/ot/ - off-topic

>>29818

Takeshita street*

dammit

Wtf is a Takeshita Street?

Also yes, I'm learning Japanese formally at my university in the UK.

Technically I'd be entering my second year but I left my first uni and switched to another so I'll be doing first year all over again. It's going to be absurdly easy as I already know the entire first year curriculum.

I'm intending on getting certification in TEFL over the next Summer, but I don't really know what I'd like to do with my degree yet… interpretation, translation, Int. Relations, teaching English in Japan, teaching Japanese in Britain.
I am hoping to use the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to my advantage as a possible entry point to a career though.

At any rate I was just reading about the 1993 case of 矢ガモ/Yagamo (lit. arrow duck), a Japanese duck that got pierced clean through the chest and flew around for an entire year with an arrow sticking out of it before they were able to catch it and remove the arrow. Pretty neat stuff.

>All this hate on weebs
Seriously, it's not 2010 anymore. Weebs barely exist anymore unless you live in some backwaters community that's just heard about annie may for the first time. Rabid tumblrites are today's weebs.

>>29823
Takeshita street is the "main" street for fashion shit in Harajuku because its pedestrian only
>>29827
Take a Japanese class at your local college/university and then tell me weebs don't exist anymore

tbf weebs generally have some interest in the cultural shit too. I couldn't disgrace my teenage self by not going a little bit weeb when I eventually go.

But, yes. Obviously here we are all sick of white wannabe aidorus. Goes without saying but what would we talk about without them..

I am going to Japan as an exchange student for a year (Tokyo).
I am planning to travel on holidays and other than the well known bigger places (like Kyoto), anyone have a recommendations for smaller, not so known places?

I've been studying Japanese seriously for around 3 years. I'm aiming to study in a university course that includes a whole year of staying abroad in Japan. I'd consider myself an indulger in weeb things so I'm not the one to judge, in fact I dislike the 13 year old who think they're above the other 13 year olds and accuse said of fetishization because they say kawaii and think some Japanese person is cute.

I really want to find a good studying group however. The ones I'm in die off pretty quickly and most aren't studying academically.

>>29849

If you're in the UK and intend to go to uni I do not recommend the University of Sheffield.

They don't teach you Japanese so much as beat it into you with a barbed club and then get confused and condescending when you can't keep up with 25 Kanji per week, all kun' and on'yomi with precise stroke order, 10 new grammar points a week from "te kara" to "hou ga ii desu", expected to be memorised in usage precisely before the week end, 50 new pieces of vocabulary a week and two Japanese written assignments per week.
Christ by the end of my first year there I legit wanted to kill myself, so glad I switched uni.

Also if you're looking for a study group and are near to a city try looking out for a Japanese society. They have one in every city where the uni has Japanese as a degree.

People who whine about weebs and how their love and understanding of Japan is oh so superior are the very worst kind of weeb, imo.

>>29864
I don't study Japanese formally, but have friends that have and the brutal workload seems pretty standard for a Japanese BA. They pretty much had no time for anything else. Having said that, are you not worried that your level of Japanese won't be high enough to do anything useful with by the end of your course?

I want to learn Japanese, but I don't know where to start, really. The grammar and pronunciation is actually very similar to my own native language so I guess it could be worth the effort.

>>29867
>People who whine about weebs and how their love and understanding of Japan is oh so superior are the very worst kind of weeb, imo.

This. Especially the type that were just as ridiculous animu-loving weebs growing up and had their interest in Japan sparked by their popular culture but still makes fun of 13-year old weebs going through the same thing.

>>29867

Nope because I come from a poverty stricken background and university is my golden ticket away from cold showers, council housing and food banks.

All I can do is work hard and try my best. If by the end of my degree I'm still not good enough then I'll just have to try harder. I'll do anything you get away from this life.

>>29869
Unfortunately, a degree isn't necessarily a golden ticket out of poverty anymore. Don't just do the minimum your degree requires to pass with a decent mark, especially as it sounds like you're doing a less intensive course. Remember you'll be competing with the students who have completed the more intensive courses. I have acquaintances who haven't been able to do much with theirs because their level of Japanese wasn't good enough. Make sure you aim for at least JLPT level 2 by the end or you'll probably be fucked. So many people are graduates nowadays and a degree in Japanese is pretty meaningless if you don't have the language skills to back it up. Please don't think I'm trying to be horrible, this is just something I'm passionate about.

I trekked through Japan for 4 months when I was 18, fuck big cities countryside is so fucking beautiful and friendly. Hokkaido was specially beautiful

>>29880

Or just follow another trend in Japan, make a blog/vlog/shoop and try to become famous like kota

(u gotta b white and kawaii tho otherwise it wont work)

>>29880

Well to be honest I haven't really expanded upon my entire situation here so I feel like you have the entirely wrong end of the stick.
I didn't just switch uni because of the level of intensity, I've been becoming increasingly sick over the last few years and it came to a head over Christmas when I was hospitalised and diagnosed with Endometriosis. It took a while to get my symptoms under control but the sporadic, debilitating pain fucked up the rest of my term

At the end of the day I really could not give less of a shit about competing with everybody to the point where it gives me unnecessary stress. It's like, not needed. It doesn't need to be that way.
I'm at university to enjoy myself, make friends and primarily immerse myself in a subject I thoroughly enjoy. Even if I don't end up with the most desirable grades I really don't care because it's like, what else do I have? I have nothing, no money, no assets, no car, no extended family who can help me out, my mother is unemployed due to severe illness and poor as dirt, I live in a damp basement filled with mould and I sleep on a tiny sofa every night. If I didn't go to university what would I have?

You say it's not a golden ticket but for me it's an opportunity to move to a city, gather contacts, make connections, expand my knowledge, get a flat, get a car, procure a legitimate job (because I normally live in bumfuck nowhere in the North of England where opportunities are zero, like, they don't exist).
It's a golden ticket for anybody that's poor tbh, you wouldn't really see it any other way unless you'd been financially stable your entire life.

I know you weren't trying to be horrible but actually it did come across as kind of condescending. Not everybody has it that easy, I'm just happy being able to get away from poverty.

For the next 3 years I get a warm, dry heated room with no mould, a real bed, a wardrobe with actual doors where I can store my clothes and wake up and select an outfit without having to check it for mould, my own SHOWER, which is ALWAYS hot. Do you know how much that means to somebody like me?

>>29944

Nah I'm not interested in that kind of lifestyle, I legit want to get into academia, contribute to books, take part in documentaries, teach, spread my acquired knowledge and help people who are in a similar position to me realise and fulfil their potential.
I have so much shitting potential and I know it, I just need to get my endo and muh depresshun under control.

>>30074
I know this a thread about Japan but your post reminded me that not a lot of people talk about the poverty in England, or Western Europe as a whole. My best friend is doing her master degree in London and she has not complained about a single thing except the international students at her University because according to her they "have nothing to lose, can fuck up and their school will cover it since they pay their tuition for up to 5 or 6 yrs," but other than that she said "England is incredible I want to stay here for a few more years".

anyway, back to the topic of Japan, I have never come across another country, other than South Korea, that people have wanted to go to as badly and it makes me wonder if its something beyond the difference in culture

I mean, every culture other than your own/one you're exposed to is strange, but people don't really display that same intensity for not only wanting to travel to Japan and South Korea, learn the languages, history, cultural norms and working there.

It makes me question even more if people are on the right track when they say that people just visit for the anime or the potential hook ups because a lot of people return from Japan or South Korea disenamoured (particularly with Japan) after being there for a few months, not just visiting. It's as though their hopes were crushed, and its mainly because of the people.