# tell me about learning Japanese **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 2, 2011, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969 "2011-04-02T20:30:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![chromaticity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@chromaticity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chromaticity)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/21 "2011-04-04T03:06:07Z")
My friend says it is quite easy. 🙂 But what with him being Japanese and all, I expect it to be easy for him. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/22 "2011-04-04T03:28:17Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > But Japanese is not indo-european Yeah, I am in this boat, too. My wife is Japanese and we’d like to raise my son to be able to speak Japanese as well. I think this is great, but I don’t want a language spoken in my household that I don’t know. I’ve learned a lot of Indo-European languages over the years (Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, French, German, and medieval ones I can’t keep track of anymore), but I have never tried to go outside the I-E family. I am very used to I-E morphology and syntax. Going outside is very daunting. If I were you, though, I’d probably do Persian. ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/23 "2011-04-04T04:28:33Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > I don’t want a language spoken in my household that I don’t know. Why not? It’s for your son, not for you. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/24 "2011-04-04T04:29:30Z")
you don’t want your son and wife to be able to talk about you and you not understand ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/25 "2011-04-04T06:21:40Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Yeah, I am in this boat, too. My wife is Japanese and we’d like to raise my son to be able to speak Japanese as well. I think this is great, but I don’t want a language spoken in my household that I don’t know. So are you going to learn Japanese as well? Just curious. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/26 "2011-04-04T06:37:42Z")
I’m learning Chinese now so that I won’t be left out of the conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/27 "2011-04-04T14:41:50Z")
I took two years of Japanese in college. It’s very different, as noted above; sentence structure is not like what you’re used to in a Latin-based language, and though the verb tenses are relatively easy, correct verb _choice_ can be a nightmare. One thing that takes adjustment, in my opinion anyway, is that a lot of Japanese goes unstated. Many ideas are either implied by what you’ve said before, or not spoken at all because there’s an “understanding” of what is meant. If you come from a “plain-spoken” culture, that’s really alien. If you want to increase your enjoyment of anime, you can do that by just picking up some simple nouns and verbs and noticing when they’re spoken. I still remember watching one show after my first year of Japanese and noticing a joke I’d missed: a female character in her 20s finds a little girl, alone, and addresses her with the word for “little sister” when asking for her name, which is appropriate. The little girl then asks for the older girl’s name, using the noun you’d use to address an elderly aunt. An irritated look flashes across the woman’s face, then they carry on. Now, since the simple English translation was, “What’s your name?”, it didn’t come across in the subtitles, but knowing a couple words of the language added a little bit of humor to the scene. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/28 "2011-04-04T15:14:46Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > a female character in her 20s finds a little girl, alone, and addresses her with the word for “little sister” when asking for her name, which is appropriate. The little girl then asks for the older girl’s name, using the noun you’d use to address an elderly aunt. An irritated look flashes across the woman’s face, then they carry on. Now, since the simple English translation was, “What’s your name?”, it didn’t come across in the subtitles, but knowing a couple words of the language added a little bit of humor to the scene. The girl in her 20s would be wanted to called _oneesan_ “older sister” instead of _obasan_ “aunt” and is a pretty standard joke in Japanese. Of course, from the point of view of a young child anyone in their 20s is old . . . ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/29 "2011-04-04T15:15:17Z")
I don’t even like anime just some theme songs ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/30 "2011-04-04T15:23:48Z")
Have you watched any Cowboy Bebop? ---
**Author:** ![Double\_Foolscap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@Double\_Foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Double_Foolscap)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/31 "2011-04-04T15:24:24Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > _I think I’m learning Japanese, I think I’m learning Japanese, I really think so._ > > :D&R: I only started reading this thread to post this :mad: ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/32 "2011-04-04T15:25:51Z")
no I haven’t watched Cowboy Bebop or any anime really except like Pokemon when I was younger ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/33 "2011-04-04T15:27:17Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > I think that’s a smart decision. Like learning any language, if you put in the time, you’ll reap the rewards, however, learning Japanese takes a level of dedicated concentration many are not willing to commit to. Also, it’s very easy to become discouraged, especially if you have no passion for it, or reason to learn it. I took a couple years of it in college. At the same time I took a couple Japanese art & aesthetics & literature(translated into English!) classes. I found the non-language work to be tremendously helpful with the language efforts. Something about getting inside the cultural mind made the language more sensible to me than when I took German in a comparative vacuum. A big thing about languages is the solution is not typically “learn the vocab and then plug the new words into your native sentence structure.” Languages tend to mirror and adhere to their native cultures. It’s somehow easier if you can stop being an American while you’re learning the language. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/34 "2011-04-04T15:30:32Z")
That’s why German is so easy because it is really close to English sentence structure, except when it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/35 "2011-04-04T15:45:50Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > no I haven’t watched Cowboy Bebop or any anime really except like Pokemon when I was younger If you haven’t watched any except Pokemon drivel then how do you know you don’t like it? And what, you listen to the opening songs without ever watching the actual show a few times? … Anyway, I recommend Cowboy Bebop to all my friends who say they don’t like an entire medium. Most like it. Give it a try. It’s on Youtube. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/36 "2011-04-04T16:07:59Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > I took a couple years of it in college. At the same time I took a couple Japanese art & aesthetics & literature(translated into English!) classes. I found the non-language work to be tremendously helpful with the language efforts. Something about getting inside the cultural mind made the language more sensible to me than when I took German in a comparative vacuum. A big thing about languages is the solution is not typically “learn the vocab and then plug the new words into your native sentence structure.” Languages tend to mirror and adhere to their native cultures. It’s somehow easier if you can stop being an American while you’re learning the language. This is an important point. The good Japanese language courses, and I’m talking about live classes, not the online garbage, incorporate information about Japanese culture, and word etymologies, into the lessons. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/37 "2011-04-04T16:22:46Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > This is an important point. The good Japanese language courses, and I’m talking about live classes, not the online garbage, incorporate information about Japanese culture, and word etymologies, into the lessons. Which how you learn to avoid creating terms using your dictionary: “Hm. I need a Japanese word for _‘Non-Japanese person’_…Ah! here we go: Gaijin. This should do nicely for our formal corporate welcoming dinner.” ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/38 "2011-04-04T16:24:22Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#): > > So are you going to learn Japanese as well? Just curious. Yes, I am. I’m going to start when my semester ends. I realize I was a bit unclear before. I don’t want people speaking a language in my house that I don’t know so I am going to learn it, not somehow prevent my son from learning Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/39 "2011-04-04T18:07:05Z")
I can’t watch anime because I don’t want people to think I am a turbovirgin nerd ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969/40 "2011-04-04T18:42:05Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > I can’t watch anime because I don’t want people to think I am a turbovirgin nerd Trust me, they know. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-learning-japanese/576969.md?page=3)