People have very different reasons for starting to learn Japanese, and, of course, it varies for each person. Usually, people say they want to achieve fluency to understand anime without subtitles, read kanji in various contexts, and enjoy novels in Japanese.
Then there are those who learn Japanese to gain a deeper understanding of the culture, communicate with native speakers, and overcome language barriers in media consumption.
Personally, I began learning Japanese because I found a group of Japanese learners, and my brother also started learning Japanese. We made many good Japanese friends, including one in particular whom I still meet up with today for practice and conversation. I am more motivated than ever because my Japanese friend’s father owns a company, and my friend invited me to work there. I will probably meet his father when I go to Japan this year, so I need to practice and learn even more Japanese than before.
Currently, I am at a level where I can speak and read at an okay level, but not enough to work in a company in Japan. How about you?
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When I was a little kid I was into anime, and from middle school took a broader interest in other countries and cultures.
After studying Spanish in high school I decided that I liked learning languages and since I was still interested in Japan, chose to major in it when I went to college. After studying abroad I knew Japan was where I wanted to be; I moved back right after college graduation and haven’t looked back since
10 years later I’d consider myself pretty fluent yet still have a ways to go before I can be considered near-native (maybe in another 10 years haha)
Moved here to Japan in 2019 and met my wife and now live here. I really want to be able to talk to my in-laws and be able to do things on my own, such as banking, etc on my own.
I’d say anime and leave it at that, and not gonna lie it was a big part, but the trigger was that I’ll be attending Ado’s concert on Brussels.
Love anime and Japanese culture. My wife too, though she’s more into their culture/food rather than anime.
It’s on our bucket list to visit. I plan to take her within the next few years (we live on just my income so it’s not easy to take big trips).
I’ve also always wanted to learn another language so what better opportunity. And of course I pick one of the most difficult to learn lol.
I’m only less than a month in so I’m just getting my hiragana and katakana memorized. I’m about to start working into Kanji and grammar. On top of this I work and go to school full time. I suppose this is my mid life crisis considering I’m 41.
Anyhow, I plan to surprise my wife with it. Although I’d like to be able to hold a conversation without much trouble before i do. I’m hoping to get there in a year so we will see.
Final Fantasy XI. You didn’t get to choose your server originally and I ended up in a predominately Japanese one. Had to learn in order to not be kicked from even leveling parties because “JP only” was a very strong mindset there at the time.
It’s mostly cause of manga and anime, but also for content.
Like, I’m Brazilian, so I speak Portuguese but most of the content I’m interested in (programming, drawing, animation, gardening, biology, robotics, cooking, etc) is in English. But that’s not all the content there is.
There’s a bunch of content I like that’s in Japanese, and it’s made from a perspective completely different from mine and the ones I’m used to.
Used to have a passion to learn Japanese cause of kanji and thinking it might be easier to pick up as a new language since I speak Chinese. I was around 16-17 but it died off but then pick it back up again around 2 years ago
Before 6th grade summer break of 2018, I want to go to a summer enrichment program. I was mainly there for the agriculture class and decided, “why not learn another language?”. It was only a month and have learned some things such as using chopsticks and also forgotten a lot. It wasn’t until high school registration that I started learning Japanese. Though it was during the start of quarantine—I had to attend full-online learning rather than a hybrid of physical and online. Unfortunately for me, there wasn’t a Japanese course, so I had to study Spanish. Didn’t do well in it. Then again, it had issues and didn’t have motivation. It wasn’t until my family decided to put me into hybrid instead and finally started studying the language. I only started taking it more seriously after Freshmen year.
This is the stupidest reason….
For starters I had a streak on French on Duolingo i wasn’t maintaining easily because I ran out of hearts. I had been watching a Japanese show called Midnight Diner and then I kind of wondered “Gee how hard IS Japanese”
Then I realized I could do Hiragana and Katakana without using hearts and that preserved my streak. Then I started thinking a tiny bit more like “well I love samurai cinema. Let’s see how hard this is”
In a year I have only knocked out half of GENKI 1 but got to level 22 in Wanikani so improving slowly but surely
I def want to pass N5 but then I am really not sure what I will do. I have only some drive to keep memorizing and I am even interested in some Italian which has a lot of French derivatives.
Anyway. Weird story but that is how I got started here. Trying to preserve a Duolingo streak
I’ve moved Japan for 21 years ago. It was my dream ever since my fateful encounter with a new thing my friends had picked up by word of mouth 35 years ago, Japanese Animation. We didn’t really have the Internet or anything to find out about Japan and it was my first exposure to the language. I thought “What is this screwed up language? You’ve got one alphabet looking thing, another one, and all these Chinese Characters”. It looked truly daunting but I was engrossed in a show called Bubble Gum Crisis and this strange writing system. Since we had no subtitles as the only versions were bootleg vhs tapes I vowed one day I would watch the entire series and follow everything. It took years, but I accomplished my dream and moved to Japan permanently.
Got really into a string of Japanese novels over lockdown and became very curious about their translations. I’m a writer and I was curious about the difference between what different languages can express, and the constant challenges of JP>EN translation made me curious about the reading experience which Japanese can impart but English can’t. It’s often subtle, but when you’re a writer those subtleties take on a lot of importance!
I want a Japanese wife.
So I could talk to my nieces who were born and raised in Japan
Initially it was because I wanted to play video games that were released in Japan earlier than in the west but then I started learning about the culture and history and fell in love with in. Now I want to travel to Japan, explore the cities, and talk to people without having to rely on a tour guide.
Mostly from my love of Anime.
I would love to study/work in japan, so far still struggling with it cant even carry basic convo, any tips?
Mine is quite a simple one.. I just like the image and the idea of a me who can speak Japanese.
I watch a lot of Anime, play Japanese video games and travel to Japan every now and then. I just thought might as well try learning Japanese because the exposure is already there.
I wanted to buy the Oshi no Ko physical manga in English, realized it only has 2 volumes and then went on a journey to learn Japanese for the sake of consuming manga in Japanese. Not long after I added watching anime in Japanese to my goals.
Then a kind redditor on this sub DM’d me and we started talking about various things related to the language, after which he introduced me to the concept of watching vtubers to immerse in Japanese.
Now I am hooked to hololive and have added “understanding my Oshi’s” to the list of motives to learn Japanese.
Fun fact, I wanted to study chinese but my collegue conviced me to do jap instead, because i’m more into jap contents. Now I’m continuing just for the glory and also because I’m finding it fun! But in the end I also started chinese 🙂
Have learned multiple languages through my education (at varying proficiency): Dutch, English, French, German and Spanish but they all had the same structure since they’re all in the same region, so the process got me bored.
So I wanted to try an Asian language where I wouldn’t even recognize the letters. Got into anime around the same time, so figured I might as well give Japanese a shot
Started watching Japanese things anime, dramas, etc. Liked all the cool stuff that they would do and would research it, so I became interested in the culture, food, etc. Realised that if I wanted to visit it’d be rude to assume everyone would know English, so started learning so I could travel more effectively I guess
Because there’s a sea of manga that gets neither licensed or pirated and translated and I want to read them. Besides some scanlation groups might simply drop the series you’re reading.
I want to experience different cultures and minds. My native language is Cantonese. I can experience the difference between Chinese and English in terms of the mindset.
Because of this reason, I have learned really slow.
I enjoy learning new languages, and after dipping my toes into a few major European ones, I thought that they are all quite similar, and it would be interesting to learn a language that is completely unrelated to them. Japanese was kind of a random pick, probably because it seemed odd enough from a European’s perspective, while being used by a large democratic nation with a huge economy.
I had never watched any anime or had any interest in Japanese culture. That turned upside down as I started learning the language, now I easily become obsessed with anything Japanese.
I want to watch anime without subtitles
I started listening to Japanese songs then I started being a big fan of some artists and I wanted to understand the lyrics, that’s why I started learning haha
My girlfriend and I has been doing long-distance relationship for quite some time now. So I am learning N5 to get into language school so we can be together. I enjoy Wani Kani a lot.
Went there as an high school exchange student, loved it. The rest is history.
I got annoyed at subpar localizations and constant censorship. Well, that and to play obscure Japanese games.
I had an initial interest in Japanese because of anime and manga but never really enough to commit to learning the language. Then I went for a holiday to Japan in early 2019 and had an absolute blast, the food, the architecture, the culture, the people; I found it all so very interesting and I vowed that when I returned I wanted to be able to explore without needing google translate and to be able to speak with people I meet, make idle conversation with strangers.
I initially tried learning on my own, but didn’t have much success, but then a friend who is also learning introduced me to their tutor and since then I haven’t looked back, I would say I’m really still at the late beginner to early Intermediate level, but I can engage in general conversation, I can express myself (albeit limitedly sometimes) and I can ask questions in conversations and get answers I can usually understand.
Heading to Japan towards the end of February and I cannot wait!
To read the hentai manga raws, plus more options when it comes to search for info.
Very simple but I love reading manga and watching anime.
That’s my main reason!
Main reason is to play games (including nsfw) and listen to japanese asmr.
Then there is anime, novels and other stuff.
Full weeb i guess
Intellectual challenge
Did not give a shit about anime, culture, or whatnot. But it seemed “difficult and interesting”.
It was and still is.
A year in. On accident. I was going to the supermarket and saw an ad. for learning japanese. Thought huh what would u need to know anyway. Googled it and was like oh so i need to learn the katakana and hiragana first. Well that’s just memorization. Thought let me see how well i can self study it and when i get stuck ill join a class. And once that was done i went back and forth with myself on if i should continue or not for 3 months. I decided to just give it my best shot. Then I started RTK and I know people don’t generally like that method but it worked for me. At this point my goal is to master it at jlpt 3 level. And I know somewhere down the line I will live for a year in Japan for a masters or something 😀