I have been strugeling with Japanese for more than a year maybe.
I have a upper beginner /lower intermediate level , I understand tv shows in huge wide lines I can get the general message and easy dialoges very well. I can also read like 600 Kanji

But I constantly ..drop working on it...cause why the heck would I want to know Japanese?

Like really think about it .

-I do not intend/cannot actually live there.
-I know like zero Japanese people .
-I do not know a non Japanese that speaks Japanese .
-At best I maybe somewhere in the future might visit japan at best .
-I most likely will not have a ''study'' abroad thingy, for personal and lawful and financial reasons.


Because my motivation is vague I often take 3 week hiatus and pick it up and drop it again over and over .

On a more positive note:
I love Japanese culture,entertainment and everything but I feel so limited for believing my only goal is ''to understand Japanese entertainement raw''

Help someone?

Ever considered joining a Japanese cultural group in your country to meet Japanese people?

Here are some reasons that might be helpful.

Doctorhabib Wrote:On a more positive note:
I love Japanese culture,entertainment and everything but I feel so limited for believing my only goal is ''to understand Japanese entertainement raw''

you've never developed any interests or wanted to search anything or look into something more based on watching Japanese entertainment?

every time there's a joke that i don't get, i look it up, especially historical ones which leads into those disgusting wikipedia chains where you start with meiji jidai and end up with in the three kingdoms era of china. and a lot of japanese history is usually only written in japanese.
every time there's a classic song that they reference, i look it up. it's interesting to read about different musical eras in japan. english information on this is sparse.
every time i watch a food show i get interested in the history, the shops they visit, the food they eat, the ingredients, etc. so i look all that up.
there was an akb member in a movie based on a novel, so i tried reading the novel. it's not translated. i don't have any choice but to learn.
i love fighting games but i got sick of all the infighting on US messageboards so i started reading japanese ones.
that's usually what keeps me motivated.

the only time i lose motivation is when i just cut everything out, which happens. sometimes i just ride the cycle; as i'm self-studying, i can afford a few weeks where i just maintain in Anki and passively watch/read material, and sometimes i have incredible bursts of studying where i'm adding 30-50 cards a day, focused studying and defining all the words in the articles i'm reading.

Something keeps drawing you back though, so maybe you should think hard about exactly what the attraction is for you, and then decide whether that's worth your time.

Doctorhabib Wrote:Like really think about it .

-I do not intend/cannot actually live there.
-I know like zero Japanese people .
-I do not know a non Japanese that speaks Japanese .
-At best I maybe somewhere in the future might visit japan at best .
-I most likely will not have a ''study'' abroad thingy, for personal and lawful and financial reasons.

There's still plenty of other reasons to study Japanese:

-You love the media. If you watch a lot of Japanese movies, shows and anime, it's nice to be able to watch them without the headache of subtitles. Most manga hasn't been translated into English, so you open yourself up to a lot more material by learning the language. Also books, podcasts, etc.

-It's a challenge.

-You just love the culture and and find it fun learning the language. Nothing wrong with that. You don't necessarily have to have some greater super-useful purpose. People devote endless hours to video games which don't really provide much more than entertainment and maybe some improvement in hand-eye coordination.

About not having contact with a lot of Japanese people or Japan... this is the internet age, you can have as much contact as you want. Chat, skype, email, social media, etc.

If you want to learn it, just do it. The only thing I'd caution is if you have much more important priorities you should be taking care of in your life, and Japanese is stealing a lot of the time and energy you could be putting into those, then I'd reccommend just taking it slow and getting your priorities straight. I sometimes get so caught up in studying Japanese I forget I should be spending my time on things that are more of a priority for me.

You are probably right in that Japanese is not ever going to be useful to you other than for the sake of learning the language and allowing you to enjoy the media you watch/enjoy. So if you don't feel like learning then stop. It's not like it's going to matter for you anyway.


I don't mean to be a buzz kill to all the positive comments that others are giving, but if there is no practical reason for you to learn the language and you find it difficult to study it then why waste the time and effort when you could use that same effort to learn something that you actually find useful/pleasurable?

Why would I learn how to play cricket if 1) I live in the US 2) no one I know knows what cricket even is 3). I don't really like practicing but I do it out of some kind of obligation 4). There are no teams around that I could join 5) there are no teams to play against at all so even if I did find a team we couldn't play against anyone, etc etc. The point of cricket is to play with other and get better but if there is no one to play with then why would I play the sport in isolation?

So like cricket for me, if there's no good reason for you to hone your skills in Japanese then why do it?

Well, why ARE you learning it then?

I know my reasons. I have books I want to read, and I enjoy writing and correcting diary entries on Lang8, as well as talking with my Skype partners. Sure, I can do some of that in English, but learning another Language just goes along with it.

I also really enjoy reading manga and watching anime, and something that just isn't available in English.

But you need to have your own reasons. If you really don't care, ask yourself if you time would be better spent on something else.

for me I'm fine with learning Japanese for enjoying entertainment that's in Japanese. I don't have a particularly strong desire to live in japan or talk to Japanese people. I'm not that social with english anyway so....

Not to mention there's a SHITLOAD of talk/variety shows that I want to watch but don't have time to watch....

I've been interested in foreign languages and cultures since high school (hs was while ago for me). Although, not interested enough to actually study a language. Not that I wanted to study anything at all at the time.

I took jab at Japanese when I finished watching Berserk and wanted more, but the manga didn't exist in English at the time. So I took a class, but since my motivation was limited to reading Berserk I didn't continue with classes. My motivation to study Japanese to read manga/watch anime had disappeared, but my interest in foreign languages and cultures didn't.

A few years went on, and I became determined to go to Japan for an entire year, and nothing was going to stop me. My motivation to study Japanese became to go to Japan.

Fast forward; did that, been there, barely learned any Japanese along the way, had fun doing it. Why do I do it now? I simply enjoy it. It's not a chore, it's a hobby, a bit tedious at times, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Like others have said, if you don't enjoy it, don't learn it. Or do what you want.

This isn't communist China...... yet

Wow, I thank you all greatly for your replies all of it are wise words I can learn from.

I have to say I do enjoy to study Japanse , to read to watch to hear ...its just when you have to do the tedious parts or you have a setback and you realize you do not have a strong motivation I get to feel down and stop.

It would Cool to know an other language and for this situation I chose Japanese because its the foreign language ive been most in contact with (besides my mother language,the language of the country where I live in and English) so why the hell not?

Ive been thinking maybe I should just buy a pile of manga...and fling them around my room and I be like ''oh yeah being able to read this is awesome''.

Are you looking for a reason to continue learning, because you feel that "just understanding the native media, and having a mild interest in the culture" simply isn't enough for you to justify the time you spend learning the language? Or are you seeking for a good reason to quit without saying that you gave up, and what you are interested in - understand native media raw, just isn't enough? I mean you've been learning the language for a year, with breaks in between, and this probably makes it harder for you to let go.

There are people out there who learn new things simply for the sake of learning something new. And this includes studying or learning languages as well. If you don't plan to live there, if you don't like communication, you can still enjoy literature, arts, and all the other things then accessible to you. It has to be worth the time and effort you are spending on it, because it is you who wants to understand, and it is your personal goal not someone elses.

If you want to keep at it, keep at it. If not, stop worrying about it, quit it and find something else. You can always come back and start over when you feel like doing it.

Quote:Are you looking for a reason to continue learning, because you feel that "just understanding the native media, and having a mild interest in the culture" simply isn't enough for you to justify the time you spend learning the language?

This is kind of accurate and it gave my mind a spark...of the original reasons I got into this game.

I originally come from a Nation that is in chaos and is in a phase of rebuilding itself again and me and friends of mine from that same country admire the Japanese on how they rebuild their self after WWII and they are now known as one of the strongest nations in the world , and I just want to get closer to them to learn from them and to understand them . Like how come they do allot of stuff so much better than us? and Why? and how?

on top of that I had an inside look into their world through Anime and tv Dramas and the news that fed my interest even more .

I realized that...maybe I fall back into quiting is because...I either do not have a concrete goal or just need to remind myself more .

Doctorhabib Wrote:

Quote:Are you looking for a reason to continue learning, because you feel that "just understanding the native media, and having a mild interest in the culture" simply isn't enough for you to justify the time you spend learning the language?

This is kind of accurate and it gave my mind a spark...of the original reasons I got into this game.

I originally come from a Nation that is in chaos and is in a phase of rebuilding itself again and me and friends of mine from that same country admire the Japanese on how they rebuild their self after WWII and they are now known as one of the strongest nations in the world , and I just want to get closer to them to learn from them and to understand them . Like how come they do allot of stuff so much better than us? and Why? and how?

on top of that I had an inside look into their world through Anime and tv Dramas and the news that fed my interest even more .

I realized that...maybe I fall back into quiting is because...I either do not have a concrete goal or just need to remind myself more .

I see! Yes, it is fascinating how Japanese are able to rebuild after the bomb, and now after the Tsunami. They got their railroads up and running in no time, they rebuilt their cities in almost no time after the war - it is incredible. The west on the contrary? Cities are abandoned, falling to dust, and what once was a metropolis, is now filled with vacant houses, buildings, and factories.

So, you have some very good reasons there, to continue learning the languages. And maybe it is really just so that you have to remind yourself not only on your goals, which seem to be very high, but also of your small successes along the way. The most important thing is not to be discouraged, because it can be difficult to learn the language, and it takes however long it takes. Just keep looking back and see how far you have come already, and remind yourself that - even though no one else in the region your are living in now does speak Japanese, YOU do, so you are one up on them. In that respect I am in a similar position to you, Japanese is considered useless here, not a single Japanese citizen in an area of 200km, but luckily there is the internet. ;-)

You didn't say it directly, so I can only speculate about your motives. Is it one of your goals to learn from the Japanese, to go back to your own country one day, to help to rebuild with the knowledge you acquired? Which would be the best goal to learn a language for I have ever heard of.