My own personal reason was I like learning languages as a hobby and I wanted something more challenging than Spanish or German. (I'm a native English speaker so none of the Indo-European languages are a big deal for me). Honestly, sometimes the indo-European languages seem almost like English ("La electricite est tres merveilleuse". My god, what could that possibly mean??).

I considered tackling Finnish but then I thought learning kanji would be fun.

Plus I wanted to see what it felt like to be able to memorize 2,000 Chinese characters (I finished RTK1 but honestly, my brain doesn't feel any "different").

Will I ever go to Tokyo? Maybe someday.

So what's your reason? Did you want to impress that cute Japanese waitress? Or are you going to travel there?

"It's so hard. It's one of the hardest languages out there to learn."

Challenge accepted.

I wanted to learn another language, and I picked the one I thought was the most interesting. Both the language and the culture.

Maybe some of the aspects that make it interesting are also what make it hard. But I didn't pick it specifically because it was hard.

There is a long thread on the topic here. Have a look, there are very interesting answers.

john555 Wrote:My own personal reason was I like learning languages as a hobby and I wanted something more challenging than Spanish or German. (I'm a native English speaker so none of the Indo-European languages are a big deal for me). Honestly, sometimes the indo-European languages seem almost like English ("La electricite est tres merveilleuse". My god, what could that possibly mean??).

I considered tackling Finnish but then I thought learning kanji would be fun.

Plus I wanted to see what it felt like to be able to memorize 2,000 Chinese characters (I finished RTK1 but honestly, my brain doesn't feel any "different").

Will I ever go to Tokyo? Maybe someday.

So what's your reason? Did you want to impress that cute Japanese waitress? Or are you going to travel there?

I don't know, maybe I have masochistic tendencies lol

It seamed cool language to learn watching dragon ball as a kid and playing jrpg-s on playstation, and its so different lg since am European, also visiting Japan is on my bucket list fo sure.

At this rate though, it will take me 1o years to master it!! lol oh well

Let's see:
- it sounds absolutely beautiful;
- Japanese anime and light novels simply seem to be brimming with creativity, so much more so than western entertainment that has become so formulaic;
- J-Pop sounds really nice. Again a lot more creative than western pop, that generally sounds the same as 20 years ago.
- I wanted to have a go at those Kanji!

I've been somewhat interested in the language for years, but never considered studying it until recently. I've never had too much fun studying languages before, as we got them forced on us all the way through school since the very begining. I've been exposed to both french and italian (in addition to english of course) this way, but none of them caught my fancy. I picked it up to have something to break up my art sessions, and I'd love to get decent at it eventually. At this point it's just another little hobby, I'm nowhere near as crazy studying it as some of you brilliant people.

My parents made me take Spanish instead of German when i was in eighth grade, and I did terrible. So when I went to high school, the school system stopped German for freshman, so I wanted a language that was as far removed from Spanish as possible.

I think it's the coolest-sounding language in the world when spoken clearly by people of a certain age who have a certain quality of voice.

This really is my only reason because I'm not interested in languages as a concept. Japanese simply sounds the best to me, it did when I didn't understand a word of it and it still does even when I understand 100% of what I hear now. I believe this is what prevents me ever becoming bored of studying because when I'm reading it I'm hearing it in my head, so reading never becomes boring and of course it's a joy for me to listen to Japanese for hours without ever tiring of it. I also think written Japanese in certain fonts looks very cool. It sounds extremely superficial, but it honestly comes down to the coolness factor for me. I don't much care for Japanese culture or politics or their idiosyncrasies, in fact a lot of that stuff turns me off. I just love the language itself.

1)The writing system intrigued me.
2)Anime (can't deny it)
3)Phonetics is similar to Spanish (I'm fluent in Spanish)
4)Want to see if I can become fluent in a third language, especially one as "hard" as Japanese

I'm married to a Japanese woman and want be able to speak with my in-laws and be more independent while I'm there. I also wouldn't rule out living in Japan for a time if possible.

1) Was total anime/manga freak at the time of starting
2) The language sounds awesome
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)
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) Bragging rights XP

Wanting to learn kanji does not reach my list. How can that be one of your main reasons? It is the worst thing. I actually preferred it when I didn't have a kanji book and I was just studying grammar... But it sucks that I know a lot of grammar but can't read, so kanji-studying it is!