First and foremost, I am no Japanese, neither speak any of the language nor having anything related to Japan. I only have a 50-50 compatibility with Japanese language (meaning that I may or may not be able to master the language in a relatively short time). However there is not really a need for me to master the language other than me having high interests in Japanese entertainment materials such as anime, manga (including light novels), games (including eroge and visual novels) and Japanese music.
My involvement with Japan started when I was still a few weeks old. Back then (in early 80′s) the Malay-dubbed 30-minute Japanese dramas was a popular thing together with Malay-dubbed kids show like Ultraman. That, added with my face “looked like a Japanese” granted me a nickname “Hachi Yokomura” (complete with surname) by my naughty uncles and that name continued to be in use until today.
I can’t really remember my real first experience with anime but the Malay-dubbed Macross and Mospeada were among my firsts. Back then I didn’t really bother to watch western cartoon but I’d watch anime regardless in what language they are, even if that means reading the subtitle (I’m lucky that I can read since I was 4). If only anime was aired in Japanese language back then I might have mastered the language today because of my passion.
After I graduated from elementary school, under a scholarship I was able to go to a newly established elite private school (on top of that it was boarding school too), thanks to my good grades. Despite its damn restrictive rules, I really excited because it was among a very few schools here that teaches Japanese language formally. However it was outside of school curriculum and the student would have to pay separate tuition fee for it.
The tuition fee for the Japanese language course was quite on the high side for me. My scholarship only covers 75% of my school expenses so I didn’t really have money to afford the tuition. However due to the lack of interested student the Japanese language course was discontinued after 2 years.
When I was in high school the I started to see the chance ofbeing exposed to Japanese language again, thanks to the J-drama and J-pop boom in the late 90′s. The boom also started the anime boom and the trend continues until the early millennium until it swallowed by the annoying Korean entertainment invasion. If only the ‘boom’ was longer I might already be able to speak Japanese now.
Now with most people around me know more about Korean entertainment than Japanese I have nobody to talk about it other than the internet. Although many learning materials are available for free or really affordable now (like the Android app JA Sensei and the Moekana cards by dannychoo.com) I fear that I’m no longer be able to learn new language. After all I took more than 20 years to learn informal English (reading/writing only) so I can’t imagine how many more years I’d take to master the Japanese language.
So did I able to pick some Japanese from watching anime? I’d be lying if I say I don’t. At least I know the Japanese terms for a number of things. At one point in my life I even managed to read Katakana and Hiragana texts with 50% accuracy (reading only, without knowing the meaning). At that time my uncle was taking Japanese classes sponsored by the Japanese company where he worked at so I got to read the books he used in the class. Too bad he quit his job there after one year taking the class and moved to other company so that’s where my learning ended as well.
Now do I still have the chance? Next year I’ll turn 30. I think what I really need right now is not the chance (it’s always there after all) but the courage to learn something new.
I didn’t start formally learning Japanese until I was 18 and I started taking Japanese in college. I went on to major in it when I transferred to a university and I had a couple of short trips to Japan. Since I graduated in 2009, I’ve had no way of keeping up my studies other than self-study at home, which is what I’ve been doing.
Since I started learning the language relatively late in life, do I ever think I’ll be totally fluent? I think the only way I could achieve fluency at this point is to spend a significant time living in Japan. But until, or if, that time comes, I think self-study is a great way to get yourself grounded in the language until the opportunity comes up to learn it further.
Coincidentally, I recently started a post series on my blog teaching the fundamentals of the Japanese language. Perhaps you’d like to take a look: http://animeyume.com/blog/2012/04/14/fundamentals-of-japanese-part-1-pronunciation/
If there’s anything I could say as “self-teaching” it would be my effort to memorize some kanji as well as trying to regain back my ability to read/write katakana and hiragana. However so far the progress has been too slow that it’s next to unnoticeable. At this rate it would take me another 20 years to master the language and by that time I’d be in my 50′s that it would be very little use for me then.
Maybe I learned it the wrong way though. Maybe I should take Japanese classes too but right now my priority is to obtain a degree for myself by taking part-time courses at local universities. Since I have no enough time to study I think my best pick for now is to memorize Japanese words and sentences instead of characters by treating them like they’re pictures or something. At least I managed to recognize a few (mostly anime titles and character names) like 東方, 魔法少女まどかマギカ, 僕は友達が少ない, 巴マミ and 初音ミク, mainly because I always look out for them that I unconsciously got used to using or ‘reading’ them.
You’re lucky that you got to learn it formally when you’re 18 (for comparison, I’m 29 now). In fact most of students here who study abroad in Japan only took a 3-month full-time prep course (with most of them have no background in studying Japanese at all). With my age I don’t think that such ‘miracle’ could happen to me, unless I quit my job and learn it full-time as well.