<p>i'm picking out a foreign language in college and i'm torn between French and Japanese. I've always wanted to visit Japan and i thought learning the language would help me understand their culture better, but now, seeing what just happened to their country, i'm kinda doubting whether or not i should pursue the language...
i know it sounds bad, like i'm not interested in Japan anymore because of a natural disaster, but realistically speaking, learning a new language like japanese takes a lot of commitment (there are 3 different types of japanese, and they're all tough!) and i need to be able to use it in real life, or else it would be a waste of time and money learning it...
should i learn french in college instead? it seems more useful for jobs and for traveling to europe (which is also what i want to do).. and it seems easier than japanese?</p>
<p>(by natural disaster i don't mean just any natural disater.. japan is contaminated with radiation right now, no offense to them or anyone, but to be honest who knows when they'll be able to get rid of all of that excess radiation? will they be able to do it in the next 5 years? radiation causes cancer, which is not noticable until decades later... what will happen then?)</p>
<p>is it possible to learn french and japanese at the same time? if you have any experience learning 2 different languages at the same time please do share!</p>
<p>Different dialects of Japanese does not mean there are three different speech structures; if you speak/read Japanese, there isn’t a place you’ll be able to go where people wont understand you. You will obviously be pegged as a foreigner by the word choices you make, but you wont exactly be fooling anyone if you insist on learning a certain dialect. That is not going to be the issue with you learning Japanese (and it isn’t that hard a language to learn).</p>
<p>Now if you’re talking about Honorifics and the like, thats a whole different ballgame (and still not much different than what we’ve already looked at).</p>
<p>Ok, first of all its not all of Japan that is contaminated. And even if it is, do you know how much deadly radiation a celluar phone or a tv gives off? They’ve been linked to brain cancer so you might as well throw those things away. Learning a language or culture shouldn’t be about whether they have natural disaters or not. You should learn because you want to. Anywho, just learning a language isn’t enough to learn a culture. If you truly want to learn a culture, you must be immersed within the culture. Live there for a few years. French would be a good language to learn as its probably second to English, especially in the business world. Chinese is also a good language to learn.</p>
<p>I don’t have experience studying Japanese, but I’ve heard that in the amount of time it will have taken you to master the language, you could have mastered a few romance languages. </p>
<p>Ability to learn 2 languages at once depends on the individual. I’ve known people who were able to do it, but I unfortunately wasn’t blessed with such abilities. I’m studying French and tried to learn Swedish, but the latter started to ruin my French so I stopped.</p>
<p>As ANDS said, there aren’t three different “types” of Japanese. If you’re talking about dialects, there are many more than three. It’s possible that you are talking about the Japanese alphabet, which there are three of, kanji, and the two kana alphabets… Learning the writing is probably the hardest part of learning Japanese, especially learning kanji, although you should know that you can still communicate verbal and written word /without/ kanji, everything can be spoken or written phonetically in kana… But that would be silly because you would be unable to read common Japanese text without learning kanji… Anyway, there’s a little lesson about what the “three different types” of Japanese, if that’s even what you meant… Or maybe you’re just completely mistaken.</p>
<p>But anyway, as for whether you should learn Japanese or French… I’ll try to ignore the blatantly offensive and shallow way you posed your question in the topic and give you some insight… Learn whatever you’re INTERESTED in. Do you love the French language, and the French culture, and could see yourself spending quality time in France during college or afterwards? Or, conversely, do you feel that way about Japan?(and ignore the disaster aspect, seriously, Japan doesn’t stop being a country just because they have a major crisis. They are as well equipped as they could be to recover from the earthquake and deal with the radiation problems, which as everyone has said are not as bad as you, or the media, are making them out to be)</p>
<p>If you’re trying to meet a minimum requirement for foreign language at your school, it honestly doesn’t matter what you take. Whether you take the minimum requirement for French, or Japanese, you are not going to be fluent in that language when you finish and you’re not going to remember it at all a couple of years down the road. If you really want to learn a language you need to spend a lot more time than any minimum language requirement at college will have you spending. But if you do plan to spend that much time to really master a language, pick the language and culture that appeals to you. As far as business goes, it really depends what major you will be going into, and where you are going to work… But the bottom line of that is that you already speak English, which is THE business language… So I would worry about which language you think would enrich your life, not your career. =]</p>
<p>If you’re looking for the thing that is the EASIEST, the choice would be not pursuing a foreign language at all beyond your minimum requirements.</p>
<p>Radiation levels here (180KM from the ***ushima plant) are only slightly elevated above background levels. The plant is being brought under control, and the clean up of contamination is underway. Radiation levels would have to be about 100x higher to reach the levels which have been shown to increase the risk of cancer (by an extra 2 cases in 10,000; remember 25% of people get cancer anyway!). Don’t go swimming in one of the spent fuel ponds and you’ll be just fine. Stress will kill you long before radiation does.</p>
<p>As for your mistakes in Japanese, I think they have been sufficiently answered (although you might claim that keigo - polite Japanese - is a different (and very hard) dialect. Keigo use is not so common though.</p>
<p>Japan is going to be fine. Really. Obviously, this isn’t the best time to plan a vacation there, but they are working hard and have accomplished a lot to move on and fix things.</p>
<p>If you really love Japanese language/culture, etc, and can see yourself living there, then why not? It’s a really beautiful country, especially once you get out of the city area and into the country (I was there two years ago and LOVED it).</p>
<p>Likewise, if you want to learn French, etc, then go for it. Just don’t say you’re not taking Japanese because you’re afraid of contamination, because unless you’re in a heavily contaminated area, you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Oh my goodness… Did I just read correctly?
“…i’m not interested in Japan anymore because of a natural disaster…”</p>
<p>When Hurricane Katrina hit, 9/11 happened, and the Deepwater Horizon exploded, did the US all of a sudden shrink into a corner and die?</p>
<p>Japan still holds the third largest economy worldwide, and has the safest nuclear program albeit the disaster. It is not contaminated and dogs are not turning into Godzillas. Heck, Chernobyl killed 31 PEOPLE ONLY.</p>
<p>Japanese is a very very hard and intense language to learn. If you are seriously going to be committed to Japan, then learn it. If you simply watch anime, eat sushi, or dream of visiting Tokyo, think again then. As someone who greatly respects Japan, even 5 years of learning still hasn’t placed me at fluency level.</p>
<p>Look at your future careers and your heritage. Perhaps one of those may point to a language. Each language has its downside (Japanese is hard, French is not common anymore, Spanish isn’t perfect for certain industries). Pick wisely before choosing a commitment.</p>