Anyone here worked in Japan?

[mcquiggd]

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Im gradually picking up some of the language through conversing with my friend, whose brother is actually a translator and is more than happy to help me out...

I realised very quickly that it would take real application to get to any usable level of Japanese... im intrigued as to how you started to learn the language, Threaded...?

[threaded]

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Just got sort of interested in Oriental Languages and Culture.

As luck would have it at University, maths being an easy and not too time consuming subject for me, I signed up for all sorts of other stuff and a few units of, as luck would have it, "Oriental Languages and Culture", and learnt Japanese.

Japanese is not so hard if you take it with culture context, but just learning the language on its own means it can be really easy to say something offensive to someone who wants to be offended, which some are. You get funny bugg3rs all over the world. For example depending on who you are, who you are talking too, phase of the moon etc. verbs end differently. The highest honorific level "Keigo" went out of educational fashion for a period, so you'll find many japanese baby boomers doing it wrong, but everyone else doing it right, and baby boomers are now at that age when they begin to change status within the context of a Kiego conversation. Can be a little confusing.