mentat_kgs Wrote:We get it. It was for trolling. Let's not start another flame war here, please.

Trolling. I call it satire. Also, the above conversation took place before I began exchanging emails with natives. (笑)

Tzadeck Wrote:

Tykkylumi Wrote:I also get called "weeaboo" oft by my college friends.

I though you weren't allowed to say weeaboo off the internet. It's worse than saying 'lol'.

Oh trust me, I cringe inside. I really do.

On a side note, my girlfriend has me saved on her cell phone as "weeaboo". Guh.

Tzadeck Wrote:

Tykkylumi Wrote:I also get called "weeaboo" oft by my college friends.

I though you weren't allowed to say weeaboo off the internet. It's worse than saying 'lol'.

Isn't lol Dutch?

I reckon weeaboos are a real subculture (and embarrassing problem, as we are often associated with them). Personally I think the ones on this forum, by taking language study seriously, should be considered a race apart from weeaboos.

Nii87 Wrote:I reckon weeaboos are a real subculture (and embarrassing problem, as we are often associated with them). Personally I think the ones on this forum, by taking language study seriously, should be considered a race apart from weeaboos.

definetely....
what s more I would be curious to know how many of us intend to study another language after japanese or to undertake a totally different activity . As for me I ll take chinese either in january 2010 or in june .
For those who study seriously I think the scope exceeds by far the japanese culture . It s about challenge and self development.... because it takes a lot more than interest to learn japanese , especially when you re westerner.

-Discipline
-memory tools
-skill to establish priority and stick to it.
-a great deal of open-mindness and curiosity as there is batch of new input source , new methods and software that comes up steadily


I f.... hate to be compared to those weaklings that stick around japanese for years without ever commiting themselves seriously and on top of that displays a behaviour that is a total disgrace to japanese culture . kawai uso every two lines ? those guy just dont know the meaning of the word ashamed...

Ok, although I guessed the context from this thread, I did look up "weeaboo". Not sure if it's encouraging or discouraging that I had to do that.

Haha, same here, Nukemarine...

The only time I come across words like 'weeaboo' is when url shorteners trick me into accidentally visiting sites like 'something awful' or 'encyclopedia dramatica', at which point for the rest of the day I'm tempted to photoshop random images, quote lolcats, and use phrases like 'epic fail', 'ftw', 'war so-and-so', 'serious business', etc. I think people who use that word will call you a weeaboo if you speak English and demonstrate any kind of interest in Japanese culture. Because either you show a cursory awareness of Japan and that's fine, or you're a)white and b)into the juvenile/perverted aspects of Japanese pop culture. I think the term/conception must originate from a certain kind of inclusiveness/racism, plus the fact that even people who blog/write about Japan online tend to play up the 'wacky fetishism' aspects of Japanese pop culture.

Let this Thread then
come alive again!

How's this for demotivation: In the last four weeks I've put in maybe 10 hours of reviews only, and not studied one new card. Plus, on top of that, I've not seriously exercised at all, not even one pull-up or handstand push-up.

Anyone else get the "All work and no play" feeling? Even the two or three spare hours I might have in the evening I feel more inclined to mentally relax. Doing a holding pattern with Anki and watching/reading token stuff in Japanese is ok, but dammit I like to learn new stuff.

Ok, demotivational rant over.

Some of these are rather amusing.

There are plenty of ambitious people that get laughed at. The successful ones are the ones that don't care. I wouldn't worry about what others think - especially self-loathing trolls who have no goals of their own. IMO, it shouldn't even drive you to work harder, because then it's like you're trying to validate yourself to them. You don't need their approval; just keep working towards your goals.

From Japanese people it's usually, "You don't need to study Japanese". (Sometimes because it isn't "needed" sometimes because I am so "fluent". )

From English speakers I usually get Chinese jokes -- you know the type. Or how I am faking to get attention.

By now though I could really care less.

皆さん、笑顔で頑張ろう！

I have 8, 000 reviews built up in my sentence deck. I'm discouraged.

thecite Wrote:I have 8, 000 reviews built up in my sentence deck. I'm discouraged.

I never quite got that far, but I think the best thing to do is just do what you can do each day, and ignore that big figure to the right Let it come down on its own...

go delete/suspend the ones you don't really care about too much then it'll go down a lot.............. from 8000. like khatz says...DELETE the card if you're iffy

This thread is hilarious, i had my fair share of laughs, reading along what others had to suffer in their course of learning languages.

I have often had the opportunity to meet people who told me one of the following:

Why do you learn that language? You don't need it here.
German is enough to know, you don't need any other language to get by.
We are in Austria you know, so what good does it do to know any more languages than that?

My usual reply to this has always been: I know that german would be enough for me to know. And i could also just learn tourist *target language of choice.* But i do not only learn a language for the sake of learning a language - knowing that i would never need it. It is a chance for me to unlock other parts of our whole wide world, other ways of thinking, and if i ever get there - i can converse with people in their langauge. Other than ordering some food in a restaurant. This was earning me some strange looks, and i heard nothing after that, because this is a way of thinking seemingly uncommon to most of those i met.

Nowadays it's my old father who is coming to me asking stuff like: Why do you learn Japenese? Wouldn't it be better for you to learn something else instead? French, or Spanish, or Italian? What are you going to do with this newly aquired knowledge of yours?

And this is coming from the man that brought me up and knew me for 32 years! How often have i told him, yes paps, i do know italian, french, and spanish already, i have been learning that. *oh boy* Which is what does not seem to sink into him ... He is old, given he might forget a thing or two ... but this is sad. Generally he is proud of me that i'm able to learn what he considers that hard of a language - Japanese. Even though he does not admit it when he is talking to me about it.

There are some people who someone in the family must have taught the following skill: "Survival without knowing the target language." If you speak loud enough, or shout at the other person in your own language, the other person might eventually begin to understand what you want. Or the person you are talking to will find someone who speaks your language - if he doesn't understand why you are shouting.

Two years ago i thought that this was just a joke ... which it is in fact. Oh boy was I in the wrong with this assumption! It was the other day and i had an appointment with my pulmonary specialist. While i was reading in the waiting room, a man came in, obviously a foreigner. He was not able to speak german, so he spoke part Hindi and the other part broken english.

The reception lady did not understand a word he was saying. So she was starting to talk to him, explaining that he had to have a reservation, otherwise he could not see the doctor. She was telling him this in german, which left the man on the other side of the desk puzzled, and he kept talking back to her.

She was repeating the same thing, over and over, gradually increasing the volume of her voice, until she started shouting ... The man was not deaf he just could not understand her ... So she must have had the education i mentioned above: Survival without knowing the target language skill.

Good thing is i don't get discouraged that easily. And i don't give much about peoples opinion of what is or is not useful to learn. The only thing really discouraging me is talking to people who are limiting themselves wasting their potential ...

Time to test my necromancy...

A couple of my friends know I study Japanese because a while back I took a Beginner's Japanese class before I started self-study. Although my friends vary in gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation, they all share a common need to inform me just why it is I shouldn't be learning Japanese. Here are some reasons I've heard:

"You're never gonna need that." // I don't need a lot of things, but I still want them
"Don't Japanese people have to learn like a thousand different kanji? How can you possibly do that?" // By studying
"***** YEAH USA! HAHA WE NUKED THOSE CHINKS!!!" // Go be stupid somewhere else

Outright discouragement isn't the worst part though. My family usually doesn't get involved with my Japanese learning, but when they do, it borders on unbearable. If they ever see anything Japanese (or Chinese, because hey, it's the same right?) they ask me to translate it. One recent, irritating example is the movie Inception, which has a scene where some people are speaking Japanese. The movie had English subs, but they still kept asking me what was being said. At least that time I could translate it even without subs. Whenever I can't, it's "Oh, I thought you knew so much. You haven't learned much at all, have you?". I have enough reminders of how little I know; I don't need smug comments to top it off.

My response to that last one is usually something along the lines of "YOU thought it was CHINESE. Now shut up. You'll speak when spoken to!"

Believe me, I feel your pain there. My dad still doesn't realize that he's using the wrong racial epithets for the Japanese people, he vacillates between 'gook' and 'chink'. I keep telling him that if he's going to be rude, he could at least use the correct vocabulary. Pisses him off to no end

battlehymnz Wrote:Here are some reasons I've heard:

Wow, just, wow. About the worst i get is mild disappointment from friends over how much time i spend on it. More quiet acknowledgement that we share fewer interests than we used to than anything.

Old thread! yay.

The worst and dumbest thing I ever heard was the week before I quit work to go back to school, and the customers were giving me the usual amount of shit for studying Japanese. and one of the idiots piped up

"You'd only want to go to Japan to marry a chinky bird" (bird being the slang for woman in my local area)

I was momentarily dumbstruck by the racism and the stupidity, surely if that was the idea.. I'd have more luck finding and marrying a Chinese girl in China? you know that big country with 1.5 billion people in it? Fairly close to Japan.

My dad spent a year or two in Japan, when he was a kid, which somehow gives him permission to be a know-it-all about the language. Well, actually, he's a know-it-all about everything. In this case, he sucks.

Lots of times I keep hearing "I bet in 2 weeks I'll be as good as you, I just need to remember everything." Yeah... never mind the fact that it's been 30 years since.

One day I come home and he's saying things like こなばんは！元気ですか？ I play along, when all of a sudden he says something like "You're too formal. You need to learn common speak." 「わかんない」, I say. "No, わかりません。 You see?" Yeah... I see you don't know what you're talking about.

When I went to Japan this year, I ordered a pizza just to see if I could do it. It was tough, but I got through it, and my cousins filmed it and we put it on Facebook to show our brothers. When I come home after the trip, my dad starts making fun of my Japanese.

"I saw you order pizza. I thought you studied Japanese? You're not doing it properly. You don't say はい softly, you say it really loudly. はい！はい！はい！はい！ That's what they do in Japan. They say everything loudly." He then walked around saying はい at full volume.

When I speak Japanese, I'm very soft spoken, because
A: I suck at it. Lack of confidence = natural tendency to be reserved
B: I don't want to offend anybody if I say something wrong, very loudly.

Nevertheless, I don't think they do it like that. I would know. I just came back from there.

I can't wait to start learning Tagalog. Then I can give him a taste of his own medicine. =)

battlehymnz Wrote:My family usually doesn't get involved with my Japanese learning, but when they do, it borders on unbearable. If they ever see anything Japanese (or Chinese, because hey, it's the same right?) they ask me to translate it. One recent, irritating example is the movie Inception, which has a scene where some people are speaking Japanese. The movie had English subs, but they still kept asking me what was being said. At least that time I could translate it even without subs. Whenever I can't, it's "Oh, I thought you knew so much. You haven't learned much at all, have you?". I have enough reminders of how little I know; I don't need smug comments to top it off.

My family is pretty much the same. They also like to point how useless knowing Japanese is unless I move there. I guess the thought that (aside from wanting to live there one day) reading, watching, and playing things in their original language is asinine.

Gingerninja Wrote:"You'd only want to go to Japan to marry a chinky bird"

My family and friends tell me this nonstop. It's even worse because I rarely, rarely date anyone not because I'm such an ugly loser that I can't get a chick, but just because I'm not really committed to it very much right now. There's also very few girls I know that I have anything in common with at all atm. As such, everyone thinks I'm learning Japanese so I can go marry a Japanese woman. As a result, everyone thinks I have yellow fever. I love all the support I get... *sigh*

On a general note, language learning is probably one of the most emotionally charged learning experiences you can have. I don't think there is any other type of learning where we ourselves and others down ourselves so much. I see it all the time with people who are super good at Japanese/English, if there is a hint of criticism then people go whirly bird on you (not everyone, but a few). [No, not me criticizing them]

I think we are so hung up on language learning and it's so easy for someone who is a native of that language to bring you down. It's a hard situation and I don't know, personally, how to deal with it well except to stick through it (worst case is it is your family that does you over - that's probably the least avoidable and worst situation, in my opinion.)

Also, we also get hung up over criticism (I'm really, really bad at taking it, so consider me an expert, lol.) This is worrying because what we hear isn't always what people mean. I mean, for example, someone tells you that the Japanese you're using is a bit funny sounding (accented, or something) and you don't go "Ok, that's their opinion. Do I have any proof to say this is true from a reliable source?", you go "FHSDHSLKFJLKDS, WHAT?" It's hard to tie down those responses, and I for one am useless at it at times.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Playing the market, regardless of the trading frequency you choose, is an emotionally charged experience too. With foreign language learning, you lose less money though

Necromancy is fun...

OK, so it's fitting that this is a discouragement thread, because I'm kind of
discouraged...over passing JLPT N2. I told a cousin that I passed it and explained a bit about the exam, and he said that it was a waste of time and money (for drill books as well as the exam fee) passing any test level that wasn't the highest. I'm happy I passed, even if it's not N1, and I think it was a good goal, even if I'm not too crazy about exams in general, and I told him all that...But I think his words affected me more than I thought...

I'm pretty damn sure it wasn't a waste of time -- I'm sure you would have learned a lot along the way and it's one step closer to N1. And if settings goals like that helps you learn and you're happy with it, then in no way was it a waste of time and money.

Don't let his words get to you.