Last night the mood was lighter in my five-student Japanese 101 class. More relaxed. And everyone was talking about their upcoming trips to Japan.
“I’m not looking forward to being there in the summer again. It’s even more humid there than here!” said the man I know only as Jason-san*.
“Just be glad it’s cheaper. I’m going this fall and the cheapest flight I could find was two thousand dollars,” Andy-san commiserated. “What about you, Sensei?”
“Not until winter,” said my teacher, a sweet, petite Japanese woman. “I want to show my son how we celebrate the New Year in Japan.”
I listened to everyone’s itineraries with interest, having nothing to contribute myself. I guess it makes sense that the reason all my classmates signed up was to prepare for upcoming trips to Japan. But when I decided to learn Japanese ten weeks ago, it wasn’t for impending travel.
“How old is your daughter, Jason-san?” our teacher asked. Jason is going to stay with his daughter in Japan; that’s why he’s in the class.
“Nineteen,” he replied. “Ever since she saw Sailor Moon it was always her dream to move to Japan, and now she’s done it!”
“Let’s hope she’s not still watching Sailor Moon,” Andy said jokingly.
“No, she is! It turns out Sailor Moon is back on TV and she still loves it.” Everyone had a chuckle at that.
Ten weeks have gone by since I started learning Japanese, and 101 is now over. (But no break for me; Japanese 102 starts next week.) And while I no longer confuse “chi” and “sa,” I still feel very insecure about my reasons for learning it.
Despite Kit’s gentle reminder, on my own blog no less, I still feel like a weeaboo when I talk about how class is going, a topic that never fails to enthuse me. Unless you count the nebulous word “someday,” I have zero plans to travel to Japan. Yet every word feels important to me because it helps me to understand the shows and comics I weirdly love so much.
I just got back my final exam, and even though I did pretty well, I did spell my own name wrong. In both learning the language and accepting my own reasons for doing so, I still have a long way to go.
*Names changed to protect the innocent.
Instagram of my final exam.
12 Comments.
Honestly, if I ever start learning the language my reasoning is the same as yours — manga, anime, an interest in Japanese culture, history and literature as well as a “some day” trip to Japan. Though I think I will do like you and your husband did for your honey moon first — go to Hawaii.
@zoeliddel:disqus Hawaii was pretty cool and it’s a lot easier to travel within the US, but you KNOW I’m dying to visit Japan.
Ditto! But Hawaii, at least for now, seems the easier more affordable thing. Also my airfare here from the west coast might be cheaper than your, also all that sun in the middle of our dark cloudy winter is a wonderful thing.
Hopefully my friend would go with me if I went to Japan. She lived there twice for a total of 7 years. Perfect person to go with. Though, being a teacher she’d probably only be able to go during the summer. I’d prefer cooler, off season months.
I’ve stayed in Japan for about a month (Navy dude here), it really helped rekindle my interest in learning Japanese. Going to restaurants and not knowing how to say or read the Kanji for sushi 寿司 (すし) , chicken 鳥肉 (とりにく), pork 豚肉 (ぶたにく) , or beef 牛肉 (ぎゅうにく), or visiting hobby shops and not knowing how to respond when someone greets you with いらっしゃいませ (irasshaimase) was vastly different from many other Middle-Eastern or Asian countries I’ve visited, where a most people not only speak English, but everything is subtitled in English as well.
I remember going to a conveyer-belt styled sushi restaurant with a few friends and we were unsure how to pay for the meal. We tried asking the server if we paid at the front desk or if we were supposed to wait for a check. The server hard a hard time understanding, nodded, and instead came back with glasses of water for each of us…and we all drank the water just to be polite :P.
That said, I’d like to someday go back and visit without being held back by work; but for now I’m content with learning for the same reasons as most otakus, to watch and understand anime, manga, and video games. It’s a good motivator and despite the negative labels and stereotypes, remember you’re doing more for yourself than the people who think it’s a waste of time. When they do poke fun at you, just say “At least I’m doing something to enhance my education. What languages do YOU know?”.
You’d be surprised at how useful it can be (and how fun) it is to learn such a seemingly difficult language, even if it’s not as common or useful in the US as say, Spanish or whatever. It’s fun being able to pull up the instructions for a vacuum cleaner in front of friends and reading the Japanese text alongside the English text and say “Oh yes this says ‘Black Vacuum’ in Katakana!”
Anyways I started self-studying over a year ago and have some good pointers and advice if you ever need it. Also: Flash cards/Anki is the way to go if you want to kick it up a notch and get a head start with vocab and Kanji for your Japanese 102 class. There’s a few good decks that I recommend and I’ll maybe set up a tutorial sometime when/if I get my blog back up.
@GreatScott84:disqus aww, that’s disappointing that now I have to learn the Kanji for sushi. I thought since it’s just two hiragana it’d be a piece of cake! If you start blogging again, I would love to read about your Japan adventures. Or you can pitch a guest post to me and I’ll publish it here!
Awesome I’ll try to get it updated this weekend and I’ll drop you a link when it’s ready :)
In honor of Apollo 11, I’ll give you a reason to learn Japanese: We choose learn Japanese. We choose to learn Japanese in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
@disqus_VbVsVHmWhd:disqus that’s really meaningful and poetic. Makes me feel a little bit better than “because I like cartoons!!!”
Now I’m in Japanese 102 and it’s going great. It’s such an interesting language that it never feels like work to study.
It sounds even better if you read it with a JFK accent
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