Current Events > Good idea: Taking Japanese 102 next semester....

(+) Yeah! (+)

Been contemplating over this. I have one class I need to fill and none of my needed courses are being ran that I haven't already done. I am usually a 5-courses-a-semester person.

I'm taking:

8:00AM - JAPAN 102 - Elementary Japanese II
9:00AM - POLSCI 201 - Comp Pol-Industrial
10:00AM - POLSCI 377 - Special Topics - Japan and the United States
12:00N - POLSCI 220 - International Relations

My major is Political Science. Interest with Marketing as well. Self-interest obviously in Japan. Not really from a "weeb" aspect anymore, but the cultural side of it all. I kind of want to immerse myself with it. I also want to expand to most Asian languages down the line and I see Chinese being very beneficial, but obviously tough. Korean is simple from what I hear though.

I dunno. Would it be wise taking two language courses all at once?
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Not really from a "weeb" aspect anymore, but the cultural side of it all. I kind of want to immerse myself with it.

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I think it's going to be very difficult to succeed at.

You are trying to teach your mind two entirely new languages at the same time. I would expect you would run into numerous situations where you go "oops that was <insert language here>."
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Well, double checked and it seems they don't offer Korean here... and I forgot that they don't do elementary I's in Spring, which sucks.
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Sayoria posted...

Not really from a "weeb" aspect anymore, but the cultural side of it all. I kind of want to immerse myself with it.

Then travel there for an extended period of time instead of wasting away in a classroom learning stuff that is probably outdated.
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Girl in my Japanese 1040 is taking Chinese 1010 and she is drowning in work. But there is some overlap in the kanji, so at least thats something.
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GODTIER posted...

Not really from a "weeb" aspect anymore, but the cultural side of it all. I kind of want to immerse myself with it.

I want to learn about Japanese culture and see it.
I don't have any desire to be it or watch anime anymore.

Dustin1280 posted...

I think it's going to be very difficult to succeed at.

You are trying to teach your mind two entirely new languages at the same time. I would expect you would run into numerous situations where you go "oops that was <insert language here>."

Yeah, I was concerned about that. I mean, our Japanese courses here span 6 classes. Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced I and II. I was thinking that this would take me three years to complete Japanese here and I do want to learn more, so I was like "Weeeeeellll...."
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Returning_CEmen posted...

Sayoria posted...

Not really from a "weeb" aspect anymore, but the cultural side of it all. I kind of want to immerse myself with it.

Then travel there for an extended period of time instead of wasting away in a classroom learning stuff that is probably outdated.

I want to eventually. It would be great to get a language footing first however. I have a major in Poli-sci. There are some international-based courses for Japanese, so I don't see why I wouldn't check it out to fill a 300 level elective.
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I'm in the minority, but if you're doing well with Kanji in your current class, taking Chinese at the same time wouldn't be too difficult. I didn't have the opportunity to take them concurrently, but I took Chinese 101/102 after two years of Japanese back in University. It definitely helped to already have a background in Kanji, and also helped grow my understanding of Kanji in general.

One part that you may get caught up on, though, is pronunciation. Japanese is very straightforward in terms of syllables and has multiple readings per Kanji, and of course the same character in Chinese has a different reading than Japanese (only one way to read each character in Chinese, but intonation also needs to be memorized).

Hope that makes sense.
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I'd personally get advanced enough in a language before attempting to learn another one. Especially if we're talking about the CJK languages which are already insanely difficult on their own.

If you're just starting to learn Japanese then you won't take advantage of the similarities in kanji/hanzi between Japanese and the Chinese languages, it'll just be more confusing because you're gonna be introduced to them twice, with twice the set of rules, twice the set of readings, some variations because of the different reforms and simplifications in both languages and in some occasions even a different set of stroke order if you're interested in learning how to write them.

Sayoria posted...

Korean is simple from what I hear though.

This is false. The only easy part about Korean is the alphabet, that's all. It would be akin to saying that Japanese is easy just because it's easier to pronounce in comparison to the other two.
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Japanese is the most similar to Chinese (it borrows a lot of its characters after all).
I'm also fluent in conversational mandarin so I can help with that.
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I think you should focus just on one language. At least until you gain a large amount of proficiency with the one.

Also, we're both poli sci majors who got into Japanese. Just a weird little aside.

GODTIER posted...

Not really from a "weeb" aspect anymore, but the cultural side of it all. I kind of want to immerse myself with it.

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Taking two difficult languages is a bad idea.
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@GiftedACIII posted...

Japanese is the most similar to Chinese (it borrows a lot of its characters after all).
I'm also fluent in conversational mandarin so I can help with that.

Japanese might be the most similar to Mandarin, but Korean and Japanese have more in common with each other than they do with any Chinese language.
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