I am a lurker and I always wanted to learn Japanese. I posted a post a few days ago about taking an accelerated course and decided it wasn't a smart decision. Today, I've found myself a native tutor online and we finished first chapter of Genki. He was surprised how good my pronunciation was.
I am always hopeless when it comes to languages. This felt… unbelievable.
Thank you guys for the encouragement. All those successful stories give me courage. I just can't thank people enough. My family actually told me I am wasting my time learning a language I may never use since I live in the US. They are wrong!
by StrongTxWoman
5 comments
Don’t mention it 😎
>My family actually told me I am wasting my time learning a language I may never use since I live in the US
I mean, from a practical perspective, maybe? So? The point of bettering one’s self isn’t to reap immediate material gains! Apart from the pleasure of learning the language, there’s something to be said for just doing hard things. At the very least, it’s an amazing feeling when you turn the impossible into the real. Keep it up, you’re doing great!
Yeah, don’t listen to your family. Learning a language, any language, has numerous benefits and even if you don’t get to speak it, you can still use it to peruse media in their native language which definitely counts as using it.
I’m so happy for you! It’s victories like this that keep learners going.
>My family actually told me I am wasting my time learning a language I may never use since I live in the US
Where I live there are also hardly any Japanese people, yet I use Japanese everyday for multiple hours. Using it isn’t limited to speaking and writing, consuming Japanese media (e.g. reading and listening) is just as much about putting the language to use. I am not sure why so many people think that only outputing counts as using.