Erubey Wrote:No. Because its such a rejection of popular culture based on that its stale and boring yet you just turn around and love whatever japan churns out even though its basically the same, just for a different audience. Unless whatever media or political interest you have in Japan isn't superficial, but I doubt it.

A couple of points here:

1) I never said that I 'love whatever japan churns out.' There's plenty of Japanese pop culture that I'm not into. Most film and television is overacted and melodramatic. I've never been into anime or manga. The number of J-pop bands I like can be counted on, well, zero fingers. Besides, when did this become about pop culture, specifically? If you look back at the post I was originally commenting on, it mentioned things about America like obesity, terrible food, rudeness and the over-use of automobiles. I was talking about culture in general, not just about what you see on TV.

2) I would agree that most pop culture is 'basically the same,' but that cannot be said of culture as it regards social mores, ethics, etc. In that regard, Japan and America are very little alike. See above point.

Erubey Wrote:Unless whatever media or political interest you have in Japan isn't superficial, but I doubt it.

Exactly how is it that you can tell to what degree I am or am not superficial in regards to my interest in Japanese culture? That's an interesting talent.

I honestly don't know why I'm studying Japanese or why I live in Japan. I change my mind about so many things and can never make up my mind on which path to follow. Since I took my first Japanese class in high school (on a whim) I pretty much just decided to pick at least one firm road in my life that I wanted to follow.

I've since followed that path through two years of college classes and going on two years of living in the country. Once I leave this country in a few years I'm planning on going to grad school to get an MBA and using my newfangled MBA and hopefully-by-then-awesome Japanese skills to use in getting a job.

But why did I choose Japan specifically? I don't really know... I think that it chose me... DUM DUM DUMMMMMM

I got interested in Japan because of its tech level, then came anime which made me more interested in Japanese, I wouldn't get interested if it wasn't for my love for languages, yes I wish to be a polyglot someday (planning to study spanish, German and Hebrew after Japanese).
BTW igordesu, the religious reasons came to my mind lately, I think they give an additional reason for studying Japanese, but I don't think I will go there for the cause of spreading religion.

Another good thing about Japanese is that Japan isn't packed full of people who can speak your language better than you can speak theirs. with alot of languages it would be pretty hard to find a speaker who doesn't have at least a working knowledge of english (Eg. French, German, Sweedish, most Indian languages etc. )

My first interest in Japan was from my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Murray. She was hakujin, but her husband, a Boeing engineer, got a job a few years after the war (yes, that war) working with engineers at Japan Air Lines. They spent nearly 20 years in Japan, and returned just as I started third grade.

She introduced us to all things Japanese, including rice and nori, how to sit seiza, and most importantly, the tradition of a vacation during January 1 to 5, during which time she gave NO HOMEWORK! Although I didn't meet any actual Japanese people until I was almost in college, the Japanese influence I gained at age 8 never left me.

My wife (an issei) and I visited my third-grade teacher a few years before she died. What an honor to meet again with the person who influenced my life so much. I still consider her to be the best teacher I ever had.

I graduated with a politics degree, took one look at the graduate job market and thought, "You've gotta be kidding me." My goal in life is not be a technical resources consultancy operations manager. So I had a think about what I wanted to do for a career and came up with two options: working for the diplomatic branch of the civil service or teaching English (properly, i.e. not as an ALT but as a professional tutor). Clearly both of these would require a second language, so I looked into it and discovered the huge demand for English teachers in Japan. I decided to start learning Japanese, with the assumption that if I failed to get into the civil service I'd always have the teaching option as a back-up.

Then I discovered just how badly English was being taught in Japan (JET, language schools) and realised that there could be huge opportunities for a good private tutor who is fluent in the language - if students are willing to pay £30 an hour for a gap year student who can't speak or read Japanese to recite useless phrases to them from an out-of-date text book, then imagine how much they'd enjoy the services of a good teacher who they can communicate with and who produces meaningful results.

I'm in the 0.01% of white people learning Japanese who have no interest in manga or animé. Of course I like video games, but that was never my main motivation... ok, fine, so maybe one day I'd like to play Xenogears how it was originally intended... don't judge me! But on a serious note, I'm learning Japanese because I see it as means to an extremely worthwhile end. I mean, I'm going to spend the next 35-40 years of my life working, so I should least attempt to find a career that I enjoy.

@harhol: LOL at the link. too true...

bodhisamaya Wrote:I am not really sure what American culture is. Gluttony and spending beyond our means? I am not sure we have been in existence long enough to have a defined culture.

That YMCA song and the Macarena, perhpas?

harhol Wrote:I'm in the 0.01% of white people learning Japanese who have no interest in manga or animé. Of course I like video games, but that was never my main motivation... ok, fine, so maybe one day I'd like to play Xenogears how it was originally intended... don't judge me!

Unfortunately, this comment puts you into the catogory with the other 99.99%. LOL.

Interesting site. I'd have never noticed the link had I not quoted you.

harhol Wrote:ok, fine, so maybe one day I'd like to play Xenogears how it was originally intended... don't judge me!

Wait, so you found a way to access a parallel reality where the second disk isn't just chair-monologuing for literally a trillion hours?

Mcjon01 Wrote:Wait, so you found a way to access a parallel reality where the second disk isn't just chair-monologuing for literally a trillion hours?

I was kindof pondering the same thing. Getting to play 'xenogears as it was originally intended' is something that will simply never happen ^^
I actually enjoyed the second disk and everything. But, it was the result of an emergency rush-job. Half of the.. super-gears, whatever they were called, didn't even make it into the game. I always wanted Emeralda's...

Mcjon01 Wrote:Wait, so you found a way to access a parallel reality where the second disk isn't just chair-monologuing for literally a trillion hours?

Haha, it was a beautiful chair though! Sadly nothing will ever make it what the writer(s) originally intended... the second disc will always be the second disc. What I meant is the localization, which is so comically rigid & formal that most of the cutscenes are painful to watch. Citan in particular sounds like a humanized Google translator. I just have this feeling that it'll be so much better in its original form, without the awkward language differences and rushed translation job. Maybe I'm wrong and woefully optimistic, but I'd at least like to find out for myself.

Why couldn't Square be more like Atlus and localize things in a manner which suggests they actually care?
:'(

Chair-monologuing sounds awesome and makes me want to get back and finish Xenogears.

(On the off-topic subject of Atlus localisation, I will never understand the reasoning behind using Japanese honourific suffixes in the English versions of the new Persona games, then going and using different ones from the Japanese version.)

I love languages and culture in general, but I've always had a particular interest in East Asian culture in , partially because when I was little it seemed so different from mine, and the foreignness intrigued me. I loved watching Mulan. I watched anime all the time (though of course back then I thought it was American...hah.) When I was 7 years old my school put on a culture day performance, and my class just so happened to be Japan. I got to play a geisha and we sang 'Sakura.' The memory stayed with me for a while but I never really started thinking about learning Japanese until I was around 11. My friend would bring manga to school and I would read them, and one day I noticed the katakana in the background (didn't know what it was back then). I decided to research it and...well, let's just say I didn't stop my research after that. ('-~)

It's been four and a half years since then and my motives have changed a bit. First I wanted to be able to understand the onomatopoeia, which then naturally transitioned over to anime. Anime theme songs sent me into the music world, where I would copy down lyrics and pick out similar words. (This is how I developed most of my beginner's vocabulary.) After that the media just opened up to me, and I wanted to be able to converse, to learn about the history and culture, and to read, especially. I wanted to read, because I love it, and that eventually led me here.

I'm looking forward to a trip to Japan as my high-school graduation present, and can think that immersion in the place itself will only increase my desire to learn more.

@AkiKazachan it's good you are starting this method at such a young age.

My interest in Japanese started with a Japanese copy of Akira on VHS when I was about 15-16. No subtitles, me and my friend probably watched about 20 times, making up our own dialog and names for the characters lol. Ever since then I really wanted to learn the language. I started trying to learn it about 16, but the texts I had were college level textbooks, they had pages on explaining the tongue position for each sound. Too complicated for me at the time, just pages and pages on grammar that was over my head.

I've tried throughout the years to learn Japanese off and on, nothing really worked very well. After trying many methods though, I stumbled onto AJATT (ironically it was while doing a free trial of a pay site that had Japanese lessons, some guy was talking about Khatz in the forums and I went over and read the AJATT website, when I was done I quit the free trial). The AJATT website made me realize why a lot of traditional stuff didn't work for me, and that I could learn on my own a lot faster. Especially having tried a lot of different methods, seeing what worked with them and what didn't.

I've always found foreign languages interesting, and I've tried to learn several (French, Creole, Latin, Spanish) but, I am terrible at them. I can't get the grammar, the vocab, the accent... I never thought I'd be able to learn another language.

Then I started getting interested in Japanese, the writing was interesting, and the sound was beautiful, especially in music. So... I gave it a try, and for some reason, it all just makes sense. Maybe its so interesting because it's so structurally different than English, and other Latin languages.

But, now that I've found a language I am having success with, I don't want to stop. I'm not learning it watch anime, to read manga, to talk to Japanese people, but to experience a new language of communication. I hope to get to the level of being able to read literature, or even to be able to think in the language.

Akira.

EDIT: And I only just saw two posts above. Glad I'm not the only one!

When I was in middle school, I was given the choice to take Japanese as an elective, and all the other electives were either already full or really lame. So, I signed up. Didn't learn anything at all. Just sat there. I almost asked to transfer, but because sensei always brought us Japanese candies, I didn't.

About two months ago, I remember seeing a scan of a Japanese newspaper on someone's computer screen at school. I began reminiscing about how I signed up for that class way back when. On may way home, I walked past a group of people speaking Spanish (I live in San Diego) and thought of how much I hated Spanish class. That night, I woke up at 3 and thought to myself, "I'm going to learn Japanese."

Since then, I've managed to learn about 50 kanji (I've just started RTK) and am now able to read and write the kana. I joined a language sharing site, and that has helped me out a lot with my grammar. I've picked up some books and talked with some people I know who are taking Japanese.

I never took an interest in anime or manga originally, but someone suggested watching it as a 'leaning resource' (the only word I've learned is 馬鹿 (ばか, idiot)) and it's OK. I really like the stuff by SHINKAI Makoto.

That is all.

I'm kind of generic here, but I never filled this out so here goes...

-Want to live in Japan someday.
-Enjoy the Japanese language.
-Love watching Japanese dramas and playing Japanese video games. I love me some Dynasty Warriors.
-Someday I want, most likely, a Japanese girlfriend and (hopefully/eventually) wife. Not both concurrent.

woo yellow fever

because:
1) my wife is Japanese
2) i have interests in Japanese Pop Culture
3) If my Japanese gets to a good enough level, I can get paid more in the military when I join as an officer after I graduate college (run-on sentence FTW)
4) it's something I think I am actually good at
5) i love the country and would love to travel and see more tourist spots etc. in the future
6) i plan on retiring one day in Japan

--I've been a practicing Buddhist for over a decade and such an infitessimally minute amount of the literature has been translated, not to mention so much is "lost in translation" anyway, and more of it is available in Japanese than any other language especially the literature of my sect.

--Love Japanese Literature and Culture

--I want a Japanese Girlfriend AND wife, concurrently (j/clwng, don't really desire either)

--Would love to go spend time practicing in Japan and meeting different Roshi, and very, very few of them speak English. They were spending their time on their cushion, when would they have learned it?

1) Constant mental stimulation. A healthy mind is as important as a healthy body.

2) Beautiful language and interesting culture.

3) I'm considering pursuing a doctorate in computer science. I'd like to do research in the field of AI and natural language recognition, so studying a language with considerably different grammar will create a good foundation for studying linguistics.

..actually I don't. I just watch subbed anime.

Hashiriya Wrote:because:
1) my wife is Japanese
2) i have interests in Japanese Pop Culture
3) If my Japanese gets to a good enough level, I can get paid more in the military when I join as an officer after I graduate college (run-on sentence FTW)
4) it's something I think I am actually good at
5) i love the country and would love to travel and see more tourist spots etc. in the future
6) i plan on retiring one day in Japan

You're married while still in college?

America is crazy.