Reflections of a Young Pilgrim

Here’s a few clips and more about learning Japanese that I (being one who watches too much Japanese anime shows and music) thought was hilarious. I originally found a copy at this blog, much thanks to the author there, though I’m only including my favorite parts.

The Secret to Learning Japanese! Amazing!

Learn Japanese from anime in 5 minutes

He’s 1/4 Japanese, 1/8 Korean, 1/8 Filipino, 1/4 Dutch, 1/4 Irish (with Chinese and Hawaiian in there somewhere). Lives in Portland, Oregon, and started learning Japanese from High School because he wanted to connect more with his heritage.

While his videos are great, there’s a totally unrelated humorous paper that I stumbled upon with it. It’s a joke to a large extent (I’m sure there’s some truth behind it though). I just found some of it hilarious and wanted to share for the sake of your amusement…

SO YOU WANT TO LEARN JAPANESE?

So you head down to the library, pick up some books with titles like “How To Teach Yourself Japanese In Just 5 Seconds A Day While Driving Your Car To And From The Post Office”. Hey, you already know a few words from your manga collection/anime. Excited and impressed with your new knowledge, you begin to think:  “Hey. Maybe, just maybe, i could do this for a living! Or even major in Japanese!” Great Idea, Right?

WRONG!

I don’t care how many anime shows you’ve watched, or books you’ve read, You don’t know Japanese. Not only that, majoring in the godforsaken language is NOT fun or even remotely sensible. Iraqi war prisoners are often forced to major in Japanese. The term “Holocaust” comes from the Latin roots “Holi” and “Causm”, meaning “to major in Japanese”. You get the idea.

This should be an obvious.
Despite what many language books, friends, or online tutorials may have told you, Japanese is NOT simple, easy, or even sensical (Japanese vocabulary is determined by throwing tiny pieces of sushi at a dart board with several random syllables attached to it). The Japanese spread rumors to draw foolish Gaijin(foreigners) into their clutches.
Not only is it not simple, it’s probably one of the hardest languages you could ever want to learn. With THREE completely different written languages (none of which make sense), multitude of useless, confusing politeness levels, and absolutely insane grammatical structure, Japanese has been crushing the souls of the pathetic Gaijin since it’s conception. Let’s go over some of these elements mentioned above so you can get a better idea of what I mean.

The Japanese Writing System

The Japanese writing system is broken down into three separate, complete, and insane, parts: Hiragana (”those squiggly letters”), Katakana (”those boxy letters”) and Kanji (”roughly 4 million embodiments of your worst nightmares”).The combination of thousands of Chinese characters, each with at least two and sometimes as many as thirty pronunciations, two syllabaries that combine in a variety of complex ways with the Chinese characters, and the occasional use of the Roman alphabet (just because things weren’t already messy enough), makes for an orthographic calamity.

Hiragana is used to spell out Japanese words using syllables. It consists of many letters, all of which look completely different and bear absolutely no resemblance to each other whatsoever. The prince who invented these characters, Yorimushi was promptly bludgeoned to death. But don’t worry, because you’ll hardly use Hiragana in “real life”.

Katakana are used only to spell out foreign words in a thick, crippling Japanese accent, so that you’ll have no idea what you’re saying even though it’s in English. However, if you remember one simple rule for Katakana, you’ll find reading Japanese much easier: Whenever something is written in Katakana, it’s an English word! (note: Katakana is also used for non-English foreign words. And sound effects, and Japanese words). Katakana all look exactly the same, and it’s impossible, even for Japanese people, to tell them apart. No need to worry, because you’ll hardly ever have to read Katakana in “real life”.

Kanji are letters that were stolen from China. Every time the Japanese invaded China (which was very often) they’d just take a few more letters, so now they have an estimated 400 gazillion of them. Kanji each consists of several “strokes”, which must be written in a specific order, and convey a specific meaning, like “horse”, or “girl”. Not only that, but Kanji can combined to form new words. For example, if you combine the Kanji for “small”, and “woman”, you get the word “carburetor”. Kanji also have different pronunciations depending on where they are in the word, how old you are, and what day it is. When European settlers first came upon Japan, the Japanese scholars suggested that Europe adopt the Japanese written language as a “universal” language understood by all parties. This was the cause of World War 2 several years later. Don’t worry, however, since you’ll never have to use kanji in “real life”, since most Japanese gave up on reading a long, long time ago, and now spend most of their time playing Pokemon.

Politeness Levels

Politeness Levels have their root in an ancient Japanese tradition of absolute obedience and conformity, a social caste system, and complete respect for arbitrary heirarchical authority, which many American companies believe will be very helpful when applied as managerial techniques. They’re right, of course, but no one is very happy about it.

Depending on who you are speaking to your politeness level will be very different. Politeness depends on many things, such as age of the speaker, age of the person being spoken to, time of day, zodiac sign, blood type, sex, whether they are Grass or Rock Pokemon type, color of pants, and so on. For an example of Politness Levels in action, see the example below.

Japanese Teacher: Good morning, Harry.
Harry: Good Morning.
Japanese Classmates: (gasps of horror and shock)

The bottom line is that Politeness Levels are completely beyond your understanding, so don’t even try. Just resign yourself to talking like a little girl for the rest of your life and hope to God that no one beats you up.

Grammatical Structure

The Japanese have what could be called an “interesting” grammatical structure, but could also be called “confusing”, “random”, “bogus” or “evil”. To truly understand this, let’s examine the differences between Japanese and English grammar.

English Sentence:
Nate went to the school.

Same Sentence In Japanese:
School Nate To Went

Japanese grammar is not for the faint of heart or weak of mind. What’s more, the Japanese also do not have any words for “me”, “them”, “him, or “her” that anyone could use without being incredibly insulting (the Japanese word for “you”, for example). Because of this, the sentence “He just killed her!” and “I just killed her!” sound exactly the same, meaning that most people in Japan have no idea what is going on around them at any given moment. You are supposed to figure these things out from the “context”, which is a German word meaning “you’re screwed”.

As if learning the language wasn’t hard enough, Japanese classes in America tend to attract the kind of student who makes you wish that a large comet would strike the earth. There are a few basic type of students that you’ll always find yourself running into. These include The Anime Freak, The Know It All, and the Deer Caught In Headlights.

The Anime Freak is probably the most common, and one of the most annoying. You can usually spot a few warning signs to let you identify them before it’s too late: they wear the same exact Evangelion shirt every day, they have more than one anime key chain on their person, they wear glasses, they say phrases in Japanese that they obviously don’t understand (such as “Yes! I will never forgive you!”), they refer to you as “-chan”, make obscure Japanese culture references during class, and usually fail class. You have to be extremely careful not to let them smell pity or fear on you, because if they do they will immeadiately latch onto you and suck up both your time and patience, leaving only a lifeless husk. Desperate for human companionship, they will invite you to club meetings, anime showings, conventions, and all other sorts of various things you don’t care about.

The Know It All typically has a Japanese girlfriend or boyfriend, and because of this “inside source” on Japanese culture, has suddenly become an academic expert on all things Japanese, without ever having read a single book on Japan in their entire lives. You can usually spot Know It All’s by keeping an eye out for these warning signs: a cocky smile, answering more than their share of questions, getting most questions wrong, questioning the teacher on various subjects and then arguing about the answers (a typical exchange:  Student: What does “ohayoo” mean?, Teacher: It means “good morning”,  Student: That’s not what my girlfriend said…), being wrong, talking a lot about Japanese food and being wrong, giving long, unnecessarily detailed answers which are wrong, and failing class.

The Deer Caught In headlights are those students who took Japanese because either a.) they thought it sounded like fun, b.) they thought it would be easy, or c.) they just need a couple more credits to graduate. These students wear a mask of terror and panic from the moment they walk into class till the moment they leave, because all they can hear inside their head is the high pitched scream their future is making as it is flushed down the toilet. They are usually failing.

Although many of Japanese-language students are smart, funny, hard working people, none of them will be in your class. If you can get past the difficulty, society, and classmates, you will probably find Japanese to be a fun, rewarding language to learn. We wouldn’t know, however, since no one has ever gotten that far. But hey, I’m sure you’re different.

Original Author’s Note:

This whole essay, although sprinkled with truisms here and there, is a joke and should be taken like one. I’m actually a Japanese major myself, and even if I’ve given it a bit of a hard time, I love the Japanese language, and I think everyone should give it a try. You should just be ready for a whole lot of pain.