Leaderboard

Meh. I'll stick with not learning Japanese.

There seems to be a similar theme to your answers, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is. I think you’re being a little too subtle...

Just because you failed doesn't mean others can't do it. I'm reading untranslated stuff quite well after a year of learning.

I recall reading that 2200 hour label before I started learning Japanese. The time doesn't really says it. The more important part is how the activity studying Japanese is like, and whether or not you can adapt to it. It's not that difficult. It's not like high level math, where if you don't develop serious intuition and analysis skills you'll never become competent. It's just a ton of work, and there are pitfalls for new learners who miss finding a reasonably effective method of studying. Throughout the process, there are places where you have to make your thinking flexible, and stop comparing Japanese to how English works (that's a whole other beast, and you could spend hundreds of hours becoming a linguist, except that it wouldn't help your Japanese at all.). Although to be fair, studying grammar is about as hard as studying any other course material, and reading native material a bit above your level is mentally exhausting. You can end up mentally spinning your wheels, or misinterpret a topic. Hopefully as time passes you learn where to spend your brainpower and what to just accept as being "some noun/word/thing" or "maybe some grammar I don't know yet". To give you a picture, if you some up all my Japanese VN reading and Japanese studying combined is probably about 2700 hours over 3.5 years. Can read unassisted basically all topics which aren't technical (vocab sometimes is a limiting factor). In an easyish light-novel in a familiar setting probably look up about 0.4 words per page , in actual modern literature aimed at adults, about 3-6 words a page. If you are used to reading off of TA, reading unassisted (off the VN text instead of the TA window) is just a matter of getting used to it (varying fonts, no word highlighting, no automatic furigana). It's faster to look up words while reading off of TA, which is why most people stay on it for a long time, until they get the common vocab down or start using J-J dics more. Nothing wrong with reading off of the TA window, the vocab lookup speed is great, the only downside is, when it comes to reading unhookable text: not being used to different fonts, and reading only having the kanji. Not that you can still use TA as a faster dictionary while reading off the the VN text. I don't want to put an hour count to how long it takes to start reading untranslated novels with a TA dictionary because that sort of gives the wrong impression. People get to that step at different speeds and using different methods. http://forums.fuwanovel.net/blogs/entry/779-japanese-learning-for-vns-skills/ It's not nearly as helpful for me to tell you how long it takes to learn 1000 words, as it is for you to try learning 50 first and see. Of course, everything: grammar and especially vocab/kanji gets easier to learn more the more you learn. Oh come on, one man's random entertainment medium is another man's laifu. How is Japanese going to help me, unless I want to work in Japan or be a translator (not like the pay is any better) . It's all subjective enrichment of one's life. I think what he means is that 1: Don't expect to get far unless you really want it, and have a solid reason. "I'd be cool if I could know Japanese", doesn't cut it. 2: There's more you can enrich your life with through learning Japanese, besides reading otaku media.

Huh. My friend and I saw "anime adaptation of a mobile game" and immediately dismissed this show. Maybe we should revisit this? Didn't realize that this was from the makers of Zankyou no Terror, which we liked quite a bit. Also, just a tip: in general, you'll attract more attention to posts like this if you include an appropriate image in the header.

I assume this means me? Bravo. I have a feeling you will give more interesting points of view in the anime club.

Just think: if you took all the time you spent Internet posting about the inadequacies of the English VN market, you too could be playing VNs in Japanese--10 years later!

My first-year Japanese language college course was probably the hardest course I've ever taken--and I'm working on a PhD. I can't recall another course that required 5hrs of dedicated study a week in addition to class time (1hr per 1hr of courses). After all that I was nowhere near where I needed to be to even read a simple sentence. Now I can finally read some simple phrases unassisted--10 years later. Hm. I've never taken a course and didn't spend all that much time studying and I can read many VNs without using a dictionary and most without using a dictionary much. Although I guess the way I read VNs before I got to this level probably counts as studying - I extracted the text and used JDICT's text glossing or Rikaichan to read all the words I didn't know. I started about 9 years ago, but didn't use Japanese all that much until about 5 years ago. I figured it would take a lot less time if one were to actually sit down and study a lot. I think the only part that may actually be hard is getting an idea for how Japanese grammar works. Once you've gotten past that, the rest is just increasing the amount of words and grammar you know and getting more practice. If you use something like Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar Guide and spend 10 hours a week for a few months on just that, you should be able to understand and memorize at least most of it. Take another two to three months to acquire a very basic amount of vocabulary and you can start reading VNs using a dictionary. Then it's just a matter of how much time you spend reading.

Yup, and I think that's pretty damn awesome. I have a background in literary theory — quite nearly ended up pursuing a doctorate in non-linear narrative theory before I changed course — so I always tend to view VNs through that narrow lens. Getting a view from a games-as-narrative perspective is a refreshing (and much-needed) change of pace. So yeah, as long as we can agree that VNs are good and pumpkin spice lattes are crap, I think we'll get along fine.