When I was studying abroad in Japan I noticed that there were 2 types of people in our intensive language programs.
1.Those that wanted to gain mastery of the language to live and work in Japan.
2. The people who just wanted to PASS with the bare minimum and have fun.
At first, I was obsessed with learning Japanese but after so much cramming it felt like an insurmountable obstacle.
And, after living and working in Japan I just felt like I couldn’t really *live live* there.
So eventually… I lost the motivation to become proficient and stayed at N4 for the longest time with my conversational Japanese– while everyone around me advanced to N2 and N1.
Now, I just want to learn Japanese for fun– no lofty goal or objective. If I could just get to N3 level conversational without too many pauses that would be great.
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So what’s motivating you to learn this *crazy* difficult language?
4 comments
That I want to live there and work there again is essentially the main motivator for me. But I also really like the language. One day, I want to be able to read Murakami Haruki’s books in Japanese.
Lately I have been really struggling with motivation though as it has been near 3 years since I last visited Japan, most of my Japanese friends moved back home and I am unable to take the JLPT exam due to backlog/limited spaces in London.
I started to watch anime again and am reading books in Japanese and that keeps me motivated for now. It is also just nice to have a hobby that involves learning since I miss being at uni.
Edit: Why do you not see yourself living in Japan (totqlly can see many reasons btw, just wondering) if you dont mind me asking?
I like studying Japanese.
Why?
I like studying (in general)
I also like studying deep engrossing topics. So there ya go.
The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. ^^^hentai
I just want to watch anime and read manga in Japanese. That’s all really. Reading subtitles is annoying and reading manga in English just feels wrong. I’ve always liked learning languages and I always wanted to learn Chinese or Japanese because of their difficulty and when I watched Attack on Titan years ago I liked the sound of Japanese a lot so I decided to learn it. I’m halfway done, why stop now? Especially with a lot of good anime on the horizon. (I guess I’ve finally become a weeb)