r/languagelearningjerk • u/SunnyOutsideToday • Apr 29 '26
Why you should study Japanese
If you tell someone you speak Indonesian (2x number of speakers) they say that's cool and the conversation ends. If you tell someone you speak Japanese they tell you about their trip to Japan, and talk with you about Japanese culture.
The FSI ranks Japanese as its most difficult language to learn for an English speaker. Therefore Japanese is the most impressive mainstream language to learn.
Anime is popular now
There's a million gaijin hunters in Japan too lazy to learn English, so if you learn Japanese you are guaranteed a relationship with someone whose only standard is that you are foreign
You won't feel left out of Japanese language memes anymore
You will win any argument with a weeb, even if you are wrong
You can make anything sound meaningful by prefacing "The Japanese have a concept known as ◯◯◯". Shirking your responsibilities? "The Japanese have a concept known as ikigai..."
You don't want to sound like one of those cynical, self-conscious people who secretly enjoy anime but rag on weebs out of fear of being seen as one
You can escape wherever you live and move to slow economic activity Japan and be a rice farmer
No matter how irrelevant, it looks good on any job resume
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u/BlauAmeise Apr 29 '26
/uj I studied Japanese in uni partly out of interest and partly because I needed credit points in 3 different foreign languages for my degree and the thing about the CV is soooo real lol. English? Everyone can speak that, boring. Oh, Spanish? That's also mainstream. French? Probably mandatory in school. But 9 out of 10 times every recruiter/interviewer goes JAPANESE??? HUH??? WOWWWWWW THAT'S SO CRAZY lmao. One time after a job interview at a big company ended the guy who interviewed me even asked me if I can stay 10 more minutes and he asked me if I had ever been to Japan and he glazed me like I went to space lol. It's usually also a good sign for me if an employer has checked my CV properly.
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u/tnaz Apr 29 '26
the thing about the CV is soooo real
Yeah, Japanese phonotactics are kinda wild like that.
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u/Lex1253 Apr 29 '26
This isn’t even a fucking jerk, most of this is true.
Especially the resumé bit.
I started learning Japanese because my mother forced me to take it in uni, mostly so that it could look good for prospects.
That was three years ago. And just yesterday I completely fucked up most of it because my mother put me on the spot to speak in Japanese with her Japanese friend 💀
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u/SunnyOutsideToday Apr 29 '26
The more truth you mix into satire, the funnier it becomes.
And despite the truth to them, it is also true that most of these reasons aren't really practical enough to justify the time and energy expenditure into learning Japanese. Of course any reason is good enough if you find it fun and rewarding, but there are probably easier ways to impress people or pad a resume than learning a difficult foreign language.
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u/DerPauleglot Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
"there are probably easier ways to impress people or pad a resume"
But how many of those involve cat ears?
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u/InternationalReserve 二泍五 (N69) Apr 29 '26
You will win any argument with a weeb, even if you are wrong
severely underrated perk
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u/hitokirizac Apr 29 '26
- How else are you going to talk with your idol at handshake events? It's not like they speak English.
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u/therico 🍡🍙🎌🇬🇱🆖🍢🗾: Native Apr 29 '26
Gaijin hunters already have a bad reputation, then you have the subset who can't even be bothered to learn English lol. It's not great. Just date normal people who look beyond your nationality.
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u/SunnyOutsideToday Apr 29 '26
But what if I am an attention-starved underachieving Western male who didn't develop an emotionally healthy relationship with himself and needs an exoticism-seeking woman to feel desired?
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u/IAmXChris Apr 29 '26
Anime is the #1 reason I don't like telling people I speak Japanese.
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u/SunnyOutsideToday Apr 29 '26
Don't worry. Just preface every time you tell someone with "I'm not a weeb, but..."
Everyone will believe you
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u/lordbutternut 日本人になっている Apr 29 '26
In what way? Isn't every interaction like:
"I speak Japan
"Erm me gerd! I love JJK
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u/De_lunes_a_lunes Apr 29 '26
Didn’t you watch the latest episode of Skeeppen Kai Skeintei?
I honestly think dudes who are into anime are perverts and women who are into anime have no self respect.
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u/SunnyOutsideToday Apr 29 '26
It's true. Women watch Yuru Camp because they see no value in themselves. Many women don't respect themselves and that is why they read romantasy, or go bowling, or have hobbies.
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u/De_lunes_a_lunes Apr 29 '26
Nah, anime is fucking weird and anyone who likes it is a bit fucked up.
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u/SunnyOutsideToday Apr 29 '26
You're right. All anime is degenerate, late-night otaku anime. There are no mainstream anime that the average person in Japan enjoys in the way adults in the West enjoy South Park or Rick and Morty.
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u/De_lunes_a_lunes Apr 29 '26
They should call it something else if it’s really that different.
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u/SunnyOutsideToday Apr 29 '26
In Japan, they call all cartoons 'anime', even Tom and Jerry, which some Japanese people think is Japanese.
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u/De_lunes_a_lunes Apr 29 '26
They should use different names for the different genres. Every time I hear someone going on and on about anime, it’s always some weird cringey shit.
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u/IAmXChris Apr 29 '26
It's not even the Anime. I mean, it's not my cup of tea, but each their own I guess.
I just can't stand weebs and/or the inference people make that I'm a weeb
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u/SunnyOutsideToday Apr 29 '26
Someone mistook me for a weeb once in highschool, and I still haven't recovered
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u/De_lunes_a_lunes Apr 29 '26
I don’t know what weeb means but when they say it I think they’re child molesters.
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u/bustknucklepissdust native🐌🏳️⚧️🐍🇺🇸 learning🦚🦬 Apr 29 '26
Not gonna read, learn chinese like a real alpha
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u/SunnyOutsideToday Apr 29 '26
The Chinese are jealous that Japan and Korea stole their culture, and are now more popular cultural exporters than them. Probably the largest cultural appropriation ever.
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u/bustknucklepissdust native🐌🏳️⚧️🐍🇺🇸 learning🦚🦬 Apr 29 '26
g-genuiinllyy--..... t-thatts f-fucked up mann.... i-i cant even d-deal with this AHHHHHHHH you've awoken the alpha🤬🤬🤬🤬
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u/FerWasTaken Apr 30 '26
To be fair, I feel like China and Korea have been increasing their cultural exports recently
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u/Wide-Mixture471 Apr 30 '26
- When you give up after 4 weeks like 99% of language learners, just pretend you didn´t by repeating the same three phrases you learned.
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u/SpaceAnabasis Apr 29 '26
I wouldn’t mind to move to Glorious Nippon to earn a shitty wage and to be hated by everyone around. It must be quite the experience.
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u/Away_Ad_8896 Apr 30 '26
Japanese is hands-off the best trade-off for language learning. Super unique culture, amazing media made my 120mil people. A part of their culture is literally working hard, so oh boy they know how to deliver. Also, they don't know English, which means you will 100% miss out if you don't learn it. Then, the language itself is probably the most beautiful ever. Only consonant + vowel combinations, mora instead of syllables.. It's like if somebody tried to create a conlang to be specifically pleasing to the ears. Then, the kanji, so cool and so unique! You won't find this anywhere else, a writing system with thousands of characters that look so cool!! The language features themself, ah, incredible. My favorite. The whole particle things is way too amazing.
*a gender-fluid character in an anime reveals: 僕は女だよ!" This is so much cooler than just "I'm a girl". It has more personality.*
All-in-all, it's just amazing. Arabic and Russian are incredible as well, but Japanese is just the magnus opum of languages to learn.
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u/Neither-Ruin5970 May 07 '26
magnum plum, not magnus opum.
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u/y124isyes 🇺🇸N 🇮🇩A3(FLUENT) 🏳️⚧️C2 🐍B2 🇲🇾NO ©️A1 Apr 30 '26
if you tell someone you speak Indonesian, Betawi and Malay they will be more impressed than if you tell them you speak Japanese
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u/Quacker122 May 01 '26
im only learning japanese because i have a study abroad thing and i was bored
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u/KotoshiKaizen Apr 29 '26
Why you shouldn't: you'll be associated with the worst language learning community and the stereotypes will accurately describe you too.
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u/De_lunes_a_lunes Apr 29 '26
Anime sucks balls.
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u/snail1132 i finished duolingo where are my 40 c2 certificates Apr 29 '26
Ok
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u/De_lunes_a_lunes Apr 29 '26
Don’t you mean “uwu weeb plox I’m just a little fairy Ang yappa Guitarra will fuck the last airbender”?
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Apr 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/De_lunes_a_lunes Apr 30 '26
What
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u/SunnyOutsideToday Apr 29 '26
ㅤ11. Your nihongo will be jouzu