<p>i dont know what im going to major yet. and im thinking of pursuing a language as a minor probably an east asian language. and majoring in either engineering, business, biology, or international relations/law.</p>
<p>what kind of competency could i hope to achieve if i go take 4 years of college language + 1 summer abroad after 2 years in college? maybe more if the opportunities arise.</p>
<p>i heard japanese takes around 2000 hours to learn, could this be done?</p>
<p>for those that did take a language for 4 years in college how much do you feel you got out of it?</p>
<p>most likely, you will learn more in your one summer abroad than you will during all 4 years of college combined. you will most likely be conversationally competent, but if you have no japanese background, you will probably not be at the point where you could read ancient japanese literature or anything like that.</p>
<p>You can definitely reach conversational and reading fluency in Japanese in four years (or less) if you stick to it. Really, language classes in any school aren't helpful unless you supplement them with your own study. This makes sense when you consider how much work you are going to be doing for your class and you compare it to the number of hours you need (~2000) to reach basic fluency.</p>
<p>The level you can expect to be at it depends entirely on your own motivation and the rigor of your college classes. I know people who have taken a language for their entire high school (and even middle school) careers and are continuing in college, but often they can hardly string together a basic sentence.</p>
<p>^^ agreed. The classes you take are most useful in the beginning, mainly for giving structure and setting you sail. Beyond that, they're useful just to ask questions (how to form a construction, why a writer used a certain construction the way he/she did, etc.) and maybe as a guide on material (as in books, etc.). Most of a language has to be learned independently. But you can definitely become fluent in Japanese without immersion.</p>
<p>As with most things in life, it all depends. If you do nothing else but take the classes and do the summer program you should be reasonably proficient by the time you graduate. Will you be "fluent" (i.e. indistinguishable from native speakers)? Doubtfully. </p>
<p>Spoken Japanese is an entirely different beast than written Japanese, the former being MUCH easier to learn.</p>
<p>As a prospective Japanese minor/major myself, the one thing I can tell you is that your actual level of Japanese skill (written or spoken) is entirely dependent on how much effort you put in outside of class. Classroom Japanese is very formal (i.e. "safe") and sometimes rather stilted. You can learn how people actually speak by watching Japanese TV on the internet or by speaking with the locals when you study abroad. However, where the classroom Japanese comes in handy is in formal situations (i.e. strangers, business situations, etc.) and when working with the written word. </p>
<p>In short, it's doable, but much tougher than learning a romance language.</p>
<p>P.s. good luck with keigo and kanji! Oh, and find something about Japan you like culturally to pull you through the tough times!</p>
<p>I have 3+ years of classroom study in Japanese completed, plus 1.5 years working in Japan and a summer planned. I regularly watch Japanese TV shows and try to get around to reading newspapers every once in a while.</p>
<p>I'm not native-level fluent by any means. I'm able to keep up with most conversations, watch basic television (I can watch most things but news and keep up well-- and yes, I can understand Domo-kun), and write e-mails and pretty good prose. </p>
<p>But I DO NOT agree that Japanese is a language that can be learned outside of Japan. At least not with any real fluency. You cannot appreciate the subtle differences between textbook Japanese, television, and real-life Japanese until you live in Japan. It becomes especially important when you live in different parts of Japan and pick up a sense for the dialectical differences.</p>
<p>
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most likely, you will learn more in your one summer abroad than you will during all 4 years of college combined. you will most likely be conversationally competent,
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</p>
<p>Yes...and no. I worked with a lot of people while I was in Japan who had never learned Japanese in a classroom setting. While they may have had more dialectical understanding of the language, my sense of grammar and proper conjugation was far better. Spending 3 years in the classroom will cement a foundation in the basics; time abroad will give you the natural garnish.</p>
<p>I don't claim to be an expert in Japanese language learning, but I'll offer what I've observed: The only truly academically fluent speakers of Japanese I've ever met were people who spent 3+ years in Japan. Of all of them, only one Korean gentleman and two Japanese language professors of mine could claim to be truly "native level." Both of those professors had Japanese wives and had lived in Japan for upwards of 5 + years. If you are serious about fluency in Japanese, understand that it is not an easy undertaking, and even very intelligent and dedicated people will struggle with the language for many many years.</p>
<p>"But I DO NOT agree that Japanese is a language that can be learned outside of Japan."</p>
<p>Isn't it like that with most languages? That is, unless your own culture happens to have lots of influence from the culture of the language you're learning.</p>
<p>"understand that it is not an easy undertaking, and even very intelligent and dedicated people will struggle with the language for many many years."</p>
<p>If they want to get to "native fluency," yes? Fluency can be accomplished without immersion/years of study/etc., though that in no way means Japanese is an easy or even moderately difficult language (I would argue it's one of the more [most, if you're a pedant] difficult languages).</p>
<p>Some languages are easier for an English speaker than others-- French and Spanish come to mind. I believe that a fairly good level of fluency can be attained in both without living in a country where they are spoken. For one, learning to read them is a much easier undertaking. People often underestimate the difficulty of learning how to read and write in Japanese. It's harder than Chinese in many ways!</p>
<p>Reading and writing in Japanese involves learning 3000 kanji. Okay, that's not too bad...right? Well, Japanese also has the added difficulty of every character having multiple readings. The kanji for "east" 東 is most commonly read as "higashi" when just referring to the direction. In a compound word, such as "toukyou" 東京 (the Japanese capitol), it becomes "tou." But the fun doesn't stop there!</p>
<p>It can also be read as ai, agari, azuma, adzuma, ko, sama, shino, haru, higa, and moto.</p>
<p>Now you have to learn the context that it's read in. For example, haru is only used in names (harunomiya.) </p>
<p>Also, Japanese has far more levels of politeness and conjugation than Chinese.</p>
<p>It's true that kanji can get to be a pain, but I think of it in a different light - they can actually be really helpful. They function as word roots in themselves. You might not know how to pronounce 海賊, but all you have to do is look at it and if you know the meanings of each kanji (海=sea, 賊=robber), you realize that it means "pirate." Oftentimes it really is that simple.</p>
<p>But when you DO need to read things out loud, you'll find that it's really all about figuring out the pattern to the kanji readings. Each character has a bunch of different readings, but the situation each are found in aren't always completely random. (ie., some readings are only used when the word is a verb, etc.) You'll find it's just the really common characters that have tons and tons of readings. Most only have two or three, and the others that they do have tend to be really similar.</p>
<p>Really, though, it's just a matter of perfecting your own method of learning the characters and then you're set. In the end it's actually all pretty logical.</p>
<p>Sorry about the mini-kanji lesson, I just wanted to put in a word here in the name of these poor kanji characters that are always being attacked :)</p>
<p>That's all well and good, but the point was to compare Japanese and Chinese use of the characters. In that case, I still believe that Japanese is harder than Chinese.</p>
<p>However, you're acting like actually getting to the point where knowing that kai and zoku have those respective meanings is, well, easy. It's not. Besides, kaizoku may be easy, but what about kudamono? :p</p>
<p>And you say "only" two or three. Sure, "only" two or three. Well, Chinese at least had the good sense to drop the secondary readings...</p>
<p>Ultimately, while I do believe that Japanese is doable, it is not easy relative to other languages. I wish I had the link, but there was this great article in the Asahi Newspaper about how the Japanese themselves are finding that as they have to teach more subjects in schools, Japanese language learning is hurting. As one editorialist put it, "it was to be expected. After all, Japanese is difficult even for the Japanese." They used some great examples of common words that have multiple kanji compounds, the illogic of keigo (their words, not mine), and how cell phones were destroying kanji usage (this I agree with.)</p>
<p>In any case, I do believe that a lot of Japanophiles (myself once included) don't give Japanese the credit it deserves: a fascinating, but ultimately difficult language.</p>
<p>Take a language that you feel you will enjoy. Don't worry about the "hours needed to learn." If you enjoy it, the hours go quickly. If, like me, you find yourself no longer enjoying the study, it will go slowly. It's that simple.</p>
<p>I'd like to second UCLAri on choosing a language you like.</p>
<p>I thought I wanted to learn Spanish because it is easy (relatively speaking) and useful, but I had no interest in the language. I tried it and could not stick with it, so I switched to Russian, have made loads more progress, and am about to start Chinese.</p>
<p>Hmm, what do you mean, UCLAri? Is Japanese just not interesting you anymore? I used to be more or less obsessed with Japanese (especially the language), but it sort of faded and I can't remember why...</p>
<p>I hit a plateau in terms of how much I was learning, and the returns on studying it really stopped being in line with what I need out of it. That, and I started to realize how little demand there is for it anymore. It's "Chinese this" and "Hindi that" these days...</p>
<p>Perhaps that's the public opion at the moment, but does anyone else feel a huge sense of deja vu whenever you hear about how "China will rule the world" or "China will surpass the US as the world's economic superpower"? After all, isn't that EXACTLY what people were saying about Japan 20-25 years ago?</p>
<p>And despite the public fervor in learning Chinese claiming it's the "language of the future", I highly doubt many people ever will learn it to fluency. ULCAri I'm can appreciate this kind of failure having gone to Japan. Despite Eikaiwa and English learning resources being EVERYWHERE and the public having a general obsession with learning English, very few people speak what I would call "fluent" (or even survival) English.</p>
<p>The fact is that most of us posting on CC have been blessed enough to have English as our native language, a major asset in the world of business. If you know English and any major language (i.e. western European, Asian, etc.) FLUENTLY (including literacy) you are in a better position than most. </p>
<p>Finally, UCLAri, the general "demand" for Japanese fluency may have died down in the US, but being a bilingual in Japan with English as you native language can be very lucrative. While most students will never reach translator-level fluency, J-E translation is still the highest paid language combination.</p>
<p>Yes, of course. But it doesn't change the fact that at present, Japan people are out, and Middle East and China people are in. Besides, Japan is, at its current rate, not going to get stronger. On the contrary, it's going to continue to grow weaker.</p>
<p>Most Americans will never become fluent in Chinese, but your analogy is somewhat weak. For one, Japanese learning English is far more important than Americans learning Chinese. English is, and will likely continue to be, the lingua franca of the world for some time. Unfair? Maybe. True? Very much so. The Japanese are far behind the rest of the world in English learning, and it's arguably hurting them as they seek to be "plugged in" to the new globalized economy. But we'll see.</p>
<p>I have never seen Japanese-English translation being that highly paid. Besides, I don't even want to do translation. I want to do international relations. And unless Abe-san changes things in an absurdly boring Japan, IR over there isn't going to be interesting for a looooong time.</p>
<p>UCLAri, u responded to my friend charizardpal in japanese and closed the thread. that was pretty funny. anyway, japanese seems so easy while chinese looks too difficult. isn't it an accepted notion that chinese and arabic are the most difficult asian languages while finnish is hardest european? </p>
<p>greek is also magnificently difficult, but necessary for classics, history, etc., traveling in greece and parts of asia.</p>