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The future of Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 25 of 46 30 September 2010 at 2:50am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Strongly disagree. This might apply to you, but certainly not to everyone. There sure are a lot of people these days writing that if it's not fun you can't learn it. The Korean would be miffed. Maybe I'll start a thread about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 26 of 46 30 September 2010 at 11:38am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The main difference between Japanese and Chinese right now seems to me as an outsider to be that the influence and economical power of China is on the rise, while that of Japan isn't.
For both their writing systems have been a barrier for most Westerners (though an allure for the select few), but with electronical gadgets doing the bulk job of decrypting those pittoresque signs that factor will be less important. Seen from a perspective of population size and territory you would have expected that Chinese would have been the dominant language in the Orient, with Japan being a fringe language. But after the 2. world ar Japan was opened up, where China buried itself in a selfinflicted Maoist isolation. Since Teng Xiao-Ping China has however been following in the footsteps of Japan, but with far larger natural ressources and a far larger population behind it. Actually the only thing that could stop China right now would be a relapse into maoism. You may ask: why didn't China become a linguistic world power long ago? Well, the Chinese rulers actually didn't try (and even now it seems that they favor English for outside contacts, rather than spreading their own Mandarin language). There was a brief period where China sent massive fleets around Asia and even Africa, but this was deliberately stopped. And the expanse of Chinese since then has mainly been tied to Chinese communities spreading all over the world ... and even this unsystematic way of spreading the Chinese language has not been entirely unsuccessful, witness the many "Chinatowns" around the world. The first really big departure from that line was the occupation of Tibet, which has however only has had a limited effect on the outside world. But potentially China could have been stretching all over South East Asia long ago if its emperors had really wanted that. I have read about some lost battles against the Vietnamese - but in the long run even the Vietnamese emperors couldn't have stopped an expansionist China. Japan was actually even more isolated until the mid 1800s, and its attempt to spread its influence by brute force lead to defeat. Without technical prowess and mangas only a very limited number of real aficionados would learn Japanese today. But exactly those two factors gave it a headstart in the second half of the 1900s. Edited by Iversen on 30 September 2010 at 11:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6473 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 27 of 46 30 September 2010 at 11:50am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The Korean attributes his own success in large part to motivation. I guess when I speak of "love" and "fun" I really mean motivation; my point is, I think very few people will be able to maintain the motivation necessary to learn Japanese unless they love it or they have no choice but to learn it.
Disagree. Those picturesque signs would be a big pain to read that way for any significant length -- far easier than without the gadgets, but still not actually easy, because you can't read a sentence fluidly unless you already know the kanji or can guess them from context. Kanji will always be a significant barrier to learning either language. Edited by furrykef on 30 September 2010 at 11:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 28 of 46 30 September 2010 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
That is a gross oversimplification. Your average Japanese or Korean person does not hate the Chinese. They may be wary about eating Chinese-made Gyoza and they may think that most Chinese people have bad manners, but that's a long way from hatred. Millions of Japanese and Koreans have started learning Mandarin over the past decade to take advantage of the opportunities that China offers. There is a case to be made that Chinese people hate the Japanese, but even that would be an oversimplification. And despite the hatred that does exist, millions of Chinese people, especially in Northeastern China, have learned Japanese in order to take advantage of economic opportunity. recap: Japanese and Koreans hate Chinese? Rarely. Chinese hate Japanese? Sometimes. All of these groups willing to learn another's language for economic opportunities? YES 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Sybok Newbie United States Joined 5170 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Greek | Message 29 of 46 30 September 2010 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I almost did, since the university I was going to go to offered a fancy dual major in business and Japanese - I live in Detroit and there are a lot of Japanese business that is done around here 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 30 of 46 02 October 2010 at 2:12am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Why?
Totally agree.
Totally disagree. You have listed only 2 motivations for someone to learn languages, and claim very few people will be able to learn without them. You underestimate people. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6473 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 31 of 46 02 October 2010 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Because I think for 99% of the people here, that's the only thing that will motivate them enough.
I think all we can really do is agree to disagree on this. It may indeed be the case that my opinion is not well founded, but until I see evidence to the contrary, I doubt I'll ever come across somebody who mastered (not just "speaks somewhat", but mastered) both spoken and written Japanese and didn't have one of those two motivations behind their mastery. I will make a slight amendment to my assertion, though: I do think somebody who doesn't particularly love the language, but does love Japanese culture (most likely more specific than just one thing, like anime), I can imagine them having success. The less they like the language, though, the less likely that success will be. That said, a lot of people who think they love Japanese culture may find that they don't love it as much as they thought they did once they find out the hard way what they have to go through in order to read and communicate in Japanese. :) Edited by furrykef on 02 October 2010 at 4:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| jtdotto Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5230 days ago 73 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, German | Message 32 of 46 08 October 2010 at 6:40am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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My perspective is incredibly biased, but I think Korean is gaining the chic factor Japanese had in the 80s and 90s
because of Kpop and dramas - especially in other Asian countries. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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