/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Japanese is easier to learn for Spanish speakers, both phonetically and grammatically. This is widely accepted. However, in my opinion there is almost a genetic predisposition to be able to fluently speak multiple languages at the near-native level. I've seen people who've studied French for years in an academic setting have worse pronunciation than the beginners who happen to "get" French pronunciation. Same thing with Japanese, and in fact any language. You either "get" it, or you don't, and it'll end up sounding very forced.

That's why many beginner's French classes don't start you off right away with pronunciation or grammar. Hell, most instructors even advise against getting a F-E dictionary because it's not really helpful if you don't "get" the language.

Also fan translators are poseurs (I think I said this like, 3x today in 3 different threads). People who are serious about translating need a wider scope of material to translate than manga and anime. It really ticks me off when the so-called "pros" like Daiz and his crew preach about his idea of translations on /a/ as if it were gospel, and that there MUST BE one way to do all translations, and everything is WRONG. 8thsin probably doesn't even have a strong Japanese background, he thinks karuta is hard to understand. They're fucking idealists who probably have never translated anything in the professional capacity. Because if they did, they wouldn't be in fan translation.

That is my personal opinion as a grad linguistics student who has intern'ed at an interpreter agency.

TLDR

Anybody can learn a language, shit is easy if you're committed. What everybody may not be able to obtain is the ability to "get" the language, an intrinsic understanding of the language-- to be able to re-wire your brain to think in that language, rather than to think about it in your native language first, then translating it.