I’m very interested in Japanese, but I live in the US, so not many people speak it. I hope to one day visit Japan and that’s where a lot of my motivation comes from, seeing as it would be rude to visit a country without knowing at least some of the language. I don’t know if it would be a worthwhile endeavor, please let me know what you think, and thank you in advance.
5 comments
Learning a language is never a waste of time, as it’s like exercise for your brain. It’s good for your brain health.
Other thing, it might become an unexpected asset on the job market, you never know.
Also learning one language makes learning another a lot easier
If you have an interest in it, then it’s not a waste of time
Japanese is not really a language like Spanish or French, where you’ll find a lot of different speakers around the world. As other have said though, if you’re interested, it’s hard to “waste” your time learning a language. Just know much of your use of it in America will come through media or Japanese speaking friends, if you make some.
Im in the same situation, no one that speaks Japanese, but I live in the UK. Primarily learning for the time I actually visit Japan, and for work in case I will need it. So i’d say yeah definitely go for it!
I don’t think it’s a waste of time either. You have to do you. I started to study it about 10 years ago and gotten pretty decent for a beginner, then I felt like you. I told myself, “No one speaks it here and it is pointless.”
Now, I am interested again and I’m at the age where I just don’t care about how many speakers are around me. I am into gaming and I wish I kept going because I want to read and listen to untranslated games, manga, and anime. I am thinking I could had been a lot further than what I am now if I just kept going.
They also have very interesting media, such as shows, movies, and other things I want to watch without a poorly translated dub or some don’t have a dub at all.
I would love to travel to Japan one day, but it will be a while. I am a new mother of a 2 and 1 year old and while our income is decent, I don’t think we’d be able to travel for a while.
I also stutter and have a speech impediment. When I speak my native language English, depending on how nervous I am or how much I have to think about something or what I am going to say, I can stutter pretty bad. When I am confident, I don’t stutter hardly at all. It is insulting when I try to order through a drive through and they get a spanish speaking person or another person to speak to deal with me.
So because of that I’m nervous about going to Japan and as a non-native, having to speak over there with stuttering and some broken Japanese, but just as over here, most people are still likely patient over there and will let me speak.