cerulean Wrote:I don't think there is a single Japanese person within 10 miles of me.

Cerulean, I don't know where you are in Ohio, but there are tons of Japanese people in Dublin OH (near Columbus) and a smaller community near Dayton because of car factories and their suppliers and support communities. I worked at a Japanese company in Dublin for awhile, and at least at that time, there were 2 travel agencies, a video rental place, a small supermarket, a bakery or two and some other Japan-oriented businesses all within a few miles. I can't imagine there's nothing near Cleveland or Pittsburgh. Try Googling for Ohio and Japanese.

tokyostyle Wrote:While I'm at it here's a small list of stuff that I can get completely free of charge...access to tons of manga legally free through all sorts of socially accepted practices

Like dumpster diving?

woodwojr Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Japan is the only place where 100% total immersion is possible, where you can live for a whole week without ever having to use or see/hear your native language.

That's just because your native language isn't English. I'm not arguing that it's anywhere near the same level of incidental exposure as in, say, the US, but when you can't even take the train in Tokyo without seeing a mini-English-lesson on the monitors, it's hard to claim that you can "live for a whole week without ever having to […] see/hear your native language."

Edit: wccrawford: I wouldn't be so sure. Assuming a nominal body weight of 150lbs, a ton of Japanese employees is only fourteen.

~J

That's like saying you're not fully immersed when browsing just because the odd English word pops up from time to time on Japanese websites. Just because "Shinjuku" is written under 新宿 doesn't force you to ignore the kanji and read the English etc. When you WANT to immerse 100% in Japan, you can. Outside of Japan, you can't.

Tobberoth Wrote:Just because "Shinjuku" is written under 新宿 doesn't force you to ignore the kanji and read the English etc.

I have to disagree with that. It is -very- hard to ignore your native language when you see it. You have a tendency to automatically read it in passing, even in just a split second. By then, it's too late to ignore it. You can read the kanji afterwords, of course, but then it's just confirmation, not really comprehension.

I have this problem even with romaji and kana. If there's romaji there, I'll read it immediately. Even if I've been trying to stop doing that for that whole study session, it will just keep happening.

woodwojr Wrote:but when you can't even take the train in Tokyo without seeing a mini-English-lesson on the monitors, it's hard to claim that you can "live for a whole week without ever having to […] see/hear your native language."

Tokyo isn't Japan. It's like Vatican City, a city within a country that's its own country.

Yes, except instead of accounting for a tiny fraction of the surrounding country's population, it's about 10%. This is starting to sound an awful lot like "Real America".

(The point still holds for other areas that I've been to, but without such a convenient exemplar.)

~J

There's exceptions to when you'll be using Japanese in either country, and these are dependent upon your limitations as a learner and your lifestyle needs. When you are 'using' Japanese, it's going to be immersion stuff that's just sticking through repetition, stuff that's reinforcing what you know, and stuff you're deliberately studying. That's true no matter where you are. The way I see it, it's just a matter of 'adding' extra weight or 'subtracting' dead weight to these neutral areas where you can't pick up Japanese beyond your level and you're forced to use your native language. No matter how much you want to immerse yourself, there'll be these exceptions, and I think they can only be minimized to a point, and the variations on that point that are determined by geography are impossible to quantify because for every 'pro' for one type of individual, another individual can call it a 'con'.

At any rate, as someone else said, if you're learning Japanese, why wouldn't you go there? Well, because for this person, the only Japanese they want to know is for Japanese they can encounter anywhere, I suppose. In that case, one wouldn't feel too bad about sources they can't yet duplicate outside of Japan, and might not have been able to apply yet anyway at their level. Well, I think I ended up repeating the same thing 5 times now and I'm bored with the topic, enjoy.

Arguments aside (I'm set in my perspective on the matter, and if I can't change your mind, ah well), those of you who are very familiar with both life in Japan and Japanese media, how much of a difference would you say there is? For instance, I think that in English-speaking countries, there's a good deal of overlap, even for scripted stuff, but I can believe that Japan is different, that the audiovisual media at least is much more 'vanilla' than real life. (Racial discrimination being an obvious example, content-wise.)

Thus, if someone gets good at Japanese to the point that they can read books, essays, blogs, have online conversations, watch movies, et cetera, with 99% comprehension, and think in the language, would they be really crippled if they went to Japan, or would it be a matter of going through a 'naturalizing' process?

Jarvik7 Wrote:Ye ol' "my parents are dead" move. Even if true it doesn't need mentioning in response to a joke. The only thing more common in online discussions is comparing people to Hitler. (If you think that you can achieve 100% immersion outside of Japan then you're worse than Hitler)

My mother was Hitler you insensitive clod!
I for one welcome our new mother overlords.
You must be new here.
In Soviet Russia, Japanese immerses you!
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those mothers!

Sorry my cousin/mom/brother/sister used my account to post that.

Tobberoth Wrote:How? When you go out to buy things, there's no denying the clerks etc do not know Japanese, you can't stay in Japanese mode all the time outside of Japan.

You could roleplay with one of your Japanese friends or something.

nest0r Wrote:Arguments aside (I'm set in my perspective on the matter, and if I can't change your mind, ah well), those of you who are very familiar with both life in Japan and Japanese media, how much of a difference would you say there is? For instance, I think that in English-speaking countries, there's a good deal of overlap, even for scripted stuff, but I can believe that Japan is different, that the audiovisual media at least is much more 'vanilla' than real life. (Racial discrimination being an obvious example, content-wise.)

Thus, if someone gets good at Japanese to the point that they can read books, essays, blogs, have online conversations, watch movies, et cetera, with 99% comprehension, and think in the language, would they be really crippled if they went to Japan, or would it be a matter of going through a 'naturalizing' process?

There's definitely a big difference. However, I wouldn't call it crippling, it just means that when you eventually come to Japan and speak to Japanese people, they might notice some oddities about your language being overly formal or proper. I think it would take a month at most to "correct" it if you spend time with Japanese people speaking Japanese daily.

One shouldn't expect the Japanese stuff found online to cover the whole spectrum of Japanese. On the other hand, one shouldn't actively worry about it either. I recommend people to learn Japanese in Japan because it's more efficient, not because it makes sure your Japanese is natural enough in daily conversations.

Tobberoth Wrote:There's definitely a big difference. However, I wouldn't call it crippling, it just means that when you eventually come to Japan and speak to Japanese people, they might notice some oddities about your language being overly formal or proper. I think it would take a month at most to "correct" it if you spend time with Japanese people speaking Japanese daily.

One shouldn't expect the Japanese stuff found online to cover the whole spectrum of Japanese. On the other hand, one shouldn't actively worry about it either. I recommend people to learn Japanese in Japan because it's more efficient, not because it makes sure your Japanese is natural enough in daily conversations.

You study Korean also, right Tobberoth? In terms of language use, how would you say the more 'indie' Japanese movies compare with S. Korea's? I get the impression that Korea's scene is more raw and experimental, perhaps because of the quota system (however much it's been compromised by deals with the US). I've seen a billion films over the years from both countries, but never paid attention to the language used due to lack of proficiency.

+ That's cool, I didn't think that's why you were stressing the importance of Japan (personally I think that in many cases it's less efficient to have to shrug off the dead weight of excessive Japanese that occurs when in Japan than to add useful weight, so I'd rather 'design' even my passive day-to-day immersion, but then again, it's only as a resourceful and unscrupulous pirate with no intent to live in Japan that I can declare virtual immersion to be effortless and desirable, so that's why I don't declare one way or another to be best and seek the gray areas of overlap amongst individuals... I don't want to use my own opposing hypothetical ideal to make a moot point... oh right, no more arguing from me).

Oh, I don't know even close to enough Korean to say, I'm just learning it because my girlfriend is forcing me

For what it's worth, I should add that when I was in Japan, the weight of stuff that I couldn't deal with or that I could only deal with with difficulty made me much more able to accept the excuse "it's just a little English" in my private activities; while susceptibility to that (and willpower to resist) vary, I've found that keeping my private life all-Japanese is actually easier now that I'm back in the US (though my presence on this site goes to show I'm still not managing everything I have reasonable control over).

Note that advances in ability provide a confounding variable.

~J

This might be a little off topic, but I just wanned to state Korea is producing many many dramas. Also a great part of the animation produced in the whole world comes from Korea. Some of the major anime series from japan, where animated in korea.