If you speak Japanese...

[Shin-seiki]

If I remember correctly the Turkish and Japanese languages are rather closely related (books not accessible right now, so I can't back it up with facts).

I wouldn't say "rather closely" by any means; tho there are some theories that there may be a remote connection in the far distant past. Japanese is really sui generis among the major languages, and has proven very difficult to place in the world linguistic family tree.

[Reichu]

People rarely do anything without any reason whatsoever. Even if the reason is stupid, it's still a reason. Learning a new language takes tons of work, so there must be some kind of reason. I smell weeaboo.

Word up, yo.

My initial reason was a pretty "stupid" one. Eons ago, I'd started buying video game music albums, and I wanted to be able to read the track listings on my own. I taught myself katakana first, since it was usually used to write things I could understand without any knowledge of Japanese vocabulary ("FAINARU FANTAJI- MEIN TE-MA"). Then I tackled hiragana, and it took off from there.

[Duke]

I'm not exactly sure as to why I want to learn Japanese. Is there something horribly wrong with not having a reason to do it?

People rarely do anything without any reason whatsoever. Even if the reason is stupid, it's still a reason. Learning a new language takes tons of work, so there must be some kind of reason. I smell weeaboo.

Hmm... And I smell a person that makes assumptions without even knowing the person in question :P.

Anyways, a weeaboo is someone who USES Japanese words WITHOUT knowing what they mean, A.K.A the Puerto Rican kid in my Spanish class that thinks he's Japanese, and probably thinks he's a PokeMon too:

*me walks into class*

"OH HELLO D00K-SAMA"

"eerrrr...."

[Joseph the PRPD]

the Puerto Rican kid in my Spanish class that thinks he's Japanese...

You're post cracked me up!

[Duke]

Yeah, he's pretty weird.

Damn Naruto fan boys -.-

[Reichu]

Anyways, a weeaboo is someone who USES Japanese words WITHOUT knowing what they mean, A.K.A the Puerto Rican kid in my Spanish class that thinks he's Japanese

Weeaboos can actually know the meanings of some of the words they use (as illustrated by the screaming of "kawaii!!!!!!" at something that is cute). But they tend to be ridiculously naive and overzealous. A weeaboo doesn't need a reason to "learn Japanese"; they just need to do it because, well, come on, it's Japanese. Japanese = better than not Japanese. Japan is goodness distilled.

[Synapsid]

kawaii - cute

neko - cat

sugoi - awesome/amazing

suupaa- super

desu - put this at the end of every sentence

Congratulations, you now speak Japanese.

Well then Zappy, this video has everything you brought up we might as well make a instructional out of it
Though seriously mp3 lesson podcasts aren't a bad way to go...

[Holy Diver]

And I thought Americans had an unhealthy obsession with silly animal tricks.

[Joseph the PRPD]

And I thought Americans had an unhealthy obsession with silly animal tricks.

The Japanese have a thing for cats...

[BrikHaus]

The Japanese have a thing for cats...

Not cats per se, but definitely pussy.

[LeoXiao]

Cats are badass. I have bunch of strays that inhabit my backyard. They're like miniature tigers, and though there are like five of them, you only see one of them at a time. Why? Because when they come near each other, they explode into violent fights which are dangerous up-close, but entertaining from, say, a window, preferably on the second floor. Last week it was their mating season or something and they got really loud, so during dinner you could hear cats growling and purring outside. It was... unique.

[Duke]

Update:

I found this one awesome online Japanese text book, so I think that'll be really helpful.

Also, I've been copying down the Hiragana and Katakana - I've copied all of the Hiragana and the combinations of Hiragana into a composition notebook, and I'm now copying down the Katakana combinations :P.

[LeoXiao]

Update:

I found this one awesome online Japanese text book, so I think that'll be really helpful.

Also, I've been copying down the Hiragana and Katakana - I've copied all of the Hiragana and the combinations of Hiragana into a composition notebook, and I'm now copying down the Katakana combinations :P.

What book? I'm interested

[Sailor Star Dust]

drinian: you're probably thinking of the fact that Japanese and Spanish share the same phonetic vowels (a, i, u, e, o) as some other languages do.

[Duke]

What book? I'm interested

Well, it's LIKE a book, lol. It has chapters and grammar lessons and stuff, but it was never an actual published book, here's a link:

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/index.html#contents
It's by Tae Kim.

It looks really useful, and I've heard good stuff about it.

@SSD, I'm pretty sure that's what he means, I've heard that myself.

[Synapsid]

The Japanese have a thing for cats...

Humanity as a whole has a thing for cats, we wouldn't have them all over the globe otherwise.

Not cats per se, but definitely pussy.

Is that your medical opinion sir?

[Maverick]

Learning Japanese beats learning Spanish.

Actually, Spanish shares enough with Japanese at the phoneme level that native Spanish speakers generally seem to have an easier time with spoken Japanese than English speakers do. (I have to believe that six years of secondary-school Spanish helped me a bit in that regard).

Edit: I completely forget where I originally heard this, so no facts to back it up.

It could also be portuguese, since the Portuguese sailors had a history with the Japanese people, and mixed up some words from both languages.

As a portuguese speaker myself, spoken Japanese doesn't sound that hard to speak. I bet that if a portuguese speaker tried to speak some Japanese by reading the romaji (kawaii, gomen, etc), they would probably speak most of it with the right sound.
At least for me, it's very easy to sing along any anime opening song just by reading the romaji subtitles as if they were portuguese words. One speaks just like you one reads it (vowels having the same sound, etc). Definitly, not like English =)

[LeoXiao]

Japanese should be easy for anyone to pronounce. its consonants (besides "n") are all nicely paired with vowels, and things like "suki" and "desu" just end up becoming "des" and "ski", which are incredibly easy to say.

[Reichu]

Japanese should be easy for anyone to pronounce.

I'd imagine it's harder for English-speakers, since those who don't have experience outside of English are going to expect "no nice correspondence between what's written and what's said", and apply Modern English's ridiculous pronunciation schema to everything they see accordingly.

[Tokpile Quohog]

Hunter found this
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-03-13/viz-hiring-bilingual-tv/video-production-staffers
Yea, here's another great reason to learn Japanese, the sugoi'est language in the universe.