I took enough to function as a Japanese visitor (namely I could ask for what I wanted, because I was controlling the conversation), but I never bothered to get any better. I assimilated a bit more while spending time in Japan, like I could recognize some of the kanji of the metro stations, but I couldn't really "read" them. I sort of read them by the process of elimination, because for example if I saw "nomon" in the name, I could guess it was Toranomon and not Daimon.

I never got better. I always said I would take a college class, but it never worked out with my travel/work schedule. I wanted to do online classes,but I never really found one that was done really well. I tried Pimsleur for a while, then got lost because I couldn't just listen in the car, I needed to read. I tried Rosetta Stone for a bit, but felt like I was learning words at random.

And so on and so on, I found one excuse after another to not improve.

Then I set a goal to recognize all the kanji in the Tokyo metro, and that's when I started to do more research on self study classes. Started by grinding earlier this year. Finding RTK was like a breath of fresh air in self study, it's like the missing link. And since then, I've really making improvements lately.

I don't remember how or why it happen, but i somehow stumbled upon some anime. I don't even remember which one it was, but I was instantly enchanted with the spoken Japanese.

I vigorously switch them from English dub back to original. It is just not the same without Japanese voices. For some time I was content with this, but reading subtitles means that you occasionally miss some facial expressions and stuff. I don't like that, so I decided to learn the language itself.

Maybe it sounds like crazy reason to learn a language, but... my native language is spoken by only 10 million people, so why not learn one, which is spoken by 130 million people?

While watching, other aspect of Japanese culture started to enchant me. Like, all the -chan, -kun, -san stuff... I love it and when I see it changed to Mr. Miss etc. in some subtitles, I want to snap a pencil to relieve myself from anger. Or, I noticed that カレー was in a lot of anime... I was like WTH? and i dug into wiki why. I ended up with looking up the recipe and cooking it myself - from basic ingredients, Japanese instant sauces are not common thing where I live. Tastes good, the only problem is I have no idea if it is even close to the original :-D

...I have a lot of free time XD

Seriously, I discovered the japanese culture recently through manga, anime, videogames and similar stuff. I liked it so much but it was only a hobby. Later, I searched information about Japan only for curiosity, I read some vlogs, watch videos in Youtube of people than live in Japan... I don't know why but I really enjoy watching a man walking in Tokyo and showing the buildings, the parks, the streets... I like the japanese architecture (traditional and contemporany) and I think that I could really enjoy talking a walk into the streets.

Also I like the japanese music (J-pop mainly), the kanjis (yes, I'm crazy XD), how the people are, etc. So I decided to study the language. Probably i need to improve my English skills (not native speaker) but also I would like to learn another language and one day travel to Japan.

This is all (more or less). I'm currently with RTK1 for level up my kanji's level and the Minna no Nihongo for the grammar. I know the Genki's series but it no convinces me.

I hope one day I can say this in completly japanese :D