The only reason I can think of is to read Manga / watch Anime in the original language and get the subtleties lost in translation, but that hardly is a good motivator compared to the other two I mentioned in terms of business use.
Most people I know who learned a second language on their own volition did it because they were interested in the country or some cultural element. Or, frankly, had a fetish for the people in that area—that’s an absolutely massive motivator that most people won’t openly state.
One language I learned was motivated simply because I liked the food there. I like traveling in that country, eating new stuff, and looking up recipes in that language to make those dishes authentically at home. Money would be nice. But I have zero plans to get a job speaking that language.
As a Japanese speaking programmer I basically don’t have any competition in the job market.
does this actually come up in the hiring anywhere? you tell google you speak japanese fluently and you're just in the door?
in my limited experience everyone seems content to pretend that the asian staff's english is good enough, even when it is a constant comedy of errors.
So I basically show up for positions that ask for a native Japanese that’s willing to work abroad. I then promote myself based on technical and cultural skills.
I’ve legitimately unstuck projects that were stuck for years and getting nowhere within few months because I improved communication and information retrieval.
In Germany we have many companies that have a large amount of Japanese customers, but they get nowhere with English. Meanwhile Japanese send some engineers over as sales support instead of establishing a proper local subsidiary that is not just a proxy for sales.
2. The worst reaction I get is that my intonation and pronunciation is off-putting, because it sounds too native and doesn't fit my white face. People just aren't used to it.
3. Nobody thinks of me as a loser for having invested years into Japanese and gained proficiency in it. The reaction is usually more like "why did you learn Japanese although you don't need it? It's only spoken on this little island in the sea". Since I have engineering skills people know that I would not be a loser even without this language skill. People are also very humbled to know that I have a sincere interest in their culture. It seems your acquaintances suffer from severe self-loathing to consider somebody who has interest in their culture a loser.
4. Calling people (in the tech sector) who are interested in Japan/Japanese freaks is downright racist. Imagine you were talking about "younger freak types" who move to Spain and learn Spanish.
5. if you think being a bumbling gaijin will make you happy I don't think you should stay in Japan. Of course you will be treated as a baby and not treated seriously. You'll be one of those losers at the local HUB pub that spout racist remarks about the Japanese.
6. "Real foreigners" vs "weeaboo foreigners" - do you listen to yourself? Because somebody doesn't act like a bumbling gaijin and actually learns how to be a functioning adult speaking, reading and writing the language they're a weeaboo?
Either you've never been to Japan and don't know the language, or you hung out with the wrong crowd, or most likely, the wrong attitude and blamed others for the self-fulfilling prophecy you found yourself in.
Japanese and Korean should roughly have the same utilities, which mostly depends on your local living area. In Vietnam, Japanese should be more beneficial. But really, if you want to be practical, just learn English + Chinese.
Asian languages always fascinated me, though I never learned them past some feeble attempts and learning Japanese, and later Korean, years ago. It's interesting to contrast with the situation in European where most languages ultimately have a common(Indo-European or Uralic, with some isolates like Basque) origin, and a lot of languages are mutually intelligible with eachother.
In Asia the situation is very different. There are lots of different families. Thai(Kra-Dai), Chinese(Sino-Tibetan), Korean(Koreanic), Japanese(Japonic), Vietnamese(Austroasiatic) and Mongolian(Mongolic) seem to live in their own families, with any possible common origin between two or more these families being unclear and highly controversial in linguistics.
Chinese has played a role similar to Latin historically, used for writing by the intellectual elites, and having major influences in terms of writing and vocabulary.Evolving into the kana+kanji writing system in Japanese, but being mostly replaced by Hangul in Korean and completely(afaik) by the latin alphabet in Vietnamese.
Japan has a lot more investment into Vietnam than Korea (both officially from government, see (0), as well as Japanese companies either utilizing Vietnamese labor or making investment into Vietnam. So Japanese has an edge if you want to learn a second foreign language.
Latin alphabet completely replaced Chinese in Vietnamese language. We still have loan word that is phonetically from Cantonese with similar meaning to the Chinese counterpart. They are being spelled entirely in Latin alphabet. They are called Han-Viet (hán-việt).
(0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_development_assistanc...
The economical factors have never meant much for me, the emotional/attachment/interest factors are the possible the only ones that could have kept me motivated to learn a language to a high level.
2.) You'll learn Kanji, which will give you an advantage when you want to learn Chinese. You will even be able to grasp quite a chunk of written text when you know Kanji in and out and travel to China.
Can you clarify what you mean by this?
For instance, English, French, Spanish, German all share a very similar concept of "subject verb object" but Japanese has a very different concept of conveying information. I can't explain how, because that's exactly what you only get by learning the language.
This as well as the initial statement you've made is controversial and generally frowned up by linguists.
We do not have any evidence that people perceive the world differently nor that it bears any relevance to how they view it. There were attempts at it, but the results are either not very convincing or are based upon farfetched conclusions.
>I can't explain how
Well yes, because it's a broad and unquantifiable claim as well as one that's not really supported by evidence.
As such I don't think it's fair and justifiable to say that learning Japanese changes the way you think. You're just adding additional unnecessary mystique to it.
> Well yes, because it's a broad and unquantifiable claim as well as one that's not really supported by evidence.
No. Imagine you never tasted ananas (pineapple) before in your life and now you taste it for the first time. Can you describe the flavour to someone who never tasted it, so that he can imagine the taste? Mind that I'm not taking about sweetness and acidity, just the distinct aroma.
I don't think you can. Does that mean it's just an "unquantifiable claim" that ananas has a distinct aroma? If so, even an "unquantifiable claim" can be helpful for others to understand.
Oh, and don't come with something like chemical analysis or so, since we can't really do that with the brain quite yet.
I'm bilingual (brushing up on my kanji with wanikani) and considering moving to Japan, but I've always heard the comp packages aren't great.
The highest paying Japanese companies tend to pay less than 1/2 of the total comp you can expect in the bay area, but may be closer to competitive to a comp package in somewhere like Atlanta or Austin.
If you're aiming to work for a Japanese company, and you're N1 in Japanese, and native-level english, you'll probably be worth more, but I doubt it would compare to working for Google, Facebook, or Stripe in Japan.
For anyone curious this site provides some data: https://opensalary.jp/en/