I am a first year student of Japanese Language here at Indian Uni as my major and Archaeology and English as my minor. I ve been looking online and asking others in respective field, about scope of solely graduating in langauge. Translation and Academic other than that I have not found anything reliable and credible profession. Even field of translation and interpretation is not that much static to offer you good pay in India for long run. I have put of going into academia in Japanese language as my one of option for career but I am looking out for other things to do as well which can serve as steady career maybe I have to learn other things as well along with my Japanese language like, CS or something. Would it be helpful?.Ps. I do not come from Well to do family so I cannot bet my time and resources as well on various other things to experiment.
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Well I never found a Japanese-related career really and now I’m a computer programmer, even though I didn’t learn programming till after graduation. But I don’t regret getting a Japanese degree.
I mean CS is not as learning a language, it’s an entire career. It should be your primary focus (and Japanese the second) if you’re going to work on that. Lots of people find it really hard. But yeah, it’s not impossible. Have you ever programmed before? Are you good at math?
English and CS is all your need. Japanese is irrelevant
Before I ended up in a different job, I was going to get my teaching degree in TESOL (with a minor in Japanese). There are several Japanese programs in my state so I could find one either teaching Japanese to foreigners or I could apply to the Japanese school here to teach English. You could also teach English overseas with TESOL degree.
Now I’m an underwriter, so I don’t use it (I work the US market currently). However I want to break into working the international market, where it might be useful.
My point is, do it because you want to. It’s okay I’d you never use it for work.
Edit: TESOL stands die “teaching English to speakers of other languages”. May be listed as something different in yow country / region.
Honestly learning any language as a means to make a “career” is pretty foolish at this point if you see how quickly AI is progressing.
I’d suggest focusing less on what you think might make money and focus more on what you’re interested in or talented at.
I graduated with a double major in business and Japanese. I got a job with a company doing translation and engineering training. All my friends I graduated with who had only a language degree either went into TESOL/Jet program or a non-Japanese job. If you’re looking to make better money, I think it’s better to have a degree in something else and supplement with a language such as Japanese. If it’s something you really love, many people go into translation and interpreting for companies out of college and then freelance after getting some experience and can make some good money. I have no clue how the future of AI is impacting that industry, I don’t do any translation work anymore.
I’m going to go against the grain here.
Ai will make learning a foreign language a good fall back career.
Inter communication between actual humans and understanding cultural differences? Yeah, ai is not capable of that, and likely never will be. Coding will be easily replaceable by comparison.
Also English=japanese translation is HORRIBLE. just genuinely horrible.
It’s hard. I’m in America and I haven’t found a well-paying career. I know that in India, it’s even much more dire, so as much as I hate to say it, you may want to find out what jobs are in demand and pay well relatively, and major in that. It’s great to hear “follow your dreams”, but they don’t tell you that you can’t follow your dreams when you are poor. If you have money, it makes it a lot easier to follow your dreams. At the same time, don’t get into something that you hate, as much of your day will be spent working, do even if you have some money, you can still be miserable. So try to choose something that is in demand and pays well, but which you also don’t hate. Also, I think that a JLPT level N1 with no major in Japanese is worth more than a major in it but without passing the N1. So if you have spare time and love Japanese, you can keep at it on your own and see what happens!
Languages are great to study for cultural and personal growth, but they don’t pay a salary. I would choose something like engineering, computer science, medicine, or math, business, law if those pay well in your country. You can always study Japanese in your free time later.
It sounds like linguistics might interest you. If you’re into coding, computational linguistics is in high demand right now because of all the AI shit, but I can’t guarantee anything; I went into translation ten years ago thinking I was safe and my whole field got automated away last week so I suggest to learn a lot of different things and figure out monetizable ways to put them together.
Languages generally do not ensure a steady or well-paying career if it’s the only skill you have. They can bring some opportunities, but it’s more of a gateway and you generally need another skill.
Have you done research on what jobs are in demand and pay well in your country or the country you would like to work in? That should be the first step before choosing your major and minor at uni.
surprisingly, there are enough people in japan that can speak japanese!!!