Japanese worth it?

[Anonymous No.23102442]

I was wondering if learning Japanese would be worth it to learn from the standpoint of literature. Are there enough texts that are actually interesting? Is the language itself actually interesting? Anyone here who learned it and can elaborate?

[Anonymous No.23102455]

no one learns it past a beginner level. you have to study for years just to read the entry level stuff

[Anonymous No.23102465]

>>23102442
You can learn the history of Japan and japan on a essential level with their own words.
No barriers.
No linguistic/cultural misunderstandings.
Just straight to the source.
That's one reason to learn japanese.
You can actually understand the Japanese in a core level with their own cultural books, something you can't do with not learning, since you have to rely on translation.
Also, there is A LOT of books that don't even get translated, more than you can imagine in fact.

[Anonymous No.23102466]

If you're a weeb who likes anime and manga then you should learn Japanese

[Anonymous No.23102477]

As a Japanese grad I'll keep it simple, there's no way a person learns it on their own and some bullshit once a week lessons won't help you much either. Don't waste your time on it

[Anonymous No.23102487]

>>23102442
As a Japanese speaker, I would say no. The thing is Japanese reads like a bunch of incomplete sentences, so even when its "beautiful" it still sounds broken to me. It also doesnt help that most literature older than 300 years was written in kuzushiji, a type of cursive that less than 1% of native Japanese speakers can read. So even if you find something interesting from the year 809 or something you wont be able to read it. I translated a Japanese short story that was 300 years old and it was a pain in the ass.

Japanese is a language for living in Japan, reading manga, and finding a waifu. It's not for classic literature. You're better off learning French.

[Anonymous No.23102489]

>>23102487
Do they not have modernised texts?

[Anonymous No.23102492]

>>23102489
Yes.
They do in fact have modernised texts, so modern Japanese people understand, since they can't even themselves read old Japanese that easily.
So i don't know why that person is saying that.

[Anonymous No.23102496]

>>23102492
What is the public domain situation like?
If I wanted to read an edo era text am I stuck with scans of an edo era document and nothing more or will I have a text file available?

[Anonymous No.23102497]

>>23102496
I mean.
You can find an old text, for example like the Kojiki that easily.
The problem is more so reading it, than finding it.
So you either try to do it, or find a modern version with some commentary, or just a modern version.
But you can find it pretty easily on the Japanese internet.
In some websites and these things.

[Anonymous No.23102501]

>>23102442
There are plenty of untranslated Japanese books.
That said, even Japanese people can't read some of their Classics and they use translations to modern Japanese.

[Anonymous No.23102525]

>>23102442
Wanting to read "interesting texts" has to be the dumbest, most autistic reason to learn another language.

[Anonymous No.23102528]

>>23102525
this is lit, for people with an interest in literature.

[Anonymous No.23102638]

>>23102442
Kinda related, how different is the extent of japanese research on humanities when compared to western sources? For example history, do they have more books written about Chinese history for example than in English? Any other similar topics that they might have covered in more detail than English sources, besides their own culture?

[Anonymous No.23103167]

>>23102442
>Anyone here who learned it and can elaborate?
>from the standpoint of literature
No, their literature isn't worth it. It's extremely mediocre and shallow, and nearly all of the major works have a focus on Mono no Aware; in other words, Japanese literature is full of YA-tier "deep" fiction. That's not to say that there aren't some great books out there, but definitely not enough to justify learning the language for them, especially not when it takes so much more effort to learn than say French or Spanish. Japanese poetry on the other hand is incredible. Only, you'll still have to debate on whether or not you're willing to dedicate so much time to learning a language just to figure that out in the first place. Translations do not and never will convey the beauty of Japanese poetry, so there's not really a way for you to check it out beforehand to see if you like it enough to learn the language for.
>Are there enough texts that are actually interesting?
Yeah, there are plenty, but they aren't novels.

[Anonymous No.23103668]

>>23103167
>Translations do not and never will convey the beauty of Japanese poetry
They do and it's relatively unimportant for say, Basho, whose essence is effectively translated into English with some notes for context.

In fact there aren't many examples where English doesn't have the verbal ability to portray a Japanese work's beauty.

[Anonymous No.23103671]

>>23103167
>Yeah, there are plenty, but they aren't novels.
t illiterate in japanese.

[Anonymous No.23104148]

>>23102442
I think so, there's a lot of good stuff in Japanese that isn't translated in English.

[Anonymous No.23104307]

learn french instead

[Anonymous No.23104310]

>>23102525
What is a good reason to learn another language then? Other than living in the country

[Anonymous No.23104354]

>>23102442
They have some good stuff, the problem is Japanese vocabulary changes a lot every 50 or so years, and going from 0 JP knowledge to modern JP would probably take as much time as going from current JP to reading Soseki smoothly. It's just a huge pain in the ass, read translations

[Anonymous No.23104739]

>>23104310
Wanting to read untranslated hentai, obviously. (Which has at least been a nice fringe benefit of learning Japanese lol)

[Anonymous No.23104759]

>>23102487
>Japanese is a language for living in Japan, reading manga, and finding a waifu.
Lmao how short and bald are you that you had to learn this entire language just to read le manga and racemix with le bug

[Anonymous No.23104790]

If you find Japanese culture, Shinto, and Buddhism to be super cool, then yeah there's tons of stuff. If you're like the average /jp/ fag who learns Japanese so he can give money to some dude pretending to be an anime girl or are a tradlarper or something then no, there's nothing interesting. It's an entirely separate culture from your own with values that are in many ways radically different, if you go in expecting things to be like how they are in the West then you'll be very disappointed. You have to go into it being interested in Japanese stuff.

[Anonymous No.23104794]

Not remotely worth it. Too long to reach fluency and not enough depth in media and literature. Unless you are living there permanently, there is absolutely zero reason to learn the language.

[Anonymous No.23104806]

>>23104307
Or Russian

[Anonymous No.23106071]

>>23102477
I learnt it to fluency on my own, along with many other languages. Don't listen to this demoralisation shill

[Anonymous No.23106089]

>worth it?
I suggest you shouldn't learn a new language only if you are willing and seriously do it for something important. So the answer is no, it's not worth learning more than 2 languages. That's why translations and subtitles exists.

[Anonymous No.23106536]

>>23104310
Japanese is probably the most spoken language outside the West with the potential to offer perspectives from a society that is more productive and insightful than that of most other places.

Japanese and Korean are the 2nd most studied foreign languages in multiple nations throughout East and Southeast Asia, imaginably in large part due to all the anime and K-Pop fanatism likley.

[Anonymous No.23106586]

>>23102442
Only worth it for the literature if you're an absolute autist who has an irrational lust towards the history of Japan, its culture and religion. If you can see yourself dedicating months/years to learning the several different old versions of the language, and that on top of becoming fluent in the modern language, all just to read shitty obscure books made centuries to over a milennia ago, which are only preserved as images on the website of some obscure faggot website of a Japanese university, then the language is for you. As far as I know modern Japanese novels aren't any good, so if you want interesting things to read then you're limited to a few classics, and a whole bunch of obscure documents that will give you a slightly better understanding of old Japanese society. Oh, and if you're a linguisticsfag then you can comfort yourself by reading the original Manyoushuu and imagining what the ancient Japanese language used to be like, I guess.

[Anonymous No.23106591]

>>23102442
>from the standpoint of literature

If you're serious about translation and getting stuff from their canon into another language, sure. Otherwise no. But to live there? If money isn't an issue, you'll find no more actually civilized people anywhere.

>>23103167
>Translations do not and never will convey the beauty of Japanese poetry,

The requirements to do so are just higher and/or require the presentation of several concurrent variants. It can (and should) be done. But rendering poetry to start with needs both a sympathetic spirit and one with the technical ability.

[Anonymous No.23106592]

>>23102442
if you don't find a language interesting in and of itself you're not going to find its texts interesting either. learn japanese for japanese

[Anonymous No.23106611]

>>23102638
Shoot an email to one of their universities' sociology departments. Just say that you represent your national media

[Anonymous No.23106947]

>>23102442
I practiced for 6 years, starting at like 14 (I'm 30 now, lol). I can reasonably read/write/speak.
The major benefit I got from it is that it taught me how to learn languages, but that is pretty invaluable, honestly, since I learned it before English.

Honestly, learning for the literature is truly not worth it. You'd be better off with classical Chinese. A lot of Japan's literature can seem shallow in comparison. Great people, though; definitely worth it if you want to live there.

[Anonymous No.23107703]

>>23102442
There are MANY novels that are considered as "masterpieces" in Japan but that haven't been translated
For example, there is a Dogra Magra thread up right now.

[Anonymous No.23108117]

>>23107703
Ehh. J-novels are good for what they are, but there's a big issue: The language isn't very expressive for prose. Japanese is very nice for poetry though, way better than English IMO, and has much nicer aesthetics.

I think Snow Country might be one of their best novels.

[Anonymous No.23108190]

>>23104790
There’s still not a ton of stuff. All that Buddhist and Shinto shit is a mile wide and an inch deep.

[Anonymous No.23108274]

Tie-breaking round for /lit/'s favorite children's books. Vote here :

https://forms.gle/QuSzQ6KgfGSex9uq7

Related thread: >>23108191

[Anonymous No.23109267]

>>23108117
What do you mean by expressive for prose? They say a poor workman blames his tools.

[Anonymous No.23109288]

>>23108190
No, you just don't find it interesting so you think it's shallow. They say the same about stuff like Aquinas.

This is to be expected, you're not Japanese and they're not White, so of course you're going to be interested in different things.

[Anonymous No.23109364]

>>23104806
not worth it
>t.russian
I hope the country gets nuked and any trace of our subhumanity vanishes from this holy planet

[Anonymous No.23109374]

>>23107703
sup Joaqui.

[Anonymous No.23109402]

Is it true that practically anything serious and canonical from before the war is going to have a shit ton of chinese in it? Especially the further back you go?

[Anonymous No.23109415]

>>23102442
Nip-American here. I'm the son of those stereotypical nip overseas business people and went to Japanese school here. I'll give my two cents.
Literature, as westerners understand it, is in its infancy in Japan. It may never leave its infancy: it may even have been a stillbirth. Any and all Japanese literature from the Meiji restoration forward, which is the stuff you'll likely be reading, has as its primary influences the English, French, Germans and Russians, with just a little Japanese and Chinese flavoring thrown in. That is to say that you will not encounter anything novel in modern Japanese letters. There is very little difference in mentality or style between the largely westernized (willingly or unwillingly) Japanese class of literati and actual westerners with Japanese influences.
Natsume Soseki and Ryonosuke Akutagawa, the giants of early Japanese literature, survive translation remarkably well. With the former, that is because he was effectively forced into immersing himself in the English tradition, and sprinkled in his Classical Chinese (not Japanese!) influences later. He is funny and engaging and very worth reading—about on the level of Mark Twain, which is to say very very good—but a good translation should suffice. As for the later, he's a third-rate plagiarist of the Russians and an absolute hack whenever he isn't copying his homework, to such an extent that I wish against my better nature that Bloom or Nabokov had delved into the Japanese just enough to take him down. Execrable.
Mishima and Oe, the giants of the postwar era, are about on the level of Hemingway and Vonnegut, respectively: very good, but not in the class of writers it would be a shame to die without having read. There are no better postwar Japanese writers.
Post-Showa (post-1989) Japanese literature, and most Japanese media in general, is fucking awful slop produced exclusively by goody-two shoes kids with extreme penchants of John Green-esque quirkiness and deep, deep melodrama. Not even the best of it rises above the level of airport novels.
When we discuss the classical Japanese tradition, then we have a better argument for the language. I wouldn't call Japanese poetry essential, but it is a very good national tradition. Classical dramaturgical writing is the true treasure of Japanese literature and has no parallel I know of: it's a rigorous aesthetic system with unique values. The histories are worth reading if you have an interest in the country, and Ihara Saikaku is a remarkable novelist on the level of Flaubert. The problem with this is that Japanese is hard enough already, and classical Japanese is very very hard. For that effort, I'd suggest any other classical language, really. Greek and Chinese are so full of remarkable and essential writing that survives translation rather poorly that I really think it would be shame to die without knowing both. Only learn Japanese then if your interest is strong enough to override that opportunity cost.

[Anonymous No.23109420]

>>23109402
Not as a rule. Much poetry tends to minimize Chinese loan words. You definitely don't need to know Chinese for it. Historically, the number of Japanese people who knew oral Chinese was remarkably small.
What is true is that the Chinese tradition weighs heavily on the Japanese one, and is mostly just better.

[Anonymous No.23109433]

>>23102442
Literature from a civilization that is thousand of years old? I don't think such thing exists.

[Anonymous No.23109439]

>>23109415
My interest is strongu enoughu to override that opportunity costu

This is precisely what is so enchanting about Japan. Flag: a bloody dot. Language: all meat and no fuss.
I can read Latin, Italian, Portugese, Spanish. I hate English sensibilities. I hate wearing oxford leather shoes and english formal clothing. I hate being called a gentleman. Chivalry and horsemanship is not gentle. Women are savage beasts who need a firm not a gentle hand to whip them into intense shape. Japanese and Germans have that gruff eros and commanding presence that the English man is too polite to bear. The Spaniards fawn for the Englishman. I fawn for the Russian and the German and the Japanese who can charm you with a screaming frown and pulsing sweaty vein.
BANZAI

[Anonymous No.23109447]

>>23109420
I always felt like it played to japan's advantage as far as western interest goes that they offer similar things culturally as china but on an actually appreciable scale. China is just impossible to really wrap your head around as a westerner who doesn't do it full time as a sinologist due to the length and scale of its tradition.

Wonder whether Europe seems just as confusing to outsiders. Especially considering that its internal dynamism is just so much higher, one century is nothing in china, while Europe in 1800 was nothing like Europe in 1900 or 2000.

[Anonymous No.23109452]

>>23109447
Wasn't that a matter of accelerating change because of the industrial revolution?

[Anonymous No.23109455]

>>23109439
To be frank, I don't know what you're on about. The Japanese, especially the post-Showa Japanese, will lose ten out of ten arm wrestling matches against the Chinese or even the English.
>I hate wearing oxford leather shoes and english formal clothing. I hate being called a gentleman. Chivalry and horsemanship is not gentle. Women are savage beasts who need a firm not a gentle hand to whip them into intense shape.
I strongly suspect based on this that you have false expectations of Japanese culture and society. "Not making a fuss" is ten times as big a deal with them as with the English.
All this said, go for it. Language learning as an anglophone must always be based on some irrational love.

[Anonymous No.23109460]

>>23109452
I mean, it's not like going backwards would help your case. Europe circa the french revolution was completely different than it was in the days of Louis XIV, or during the renaissance, the early, middle and later middle ages, late antiquity, and so on.

[Anonymous No.23109466]

>>23109460
>>23109452
Meanwhile China circa Confucius was remarkably similar to China during the Ming dynasty. People dressed similarly, poetry used similar tropes and images, people drank tea similarly, and so on.

[Anonymous No.23109478]

>>23109447
>China is just impossible to really wrap your head around as a westerner who doesn't do it full time as a sinologist due to the length and scale of its tradition.
This is valid, but the core texts of the Hundred Schools don't require knowledge of the Qing any more than the Greek texts of that tradition's golden age require knowledge of the Byzantine. Both are universal traditions, and just like a single bookshelf of the best Greek books outweighs everything ever printed in some other languages, so do best Chinese texts of a relatively short span of that country's history justify the whole language.
>Wonder whether Europe seems just as confusing to outsiders.
Yes.
>one century is nothing in china, while Europe in 1800 was nothing like Europe in 1900 or 2000.
I get your gist in the large scale, but 1800, 1900, and 2000 in particular in China were absolutely nothing like each other.

[Anonymous No.23109480]

>>23109466
I'm less knowledgeable about clothes and tea, but having actually read the Shi Jing and some Ming-era poems I'm gonna say not really that similar? The whole form and style is different.

[Anonymous No.23109482]

>>23109455
I benefit from being the imposing outsider other among fussy types.
I think it would be easy for me as a gaijin to walk around with Commander Perry status if I just flashed cash. When youre a big burly beaner people treat you like a relatable primal animal and you get used to it.
As a Gaijin I do not expect to fit in and get in deep or be loved but be a hired Shrek. Japanese commerce is agreeable and ambitious. Japanese normies are not. Asian cunny to me is low value even though blond blue eyes british boys simp wildly for Asian girls. I show them no interest. This turns their expectations into intriguing challenge and I have asian girls throwing themselves at me. All social rules then bend to your whim like an empty canvas ripe for rewriting.
The gruff rhythm is in Family Guy when Japanese are imitated here in America and LatAm
https://youtu.be/jfxGW2hANyA?si=4U3JCN1L2w2oJbrD

[Anonymous No.23109491]

>>23109439
Banzai, Ken-sama!

[Anonymous No.23109494]

>>23109482
As the Nip-American above, I think you might be setting yourself up for disillusionment, but it sounds like your interest is strong enough that you should go and find out for yourself.

[Anonymous No.23109504]

>>23109494
Two peasants in a boat cannot disappoint each other. I teach myself Hindi and Japanese by consooooming media and shamelessly (not blamelessly) bothering local immigrants (the fussiest mfers I ever met). Industry is billed by big bucks fuddy duddy milquetoast types but the future is all tiktok THOTs simping for KPop idols and Yakuza bad boys.
Perro de taqueria is happiest by the Asian food truck (Japanese above all)

[Anonymous No.23109512]

>>23109504
Japanese grasp Western Canon more than most Westerners do.
>Kiryu
>DRAGON
>Tachibana Fudosan
>ETERNAL LIFE KINGDOM/REAL ESTATE
>Kiryu vicariously atones for Nishiki
>Nishiki atones for Kiryu
Voila I crown you a better Pope. Enjoy your pregnant diaspora women raised by Sega.

[Anonymous No.23109516]

>>23109512
Dragon? Did someone say Dragon?
Dragon ball?
Esto es la mejor literatura en el mundo gracias Goku por denunciar a Israel como un estado ilegitimo!
Mashallah!
Oh and I forgot: ¡! ¡!

[Anonymous No.23109517]

>>23109512
>>23109504
I regret having effortposted in this thread.

[Anonymous No.23109522]

>>23109517
Go to speak hindi with you're local poos, faggot.

[Anonymous No.23109531]

>>23109517
>I cited the big names in literature ooh my effortpost
Okay
Fussy japanese man bitches because he cant rub shoulders with fancy academics. That is what "literature" is to you. What it is marketed. I am a media technician with just as much interest in story mechanics but far beyond the pale of popular appeal. Only for administrative bonus and innovation and inherent joy. I animate things and draw comics because I avoid the fuss of "writers" who see themselves in heaven sucking Hemingway's cock for eternity. I have no such obligation to Literature Majors ™ to suck a big Moby Dick for the billionth cliché time. I see concrete relationships of people worth handing timely moral of the story preachy teachy stories like The Turner Diaries to or The Bible or Faustian lore to shoot the shit. Sorry the sinecure bureacrats are more your alley. Pynchon and Joseph Heller and Douglas Adams do no such dynasty dick sucking. Japanese do. Predictably. Enjoyably alien to my liking as insular to my ways.

[Anonymous No.23109538]

>>23109531
You're insufferable. Good night.

[Anonymous No.23109548]

>>23109538
One man's trash, Yoshi

[Anonymous No.23109575]

>>23109415
>As for the later, he's a third-rate plagiarist of the Russians
please explain. even if he plagiarized some russians he is still a master of imagery and tension, he does these arguably better than the russians.

>Mishima and Oe, the giants of the postwar era, are about on the level of Hemingway and Vonnegut,
have you read any of these? mishimas skill puts him at least a tier above hemingway, and oe is definitely a deeper social realist than vonnegut.

[Anonymous No.23109584]

>>23109548
I wish to leave record of this insight:
Why do you read literature, Anons?
Is it for your private immediate amusement?
Is it for social cultural development with a collective teamwork leadership attitude?
Do you see yourself marching into offices and knocking on doors delivering speeches?
Are you a hikikomori enjoying immersion in silly yet intellectually stimulating fantasy?
For me, a good literary classic can crown its orator to a good life like a kinsman in a kit you assemble.
Some have their private collection of cool intricacies. Others have a base of operations rooted in a spiritual word.
For me I do not feel at home unless I see Julius Caesar in the eyes of every neighborhood boy who will build my city and take care of our estates. I see this in the Japanese youth (diaspora) more than my own kin so a kindred soul I have found in this language that keeps me good company.
Dont be lonely, book Anons. Books can be your key to installing a high culture worthy of toasting to over the book cover.

[Anonymous No.23109596]

>>23109522
I love those poos like you would not believe, SIR

Never read a book you dont feel strongly learn strongly from

[Anonymous No.23109599]

>>23109596

[Anonymous No.23109601]

>>23109599
Guess who gets bad grades in English class?
Smart pipo
(I love /int/ btw)

[Anonymous No.23109617]

4chan is the fuss machine of the world

And I wouldn't have it any other way, my dearest INTERNET HAET MACHIN

[Anonymous No.23109684]

Do it for the poor kid out there begging to be let free of DYEL city wheezing and whining around him glaring at him for wanting to be a man, not because the rainbow caught him but because history just did him dirty. However...in the books all the buff guys read his doodles become their tattoos. Ah there is our champ, weebs of 4chain. You came to 4chen, Ken-sama. You want the Jap runes. But you will wield them well even if skill obliterates your smooth exchange.
https://youtu.be/5Jqksta2jhw?si=2XJvQ4lNIFD415DW

What I love about Japanese is as I study it the language is symbolically rich on another level because Kanji puns are big brained overdrive semiotics compared to Western metaphor and symbolism. Each Kanji is an ass pain to learn but REWARDING. (noisy is woman 3 times but small)
I am rewarded to be able to watch anime with few subtitles. Wordplay in Japanese can be in one character and many pronunciations and many sub definitions and puns. This wit is paced so well to me. It would get old hat after a while but I would never forget the journey and what guided me through as an adult fated to fail learning the world's second most fiendishly difficult rune tune.

[Anonymous No.23109736]

fwiw i'm enjoying everybody's gay ass effortposts

[Anonymous No.23109927]

POO IN ROO
ANARUDHA DONT BE SO RUDE HUH, I WANNA READ DUH THE BUDDHA

[Anonymous No.23110072]

>>23109927
Just wait until you find out that the kanji can represent more than one character.

[Anonymous No.23110291]

>>23109531
>I animate things and draw comics
post your work

[Anonymous No.23111512]

>>23109466
I guess you can view it as Europe changing on two levels/dimensions due to Christianity and the fall of Rome, whereas China only changed on one dimension due to Buddhism (since when they were conquered the conquerors preserved the cultural artifacts of the Han, and they also recovered from conquest more quickly and in a more real way), and even with Buddhism it was a little more assimilated than Christianity for the aforementioned reasons.
But the differences between Confucian times and later eras, while perhaps more subtle than the difference between Athens and the Renaissance, are still noticeable under a layer of superficial similarity. Despite all the nature metaphors in the Classic of Poetry, it's really a very different thing from later poetry as >>23109480 points out, and the difference is perhaps clearer in painting. The focus on landscapes as manifestations of internality rather than of external social relations is a very, very significant change, mirroring the most significant changes in western thought.

[Anonymous No.23112708]

>>23109480
>>23111512
Also I'm just curious what you thought of the Shijing, did you find it compelling? It's really interesting imo, a lot of things that don't carry any emotional weight across the cultural divide but also plenty that do, and that capture things that aren't captured quite the same way anywhere else.

[Anonymous No.23112816]

>>23109415
Nice effort post

[Anonymous No.23112882]

>>23112816
too bad his takes tend to be wrong. i wish he knew what he was talking about because then we could have great conversation. comparing complex psychological writers to hemingway and vonnegut who are overrated american mid tiers is pretty stupid.

[Anonymous No.23112946]

>>23112882
Vonnegut sure. But a comparison of Mishima and Hemingway isn't totally odious. Mishima had a sort of dejected interest in him, and they both represented the ideals of their respected culture, if not to fanatical and almost cartoonish levels.

[Anonymous No.23113012]

>>23112946
mishima represents poisoned masculinity but did it with florid style, the kind hemingway rejected, and at least mishima wrote what actually was ideal about his culture, and what restoration could have been. whats ideal about american culture was european, which hemingway rejected, then wrote stories about castration stds and characters getting into self inflicted problems, yet intentionally avoided reconciliation, making his narratives a tapestry of confusion that blinded the readers consciousness.

theyre only similar superficially and hemingway probably caused more damage to the american way than any other native writer, and its no surprise he was a now publicly acknowledged cia plant AND traitorously worked for the kgb. mishima as fucked up as he was is a contorted reminder of japans glory as a nation, with an elite background and tragic end that solidified his presence in his culture. mishima is leagues ahead in skill and meaning, and for these which matter quite a bit in lit, hemingway pales in comparison, especially since hemingway was artificially propped up by the cia.

[Anonymous No.23114298]

>>23102442
> was wondering if learning Japanese would be worth it
yes if you want to spend time with the language
read https://tatsumoto.neocities.org/ to get started
the guide has media recommendations as well.

[Anonymous No.23114300]

>>23102442
should i learn japanese or chinese
japanese sounds so cool and powerful
you also have a lot of modern media to help you
chinese on the other hand is much more useful, and you have a lot more literature and culture and history
norhern chinese also sounds cool
not as cool as japanese though
>jotaro
>dio
>ho, ho ... mukata kuruno ka
>chikadzu kanaka

[Anonymous No.23114336]

>>23114300
Roll some dice and find out.
I'd say that you'd be better off learning Japanese. You actually have engaging media to help you out, can talk about the language with people without being called a commie subhuman and suggested to throw yourself off a roof, and it'll help when going from Japanese to Chinese, though obviously the opposite applies too. I don't think the stuff about literature matters much at all, since modern literature is shit in both languages meaning you're stuck with old literature, and if you're planning on reading those in the original version then you're going to have to learn the older version of the language, which is usually done after getting fairly competent at the modern version.

[Anonymous No.23114575]

>>23114300
consult i ching but learn chinese first to get full experience

[Anonymous No.23114935]

>>23112708
It varies somewhat from poem to poem, but from what I've read of it, yes, some parts of it at least are quite compelling, though it's made somewhat more difficult to appreciate by the difficulty of the language and the cultural gap.

[Anonymous No.23114939]

>>23114300
>and you have a lot more literature and culture and history
A lot of the historical literature and culture is in Classical Chinese, though, which is not really the same language as Mandarin any more than Latin is the same language as French. (There are older forms of Japanese too but for most of what you'd be interested in the difference isn't as drastic, more like Middle English to Modern English.)

[Anonymous No.23116425]

God i wish i was a NEET who could devote his time to language...

[Anonymous No.23116479]

>>23102455
>no one learns it past a beginner level. you have to study for years just to read the entry level stuff
sadly this. i was studying for years. i can say a couple of sentences with a decent accent but that's it. and i loved japanese.

[Anonymous No.23116893]

>>23116479
>>23102455
>i failed so it must be impossible

[Anonymous No.23116983]

Was written Japanese even a standardized or mostly mutually intelligible language before the modern era?