Hello, do you think Japanese will take you anywhere? I have been wondering this for a while and I wanted to know what the members of this forum thought. It just seems that I keep going through the motions of RTK and Anki and lately I'm not sure if it will get me anywhere... any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks.

It really depends, I want fluency in japanese first and then I'll head onto another language until I get fluency for that. For me I only plan on learning 2-3 languages maximum. Japanese/mandarin are 100% decided for me at the moment. But what will this get me? It can get you more job opportunities if you look in the right places i guess.

Even if it doesn't get me anywhere. languages in-riches your life with a new "world", new stuff to learn,culture,different ways of thinking,etc

All I know is it lets me play video games and watch tv shows without feeling like I'm wasting my time.

IceCream Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:Even if it doesn't get me anywhere. languages in-riches your life with a new "world", new stuff to learn,culture,different ways of thinking,etc

This! You can't beat the qualitative aspects of language learning!!

Aside from that... it's taken me to Japan already, and hopefully will take me back again.

Can't agree more. A lot of people think I'm smart for learning japanese, when in fact anyone can learn this. I guess some people lack the motivation to do it daily.

wulfgar Wrote:Hello, do you think Japanese will take you anywhere?

Well, I work for Toyota so... yes.

I think i'll echo what many other people have said in other threads though: japanese by itself isn't really enough. There are over 100 million japanese people who already speak japanese...

Japanese fluency + English fluency + Technical skill of some description (I'm an engineer) = very useful indeed.

That said, learning a language is a huge time investment. Doing it purely for career advancement is a pretty poor time investment imho. If you don't enjoy doing it, there's not a lot of point continuing.

They say knowing multiple languages to proficiency level or fluent will get you places. Around 2-3. I think it all comes down to what you want it to do for you. Do you want it to be a full-time job or just something to add more flavor to your life?

ta12121 Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:Even if it doesn't get me anywhere. languages in-riches your life with a new "world", new stuff to learn,culture,different ways of thinking,etc

This! You can't beat the qualitative aspects of language learning!!

Aside from that... it's taken me to Japan already, and hopefully will take me back again.

Can't agree more. A lot of people think I'm smart for learning japanese, when in fact anyone can learn this. I guess some people lack the motivation to do it daily.

A lot of people just think I'm obsessed with anime and Asian girls when they find out I'm learning Japanese.

quincy Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:This! You can't beat the qualitative aspects of language learning!!

Aside from that... it's taken me to Japan already, and hopefully will take me back again.

Can't agree more. A lot of people think I'm smart for learning japanese, when in fact anyone can learn this. I guess some people lack the motivation to do it daily.

A lot of people just think I'm obsessed with anime and Asian girls when they find out I'm learning Japanese.

LOL, I can't agree more with that sentence. For me it's something different, something interesting. People say you should learn french or Spanish but I've always found languages such as japanese,Chinese to be the most interesting. So I started off with japanese

ta12121 Wrote:People say you should learn french or Spanish but I've always found languages such as japanese,Chinese to be the most interesting. So I started off with japanese

Yeah, i had to learn German in High School (learn is way too strong a word, can't speak a word). I attempted to learn Italian at one point too (i have Italian relatives). Learning both languages was just painfully boring. Maybe if i tried again now, i'd think differently, but neither of them really interested me in the way Japanese does. European languages just aren't different enough to hold my attention... Japanese, on the other hand, is simply fascinating.

wulfgar Wrote:Hello, do you think Japanese will take you anywhere?

Hopefully, it will take me to Japan.
If I can't stay there, luckily, I can still work in tourism elsewhere (but I speak 3 other languages).

I'm hoping for a Japan related career and at least a 15% premium on my salary for knowing Japanese.

wulfgar Wrote:Hello, do you think Japanese will take you anywhere? I have been wondering this for a while and I wanted to know what the members of this forum thought. It just seems that I keep going through the motions of RTK and Anki and lately I'm not sure if it will get me anywhere... any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks.

I don't think it'll take me anywhere. Japanese is completely irrelevant to my job or academic studies, and I know very few people who speak it.

But I want to read all those little squiggles, dammit!

Only one way to find out.

Mushi Wrote:I don't think it'll take me anywhere. Japanese is completely irrelevant to my job or academic studies, and I know very few people who speak it.

But I want to read all those little squiggles, dammit!

Pretty much this. The most it'll be is a nifty addition to my resume, I think. I plan I visiting Japan for something like a summer in the future, and a knowledge of the language would certainly help then, but that's about it in terms of "will it take me somewhere".

So, yeah, just learning it because it's something I've always wanted to do, I guess. If it somehow became handy, though, that'd be cool. Like, I'd be at a county fair or something, and somehow the ride gets stuck, and I'm the only one who can save everyone because the extremely detailed and ridiculously complicated instructions are in Japanese...

Well, consider me a baka gaijin or whatever, but Japanese never really interested me (I took classes and stuff because it was required to take a language at school and spanish is lamesauce) until I went to Japan this past summer on a homestay.

Now I'm in love with the country and hope one day, maybe I'll go back. For a long time

I hope it will.
I've been living in Japan for 3 years now, but I eventually want to go back to my homecountry (Germany). I've been thinking about my future a lot recently and I just can't think of any jobs I could do back home. I definitely want to use my Japanese ability somehow, because I'm sure that otherwise I'll lose it very quickly again :/

wulfgar Wrote:Hello, do you think Japanese will take you anywhere?

Nope, I am pretty sure it will lead to nothing. It's just something I do to fill the gaps during everyday life, such as while I'm waiting in line to buy groceries during dinner rush hour.

ta12121 Wrote:Even if it doesn't get me anywhere. languages in-riches your life with a new "world", new stuff to learn,culture,different ways of thinking,etc

This.

I hope it'll get me somewhere one day, but for now, I just enjoy it because even if I was a homeless bum on the street one day, I'd still never consider it a waste of my time. It's pure enjoyment for me and I just hope I can enjoy the extra bonus of it getting me a leg-up in the world at some point.

I'm in school for Comp. Sc. atm, but a big reason I'm finishing school is so I can apply for the JET programme. I'm still unsure as to what I'd like to do in life career wise (other than something Japan-related) and even upon finishing school I don't know if I want to be involved in Comp. Sc., or if I'll even be very good at it...

Am I taking a gamble? Yeah. But I figure I've always been (and still am) afraid to take risks because of the fear of the unknown. I can't imagine how many opportunities for change or success I've passed by due to being afraid to take risks so I figure the biggest gamble of my life (up to this point) should be on something I'm really passionate about.

If I think too far into the future and try to plan how things will happen or work out it usually just makes me depressed.

Not sure what my point was with this post

Makes me feel like I'm working toward a productive goal. As somebody that is unemployed and attending community college as undecided, it makes me feel like I'm not a complete loser.

@Offshore - I feel like I'm in a similar position as you. I'm double majoring Computer Science + Japanese Language and Literature, and I plan to take the JLPTN1 come this December. Just got back from a year-long study abroad.

That all sounds nice when you read it, but I have no clue what I'm going to do after graduation. I can pass my computer classes, and I feel I get an OK grasp of the material, but not as good as I would hope. Plus, no work experience in the IT field, no internships...Plus, I'm not even that confident in my programming skills...

My dream would be to use these certifications to get myself at a company like Sony or something big in Japan, myself stationed in Sapporo, living life how I like it.
But that's more of a dream than a plan or anything even tangible.

Seriously, what can a freshly-graduated CS/日本語 major do? In Japan? In Sapporo, specifically?

tl;dr: I hope my Japanese gets me somewhere, but I don't necessarily think it will.

well I'm doing it because I think it's a really fun thing to do. however, I hope that I could do exchange there sometime during my medical degree. but I'm not holding my breath. I just want to earn enough money so I can go there for a while. That might not be for a while though.

It already has.

I started studying Japanese after I'd been to Japan the first time and knew I wanted to go back, which I have several times. The more I've been able to communicate, and therefore connect, with people there, the more worthwhile and enjoyable my trips have been.

Eventually I was motivated to learn kanji because I'm a reader and I was finding it extremely frustrating to be in a place where I could hardly read ANYTHING, like signs and menus, let alone books and magazines. I'm really looking forward to having at least a familiarity with kanji next time I'm there.

On a more practical level, my husband's business (he makes custom surfboards) often has Japanese customers, and it's been very helpful to be able to communicate with them via email or speak to them when they visit the shop, even though I'm way less than fluent (so far).

Asriel Wrote:@Offshore - I feel like I'm in a similar position as you. I'm double majoring Computer Science + Japanese Language and Literature, and I plan to take the JLPTN1 come this December. Just got back from a year-long study abroad.

That all sounds nice when you read it, but I have no clue what I'm going to do after graduation. I can pass my computer classes, and I feel I get an OK grasp of the material, but not as good as I would hope. Plus, no work experience in the IT field, no internships...Plus, I'm not even that confident in my programming skills...

My dream would be to use these certifications to get myself at a company like Sony or something big in Japan, myself stationed in Sapporo, living life how I like it.
But that's more of a dream than a plan or anything even tangible.

Seriously, what can a freshly-graduated CS/日本語 major do? In Japan? In Sapporo, specifically?

tl;dr: I hope my Japanese gets me somewhere, but I don't necessarily think it will.

I'm in the same boat as you too, including the JLPT N1 this december, except studying maths and teaching myself programming on my own, but I'm not sure how to turn that into a career in japan. Your programming skills are probably far greater than mine, you should teach me. ;D No work experience in any field for me. The trouble with my degree is it doesn't teach any real career skills, just fundamental mathematics theory. Well that seems to go for most degrees..

Japanese let me meet my girlfriend and gives me an excuse to travel to Japan, so it's already serving a purpose though. Her english isn't that good yet so it really would be best for us to live in Japan, plus I want to experience living somewhere different.

All my friends with Maths degrees got crazily high paid jobs either in finance or programming positions.

Also Mathmatics graduates are highly sought after in the games industry; more so than CS graduates in fact. You will need some C++ skillz for that though..

Oh and in answer to the original question - yes I dream of one day moving to Japan to be a games programmer there, but for now it's really just a hobby.