Because it has to be. I'm a PhD. student in Chinese history and they make us study Japanese for three years. Yay! And a European language. Yay!
To be fair, I'd like to be able to speak Japanese. But I wish it could be planted in my head without having to study. Come on technology, get with it.
I can actually say a lot of useless things in Japanese because I used to teach Japanese students English in China and sometimes they would teach me funny things to say. For instance, someone once told me the most important thing to know how to say is "Boku Doraemon", which means, "I am Doraemon", which is really saying "I am this little blue robotic cat with no ears who is a famous animation character from 1950 or something who came from the future to save a little Japanese boy from marrying a fat Japanese girl". I read the first issue in Chinese, that's how I know these things. I don't really like manga or anime, but I do like the idea of missing the train home in Tokyo someday and going to one of those funny shops where you rent magazines, stay up all night, and drink soda pop. That's my motivation then to study Japanese then, that and the fact that I won't be able to have a career without it.
Also, "Seven Samurai" is one of my favorite movies. In it, Toshiro Mifune, the most animated actor in all of the world--though he is dead now and, thus, probably not as animated as he used to be--says something like "I may look like this, but I am a true samurai". He says this because he's not a true samurai but has stolen the family genealogy from a samurai family. And the way he says it is just amazing. And I can quote it in Japanese, but not quite right. So maybe I'll work on that.
Here is a link to a picture of Mifune.
http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/070615/action/sevensamurai_l.jpg
And in the first two weeks of class, the following things have been difficult:
What words have long vowels?
How do you pronounce words with long vowels?
How do Japanese people speak so fast?
If only those would remain the hardest things.
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3 comments:
まじで Ryansan, I'm with you on this one. Personally I'm taking this class so I don't look like a fool when I go to Japan. On an odder note, I was too close to posting a bit on Mifune myself when we started this project. Anyway, I admire your dedication to academia, and がんばて。
Hello, I also have this requirement, but Japanese is also very relevant to my studies on Korea at the turn of the past century. Your writing is very "omoshiroi!"
Thanks everyone. With your encouragement I think I will succeed in Japanese. Maybe it won't take me ten years to be proficient, which is how long I spent with Chinese.
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