# Your reason(s) for learning an east-asian language?



## MrMoney (May 24, 2011)

Hi guys,

I recently read what languages many of the cubers on this forum know/have knowledge of. 

The thing that struck me the most is how so many people want to learn some Chinese/Korean/Japanese/Thai/Vietnamese. How come, guys?

I at not criticizing you, I just cannot grasp why learn a language of a country you can maybe visit very little in your life. If I were to learn chinese and try to speak with Chinese in my community, sure they would be impressed, but just as soon they would call me a white dog. If I speak turkish with Turks on the street, they love it at show great respect. Why learn something that is soooo far away in culture and mannerism?

Thanks


----------



## aronpm (May 24, 2011)

MrMoney said:


> I at not criticizing you, I just cannot grasp why learn a language of a country you can maybe visit very little in your life. If I were to learn chinese and try to speak with Chinese in my community, sure they would be impressed, but just as soon they would call me a white dog. If I speak turkish with Turks on the street, they love it at show great respect. Why learn something that is soooo far away in culture and mannerism?


 
There are several general answers to that, but I think the two biggest are: a love of the culture/language (lots of people like Anime/Manga, for example), and the other reason is a love of language-learning. As an example of the latter, see Moses McCormick on Youtube.

I think your Chinese/Turkish example is a massive generalization though.


----------



## MrMoney (May 24, 2011)

It does not have anything to do with the Chinese being bad or Turkish good, it has to do with the relations on the people. Albanians and Turks have a history together and being able to speak turkish is seen as a very respectable thing. Same thing goes to my Vietnamese friends who speak Chinese, they are also very respected.

But for me to learn Japanese, what? Learning German/Spanish/French would bring me alot further in life and expand my cultural understanding of my surrounding countries.

I am NOT bashing. Thank you for the reply! It is just that when people say: "I have studied Japanese for 1 year now, I speak 3 phrases: I am hungy, I am happy, I am sad" I am like: WTF? Is this really what you have learned in 1 year? Where the f are you going to go with 3 phrases?


----------



## Olji (May 24, 2011)

I started to study Japanese mostly because I like learning languages, and also I'm interested in the Japanese culture
I find languages with different letters more interesting, like Russian that I plan on studying later
My japanese fanboyism prob helped too at the start, before getting the interest for unusal letters


----------



## MrMoney (May 24, 2011)

Thanks Oljibe  I too have seen some Anime, loved it  You really do get into the story after just an episode.

Can you recommend me a serie with about 10 episodes?


----------



## Olji (May 24, 2011)

If you like mystery and thriller, I recommend playing Chaos Head, the VN is way better than the series, its a little gory but the plot is great (not done with it though, had a problem with corrupt saves but solved that rather fast, and the gameplay is between 10-30 hours, depending on how fast you read. I did however watch the first episode on the anime after I got further into the game, that episode was disappointing IMO)

Over to anime, it would be easier if I knew what tags you like (comedy, drama, etc.) send me a PM so we dont clutter the thread ^^


----------



## janelle (May 24, 2011)

For me personally, it's usefulness. I'm surround by a fair amount of Asian culture so I do actually use what I've learned in real life. But if I were to learn say Turkish, for me, I would most likely have no use for it in real life. But I have to say, yeah I do like anime and that is part of the reason why I enjoy (not really the reason why I started) learning Japanese.


----------



## Godmil (May 24, 2011)

Obviously sometimes it's very practical to learn a language, but it can also be done for fun. If someone spent a long time trying to learn a language, but only knows a few phrases, then they're probably just doing it for a hobby (they may find it enjoyable without needing to be good).
For me the closest non-english language is Gaelic, but I hear/see that a lot less than I hear Japanese (due to the films/TV that I watch) and that's on the other side of the world.


----------



## MrMoney (May 24, 2011)

You guys have broadend my view on the subject, thanks! I did not have many of these arguments in mind when I first wrote the topic. Not everyone attempts to learn a language just to be GOOD at it, it can absolutely be a fun hobby to try puzzle out how a language works.

I myself have a few language-courses in my shelf: (German, Serbian, Turkish, Albanian, French, Chinese and English EFL) for different reasons. I lack Spanish though! Can anyone tell me about the major differences in Spanish spoken in Spain and Mexico/Latin America? Are they huge or simply dialects?


----------



## d4m4s74 (May 24, 2011)

I tried to learn Japanese, mostly for geek cred
But I gave up because I have no discipline

I do know a bit of german, french and obviously english because those are the languages of the countries around me, and I'm thinking of learning Turkish because we have a lot of people who speak that language here.


----------



## MrMoney (May 24, 2011)

Türkce ögrenmek istiyor musunuz? Beraber ögrenelim! Ben cok türkce konusabilirim!

Turkish is a lovely language that is sooo simple to learn, you will be amazed! There are few rules and those are STRICT. You never need to think about the right form! It is gender neutral and is agglutinative. It uses latin alphabet+a few more letters. The letters are spoken as written, ALWAYS. It has vowel-harmony that makes it nice to listen to.

Kardes = sibling
-ler = plural
-im = my/I
-le = with

Kardeslerimle = I am with my siblings!

Arkadas = friend
-lar = plural
-ım = my/I
-la = with

Arkadaslarimla = I am with my friends


----------



## Godmil (May 24, 2011)

That does seem pretty cool.


----------



## ElectricDoodie (May 24, 2011)

I do not watch Anime or read Manga. In fact, I hate the Weeaboos in my classes.

I had to take 2 years in a foreign language in my high school. The 3 choices were Spanish, French and Japanese.
I speak fluent Portuguese, and Spanish is too similar, so it would bore me.
I was never interested in French, nor cared. 
Japanese was the most interesting out of the 3, and I wanted a challenge.

I took it all the way to Japanese 4 in high school.
Once I got into college, I started back at Japanese 1, and am now in Japanese 4 (out of 6) trying to get a minor in it. My major is Marketing. I want to work with a company that does business with Japan, or vice versa. I'd love to work for the American side of some Japanese company, such as Sony, Panasonic, Toyota, etc... 

I also wish to live in Japan, for about 1-2 years. Be it through a company who moves me there, or me looking for a job there.

Japan has a very high rate of import and export. And their technology and products are something that the world will almost always be doing business with. Also, Japan is the second richest country in the world. Second to America. So, being in a career where you deal with the top 2, is nice. (I actually think China might have or is passing Japan)


I have been on a year break from school, though, and this is bad... Unlike some other languages that most people take in schools, Japanese cannot easily be practiced. If someone takes Spanish, they can easily turn on a Spanish station, and watch to help them. Especially in Florida, where you will encounter a Spanish person almost everywhere. With Japanese, I have to actively find ways to keep practicing the language. Otherwise, everyday that I don't listen, write, read, or speak it, I am forgetting more and more. This is one reason why I wish I did enjoy Manga or Animes.


----------



## MrMoney (May 24, 2011)

The verbs are usually very short (2-4 letters) and are used as stem for the suffixes. -mek/-mak (vowel harmony) is added to make it the infinitive.

Gelmek - To come
Almak - To take/To buy
Bakmak - To see
Dönmek - To return

-iyor is the suffix that gets glued to the verbstem to make it present tense. You then add the person suffix to tell whom is doing the action.

Geliyorum = I am coming
Alıyorum = I am taking
Bakıyorum = I am seeing
Dönüyorum = I am returning

Vowel harmony plays a role here, we have 4 variants of iyor/uyor/üyor/ıyor. Which one is used depends on the previous vowel!

Di/Ti is used with the verbstem to denote past actions.

Geldim = I came
Aldım = I took
Baktım = I saw
Döndüm = I returned

Di/ti is also in 4 forms and follow the same harmony: di/du/dü/dı and ti/tu/tü/tı

iyordu uses both present and past tense, making it and past continous form!

Geliyordum = I was coming
Alıyordum = I was taking
Bakıyordum = I was seeing
Dönüyordum = I was returning

And plus alot of other forms which will expand your vocabulary tremendous! I think this is a fun language to learn


----------



## collinbxyz (May 24, 2011)

Oljibe said:


> *I started to study Japanese mostly because I like learning languages, and also I'm interested in the Japanese culture*
> I find languages with different letters more interesting, like Russian that I plan on studying later
> My japanese fanboyism prob helped too at the start, before getting the interest for unusal letters


 this is my story...except I didn't finish learning.


----------



## aronpm (May 24, 2011)

MrMoney: http://www.ithkuil.net/ithkuil-intro.htm


----------



## Escher (May 24, 2011)

aronpm said:


> MrMoney: http://www.ithkuil.net/ithkuil-intro.htm


 
While this is very interesting, I am not surprised in the slightest to see a Star Trek reference...


----------



## Cool Frog (May 24, 2011)

ElectricDoodie said:


> I had to take 2 years in a foreign language in my high school. The 3 choices were Spanish, French and Japanese.
> I speak fluent Portuguese, and Spanish is too similar, so it would bore me.
> I was never interested in French, nor cared.
> Japanese was the most interesting out of the 3, and I wanted a challenge.


 
You live in Florida, I live in Florida
Your school offered Spanish, Portuguese, French, Japanese. My school offers Spanish, and French
WHY? ;.;

My Spanish teacher says that if you want to do good in business you should learn Mandarin Chinese.
I really love China's history and their peoples history. For my AP class we had to memorize the order of all the dynasties since any one of them could come up as an essay question really fun learning about China. Wish i could have learned more.


----------



## Zarxrax (May 24, 2011)

Lots of people, especially within my family, are always saying "why are you learning something you will never use like Japanese?? Why not learn something useful, like Spanish?"

Look, if you are going to dedicate hundreds, nay, thousands of hours of your lifetime towards learning something, then I would damn well hope that its something you enjoy.
The simple fact is, I could never learn Spanish, because I have absolutely zero interest in learning it.
Japanese on the other hand, has an absolutely amazing and interesting culture, and puts out lots of interesting entertainment media. So in my view, the choice was clear.


----------



## aronpm (May 24, 2011)

Cool Frog said:


> I really love China's history and their peoples history. For my AP class we had to memorize the order of all the dynasties since any one of them could come up as an essay question really fun learning about China. Wish i could have learned more.


You can teach yourself if you're really interested


----------



## MalusDB (May 24, 2011)

Well the reason I am learning Swedish is because i met a Swedish girl and I'm living with her. Its a fun language and I would recommend it  Not that hard either, especially considering I have little experience with any other languages apart from French, Irish and of course English. Although i have to admit your 3 extra vowels are hard to pronounce at times haha. DAMN YOU "ö".


----------



## Olji (May 24, 2011)

MalusDB said:


> Well the reason I am learning Swedish is because i met a Swedish girl and I'm living with her. Its a fun language and I would recommend it  Not that hard either, especially considering I have little experience with any other languages apart from French, Irish and of course English. Although i have to admit your 3 extra vowels are hard to pronounce at times haha. DAMN YOU "ö".


 
Lol, what I know Swedish isnt an east asian language... but if it is, then I understand when people call me asian, even though I dont even look like one x)
haha, new vowels is the ****, you had no problems with the "sj" sound? I found out that spanish people have problem with it, awesome letting them try a swedish "sj" exercise o-o


----------



## Cool Frog (May 24, 2011)

MalusDB said:


> Well the reason I am learning Swedish is because i met a Swedish girl and I'm living with her. Its a fun language and I would recommend it  Not that hard either, especially considering I have little experience with any other languages apart from French, Irish and of course English. Although i have to admit your 3 extra vowels are hard to pronounce at times haha. DAMN YOU "ö".


 
My Friends mom is Swedish and her daughter speaks it (She is like 3) so I picked up on some few words.
Like, Plukkup (Sorry for my horrible abuse of the language =/) neigh, and a few other commanding words.

I have to say though, I really think I pronounce the words rather accurately.


----------



## ElectricDoodie (May 24, 2011)

Cool Frog said:


> You live in Florida, I live in Florida
> Your school offered Spanish, Portuguese, French, Japanese. My school offers Spanish, and French
> WHY? ;.;


 No, they don't offer Portuguese. I said only 3 languages were choices.
I'm Brazilian, so I already knew that one.

And I live in Broward County, by the way.


----------



## shelley (May 24, 2011)

So I can communicate with my family. I for one can't see myself wanting to learn Turkish. It's just sooo far away in culture and mannerisms, and it's not like I'm going to visit that area very much in my life.

See? It goes both ways. Are you really unable to see the reason someone might want to learn one language over another? Just expand your world view a little.


----------



## Zarxrax (May 24, 2011)

MalusDB said:


> especially considering I have little experience with any other languages apart from French, Irish and of course English.


 
Wait, wait wait.
Irish is a language?
I totally didn't know this.


----------



## Erzz (May 24, 2011)

Learning Korean due to StarCraft scene there.


----------



## collinbxyz (May 24, 2011)

Zarxrax said:


> Lots of people, especially within my family, are always saying "why are you learning something you will never use like Japanese?? Why not learn something useful, like Spanish?"
> 
> Look, if you are going to dedicate hundreds, nay, thousands of hours of your lifetime towards learning something, then I would damn well hope that its something you enjoy.
> The simple fact is, I could never learn Spanish, because I have absolutely zero interest in learning it.
> Japanese on the other hand, has an absolutely amazing and interesting culture, and puts out lots of interesting entertainment media. So in my view, the choice was clear.


 
I definitely love the manga and anime <3
And there's nothing hard to pronounce except maybe desu and the 'tsu' sound. I guess there's nothing I will need it for at the moment, but maybe when I'm older. It's just fun.


----------



## cubeslayer (May 24, 2011)

Hmm, I like learning earstern languages ( more specifically, Eurasian languages ---arabic, urdu, pashto,hindi). Why, b/c I watch programs and listen to the music of these various languages. For my parents, knowing four languages is the norm . That said, I've grown up in Cali where there is spanish and english---so something more traditional like I mentioned makes me feel unique amongst all these spanish speakers (no hate...I still watch spanish programs the same way I do some american programs ---I see the chick speaking , and I hear her, but nothing is equated or makes any sense).


----------



## Sa967St (May 24, 2011)

Zarxrax said:


> The simple fact is, I could never learn Spanish, because I have absolutely zero interest in learning it.
> Japanese on the other hand, has an absolutely amazing and interesting culture, and puts out lots of interesting entertainment media. So in my view, the choice was clear.


Funfact: Spanish and Japanese words have very similar pronunciations. 

I speak mostly Japanese at home, because I picked it up from my mom when I was young and she doesn't speak English very well. Even if I didn't learn it back then I would probably eventually learn it for fun/interest. The writing is easier (in hiragaga/katakana) because the characters are based on fixed sounds and there are only 5 vowel sounds (in English there are ~15). Every character has only one way of pronouncing it (with ~5 exceptions) so you can't go wrong with misspelling or mispronouncing words. I'm not interested in manga or anything where it would be useful, it's just a cool language that allows me to think in new ways.


----------



## Clayy9 (May 25, 2011)

Does anyone have a good source to learn Japanese (preferably free and online)? I haven't read the other language thread yet, so I'm sorry if this should go there.


----------



## aronpm (May 25, 2011)

Clayy9 said:


> Does anyone have a good source to learn Japanese (preferably free and online)? I haven't read the other language thread yet, so I'm sorry if this should go there.


 
http://sites.google.com/site/soyouwanttolearnalanguage/japanese

There's a compilation of some resources.


----------



## Forte (May 25, 2011)

I just find it fun


----------



## AvidCuber (May 25, 2011)

I speak Vietnamese because my parents were born in Vietnam and are sort of carrying down the culture.

Actually, I know many people my age (high school) whose parents are of (East) Asian countries and their kids speak the language as well.


----------



## satellitedanny (May 25, 2011)

Well, I know how to read and write in mandarin. Now I just need to learn how to speak it; it is the first most spoken language in the world after all! Also good ways to learn is to find a friend who knows how to speak and ask him/her to speak it around you so that you can pick up the language. Another good way is to get the Pimsleur MP3 files off a well known P2P website.


----------



## satellitedanny (May 25, 2011)

Zarxrax said:


> Wait, wait wait.
> Irish is a language?
> I totally didn't know this.


I think another word for Irish is Gaelic.


----------



## Edward (May 25, 2011)

I want to learn japanese because that's where some of my favorite media comes from. I... only loosely care about the culture and I only plan on visiting Japan for a short time. I really just like they're cartoons/music/books. Also japanese is a purty language


----------



## Edward (May 25, 2011)

Clayy9 said:


> Does anyone have a good source to learn Japanese (preferably free and online)? I haven't read the other language thread yet, so I'm sorry if this should go there.


 
Koichi (From Tofugu) has some really nice stuff. I like him. Check his older posts for some good links. Also he has a textbook (not free, but decently cheap) that looks pretty damn legit. I trust him.

http://www.tofugu.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/tofugu


----------



## Jungleterrain (May 25, 2011)

MrMoney said:


> I myself have a few language-courses in my shelf: (German, Serbian, Turkish, Albanian, French, Chinese and English EFL) for different reasons. I lack Spanish though! Can anyone tell me about the major differences in Spanish spoken in Spain and Mexico/Latin America? Are they huge or simply dialects?



I am from Chile, born in Argentina, have Mexican, Salvadorian, Guatemalan, Peruvian Cuban, and White friends that speak Spanish. I have some friends which have been to Spain, as well.
The main difference in Spanish between these countries is the same as can be found in English. These are the regional pronunciations, phrases, and accents, which can be heard(and sometimes seen in written language) in the different "dialects" which exist today. For someone whose native language is English, it is quite easy to differentiate the accents and regional expressions between someone from England, the South(US), Boston, Midwest US, Canada, Australia, etc. In Spanish, it is basically the same.

However, I think there are more regionalisms in Spanish than in English, since every Spanish speaking country has developed its own "dialect" ever since el Castellano(Spanish) was introduced to the Americas and nations gained their independence from colonial rule in the early 1800's. This regionalism has been further accelerated by the use of mass media. For example, when I lived in Santiago, Chile, my friends and I would always yell "Que vacán!" to denote that something was "cool" or "awesome". Another example is that in Chile, people tend to say "Que penca" when they think something is lame. I still use the term "Que penca" to this day. I asked my Peruvian friend if he had ever heard of such a thing, and he told me that he had not(Peru is adjacent to Chile).

In Spain, some pronounce the "z" like "th" in the word "thump". I once heard an Argentinean man say "seguíme" instead of "sigueme"(although one example should not lead one to generalize an entire population, I have enough experience with Spanish to back up this claim). Chileans also say "choclo" to refer to corn, when other Spanish speakers would say "maíz" or "(forgot what else, but my Salvadorian friends have another name for this)". Also, we say, "pasto" for grass, while Mexicans usually call it "zacate(not sure how to spell this since I don't use the word)". I could go on for ages.

In conclusion, there are many regionalisms in Spanish. Too many even for fluent Spanish speakers to keep track of. Every day, Spanish,influenced by cultures in different countries is developing in a different manner. I would like to point out that "Mexico/Latin America" should be divided into so many more subgroups of different dialects. However, the differences in these regionalisms are not great enough to seriously impede communication between, let's say, a Mexican Spanish speaker and a Spanish Speaker from Spain, or any other place.


----------



## Zubon (May 25, 2011)

If you are interested in Japan and Japanese culture, it can be quite fun to speak Japanese. 

But if you want to learn a language that will help you in business or getting a job and one that you can actually use to speak to people, I would learn Mandarin Chinese. Compared to a lot of languages, Japanese is really quite useless.

As most cubers are very visual people and there are many of us who are interested in visual memory methods for blind solving, languages that use Kanji/Hanzi might be interesting to learn. Japanese have less characters in total when compared with Chinese, but Japanese have so many different ways to read characters and hundreds of exceptions which means that Chinese characters are easier for many people to master.


----------



## MrMoney (May 25, 2011)

Thank you, this helped alot  I hope to learn some spanish one day! My dream is to be able to speak French, Spanish & German to some degree


----------



## tnk351 (May 12, 2018)

Bump
Cuz i live there.


----------



## Tong Haiwu (Jun 21, 2018)

MrMoney said:


> Hi guys,
> 
> I recently read what languages many of the cubers on this forum know/have knowledge of.
> 
> ...


As a Chinese, I want to learn English well because even in China, many good jobs (some multinational companies) require fluent English.
By the way, those Chinese who speak white dogs on the Internet are very impolite. Most Chinese are still very humble, especially young people who have received higher education.


----------

