My reasons for learning Japanese are many. The first is that I am passionate about learning foreign languages and linguistics! I already speak a few (French, Spanish, and a little bit of Portugese), but given that they all belong to the same language family, it was not difficult to pick them up. I wanted ameliorate my proficiency in language acquisition by studying a something with a completely different alphabet, syntax, and pronunciation. Secondly, Japanese has a very unique and beautiful sound and I like speaking beautiful languages (hence my fluency French and Spanish)! Thirdly, my best friend is living in Japan starting in 2019 as a part of a global studies program with her university. I want to be able to visit her and travel together without acting like a clueless tourist.
My interest in Japanese media and entertainment preceded my linguistic endeavors. Some of my hobbies and recreational activities intersect with the Japanese language as well. Some video games I play are created by Japanese authors and game developers. Some of my favorite series areりゅうがごとくand Metal Gear Solid. I used to watch a lot of anime, so my friend group has been wanting to learn Japanese since ~5th-6th grade. I am the last one of my friends to learn.
As expected, picking up Japanese is very challenging. Given that its structure is completely different from all the other language I have learned, it is difficult to comprehend logically. The very lenient sentence structure and particles are also daunting; there are many small elements that are easy to confuse or forget. Also, since there are no Latin or Germanic cognates, there is a lot more memorization required. However, I appreciate that the spelling is very intuitive, even if I forget a letter most of the time!
My interest in Japanese media and entertainment preceded my linguistic endeavors. Some of my hobbies and recreational activities intersect with the Japanese language as well. Some video games I play are created by Japanese authors and game developers. Some of my favorite series areりゅうがごとくand Metal Gear Solid. I used to watch a lot of anime, so my friend group has been wanting to learn Japanese since ~5th-6th grade. I am the last one of my friends to learn.
As expected, picking up Japanese is very challenging. Given that its structure is completely different from all the other language I have learned, it is difficult to comprehend logically. The very lenient sentence structure and particles are also daunting; there are many small elements that are easy to confuse or forget. Also, since there are no Latin or Germanic cognates, there is a lot more memorization required. However, I appreciate that the spelling is very intuitive, even if I forget a letter most of the time!
はじめまして。I also share your passion in learning new languages, although mine has been focused more on the East Asian languages. I hope to be fluently trilingual someday in Korean, English and Chinese, and maybe even add Japanese. Portuguese also sounds really interesting to learn!
ReplyDeleteはじめまして Jeffさん。I admire how all the languages you want to learn are so different from each other! がんばってください！
Deleteはじめまして。It's amazing that you can speak so many languages. I can only speak Chinese and English which is still not very frequently. Yeah it's more difficult to learn a language with different logic and basic grammar frame. Japanese is also quite different from Chinese though they share many similar characters and the meanings. But I believe we can learn Japanese well!
ReplyDeleteはじめまして。I admire your ability to speak many languages, even if you say you don't speak them frequently. :) I believe that we can learn Japanese well, too! がんばってください!
Deleteはじめまして.
ReplyDeleteI think we share the same idea that learning another language is truly challenging and also intriguing. My difficulty is memorizations, typically translating Japanese vocabularies from both English and Chinese sometimes cause lots of confusion. However, maybe we can meet up and practice together, knowing and acknowledge others limitations might help a lot. ：）
はじめまして. Yes, studying together sounds like a good idea! Are there are a lot of similar words between Chinese, Japanese, and English? がんばってください!
Deleteはじめまして！わたしは りつめいかんだいがくの がくせいです。Xanさんの かんがえは とてもすばらしいとおもいます。にほんごは ひょうげんが とても あいまい（ambiguous）なので、はなせるように なるのは とてもむずかしいことですが、わたしは おうえんしているので がんばってください！Good luck!
ReplyDeleteはじめまして！わたしはうなくなりたいです. サポートしてくれてありがとう！がんばってください！
Delete