I love Japanese, but there aren’t any courses in my country, so I had to go with Chinese instead. While it’s a cool language, I have no affinity for it.
Since I also have a job and I draw in my free time, I usually only pick up a few words here and there with songs or a sporadic sessions of anki.
Should I just postpone it? I know Japanese takes time and dedication, but I just want to become fluent as I haven’t really got serious with the language in the past years.
If I do want to pursue this, do I have to sacrifice my hobby in order to make room for studying Japanese?
Moreover, Chinese actually helps with the kanji a lot, but obviously there are major differences, so there might be a way to reconcile the two?
What are your thoughts on this?
6 comments
Japanese is not a language you can half-ass your way through. If you’re already busy with college, a part-time job, AND on top of that you’re learning Chinese, I’d advise you to stay the hell away from Japanese for now.
Your life decisions are your own. But I’d say there’s nothing wrong with learning a little bit over time if that’s where your time and/or interest is at.
Do you watch anime? Watching lots of anime in your free time is a great way to get exposure to the language, even if it’s mostly for entertainment. It won’t teach you the language (unless you switch to no subs or Japanese subs, but it sounds like you don’t have the space for actual language study like that right now). But if you learn some basic grammar to get you started, and learn to do some active listening as you read the subtitles, you can develop some listening ability that will give you a head start later on when you have time for actual study.
What are you willing to sacrifice? You get out what you put in.
You should enjoy it or value the outcome of everything you do. If you don’t have time then you should do what’s important at this time.
From what you’re saying it sounds like you are not really vibing with Chinese and even though you think it’s a cool language according to you you are only studying it because there are no Japanese courses in your country.
Japanese and Chinese are very hard languages, and you should never stop your hobbies. My recommendation is that instead you drop Chinese and focus on Japanese as you seem to gravitate more towards Japanese. People stop studying languages all the time (even I have dropped a language after trying it out and not enjoying it as much as I thought) ….if you have the discipline, self study. Everything that can be a learning experience should be a learning experience.
If you enjoy studying Japanese I wouldn’t drop it. Even if you can only study it like an hour a week, if you’re enjoying that keep doing it. Just keep in mind that completely sporadic studying won’t exactly get you too far in terms of actually learning. You’d be better off seeing if you can at least dedicate 15 minutes every day to Japanese, rather than 30 here, an hour later in the week, etc. A set schedule is better than randomness, even if you can only do a little bit each day.
If you do study a little every day now, you might advance slowly, but you will be setting yourself up with a solid foundation after you finish school and have more time to study Japanese.