A while ago, we asked on our Facebook page what languages you wanted to learn. To my surprise, Japanese was the big winner with 116 votes so far, followed at some distance by Korean (74 votes). I had expected Korean to win by a wide margin, but of course Japanese holds very good cards too. Such as:
1. Korean has got the drama, Japanese has, too. And manga. So both languages have a clear cultural draw to them. Of course everything can be subtitled and translated, but it’s just not the same as the original.
2. Japan is bigger. With some 128 million inhabitants, Japan is a lot bigger than Korea. And it has a history of being a technological leader, although the future remains to be seen.
3. Singapore has jobs that require Japanese language ability. Be it with Japanese MNC’s or companies servicing Japanese customers, Japan’s size and the relatively low number of English speakers among the Japanese, mean that speaking Japanese can really set you apart when looking for a job.
Any other reasons? If you want to learn Japanese for another reason, leave a comment!
And to get started, do check out the Yago site for Japanese courses!
About Guus Goorts
Guus has traveled widely and has lived in The Netherlands, Ghana, Belgium and Singapore. In descending order of fluency, he speaks Dutch, English, Mandarin, German and some rudiments of Spanish, French and Italian. Guus lives in Singapore with his wife and two young children. He settled in Singapore in early 2006 from his native country The Netherlands. After working in a job for corporate training, he founded Yago Languages, Singapore's guide to language learning.
Learning Japanese because I wanna read what’s the ingredients in my Gatsby Wax and Meiji chocolate.
On a serious note, it’s largely for communication with others, business or friends.
Well I’m sure you’ll be able to communicate way before you can read all the ingredients! How much Japanese do you already speak?