Do you like Japan ?

[urherenow]

How do you guys communicate when you’re on a trip there? I thought barely anyone can speak english there.

My wife is Japanese. Been married more than 18 years, and only lived in the U.S. for 3 of those...

 

[sarkwalvein]

I love japan!

why?

i have a plan to repopulate the country! im going to be they lord and saviour.

Go there Flame, go!

/s

 

[tpax]

I spent some time in Japan in the past, and I really learned to love this country. As everything in the world it without a doubt has its up- and downsides, but in general I have a really positive feelings towards that place.
What I really love about Japan is the tidiness. You can measure the culture of one country by its public toilets, and they are cleaner than the most toilets in private households in Europe, that I can tell you.
Trains come on time, moving staircase is always free on one side, so you can walk without up or down without back-slapping, everything is just so well organized. You just feel safe, I can let my wife walk home alone at night without having sleepless hours waiting for her. This makes my eyes wet, living in a country like Germany where everything began to fall apart years ago, mostly because of the refugee crysis, government missmanagement and growing crime rate.
The Japanese people manage it so well to preserve their culture, you actually feel this kind of "purity" if you stay there for a longer period.
I'd love to move to Japan and live there, but as we all know, it's not that simple to gain ground there, especially if you come from abroad.

 

[Minox]

Personally I'd say it's an alright country. Japan is far from perfect, but it's also not a horrible place depending on what angle you're looking at it from.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Trains come on time, moving staircase is always free on one side, so you can walk without up or down without back-slapping, everything is just so well organized.

Long life to Deutsche Bahn! /s

(hell they have gone from OK to WTF man in the last couple of years, specially for ICE service... seriously WTF...)

 

[urherenow]

You can measure the culture of one country by its public toilets,

Speaking of... most public toilets have spray disinfectant mounted on the wall (so you can spray some toilet paper and wipe the seat with it), the seats are heated, and the seats wash your ass too

Not to mention, the vast majority of the population are polite and civil. I love America, but after living in Japan for so long, I can't stand Americans (as a people/culture).

Edit (now that I went back and finished reading your post): It's also considered so safe that it's not uncommon to see children walking around parks late at night. If you leave a wallet or bag with a laptop, phone, etc on a train... 99 times out of 100 you just need only figure out where the last stop was on the line for that train, and your item will be waiting at the office. With all of your money intact. OH! and kids often go to-from kindergarten via train. By. Themselves. Wow...

 

[ThoD]

My wife is Japanese. Been married more than 18 years, and only lived in the U.S. for 3 of those...

Let's also not forget that Japanese is BY FAR the easiest language to learn, so if you simply are willing to learn, you can reach the level required for everyday conversations in a year! The ONLY hard part is learning the characters, so if you get that down in a month or so, everything becomes a joke.

All in all, Japan is a good country, definitely has bad parts like every place in the world does, but it can be extremely satisfying and fun living or visiting there, you just have to find the one place most suited for you. That is made easier with how the culture revolves around being polite and everything, promoting a peaceful and simple life if you are into that sort of thing (I am).

 

[tpax]

Speaking of... most public toilets have spray disinfectant mounted on the wall (so you can spray some toilet paper and wipe the seat with it), the seats are heated, and the seats wash your ass too

Not to mention, the vast majority of the population are polite and civil. I love America, but after living in Japan for so long, I can't stand Americans (as a people/culture).

Edit (now that I went back and finished reading your post): It's also considered so safe that it's not uncommon to see children walking around parks late at night. If you leave a wallet or bag with a laptop, phone, etc on a train... 99 times out of 100 you just need only figure out where the last stop was on the line for that train, and your item will be waiting at the office. With all of your money intact. OH! and kids often go to-from kindergarten via train. By. Themselves. Wow...

Yep, happened to us. My wife let her purse in one of the bars in Golden Gai once, and guess what? One of the (japanese) guests there found the purse, went through a lot of bars asking if someone has lost a red purse, and the next day we went back there the barkeeper in a random bar knew about the purse and pointed us to the bar where it actually was "waiting" for us.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Let's also not forget that Japanese is BY FAR the easiest language to learn, so if you simply are willing to learn, you can reach the level required for everyday conversations in a year! The ONLY hard part is learning the characters, so if you get that down in a month or so, everything becomes a joke.

I kind of disagree on that. It is hard for me to believe it could be any easier than Spanish, or going to the point English. Those two languages are ridiculously easy.

That said, I believe getting into a basic conversational level in a year is possible, Japanese never sounded hard to me, but going from basic conversational to actually being able to discus some complex topic in eg. politics, science, philosophy, literature, etc... that is a whole different thing.

And regarding the writing system, hiragana and katakana are piece of cake sure, but Kanjis seem fucking infinite and a PITA to remember the correct stroke order and write them right... Nope, that is way too hard.

 

[Bu2d85]

Speaking of... most public toilets have spray disinfectant mounted on the wall (so you can spray some toilet paper and wipe the seat with it), the seats are heated, and the seats wash your ass too

Not to mention, the vast majority of the population are polite and civil. I love America, but after living in Japan for so long, I can't stand Americans (as a people/culture).

Edit (now that I went back and finished reading your post): It's also considered so safe that it's not uncommon to see children walking around parks late at night. If you leave a wallet or bag with a laptop, phone, etc on a train... 99 times out of 100 you just need only figure out where the last stop was on the line for that train, and your item will be waiting at the office. With all of your money intact. OH! and kids often go to-from kindergarten via train. By. Themselves. Wow...

Much like @urherenow I have lived in Japan for about 12 years now and can’t say that I would rather live anywhere else. It’s safe, clean, I don’t have to worry about my kids walking to and from school and I don’t think I have seen a better healthcare system anywhere. Yes, Japan has it’s own problems but they are no where near any other country I have ever been (about 12 I think).

 

[leon315]

Tsukiji fish market

ever tried WHALE streaks??

 

[ThoD]

I kind of disagree on that. It is hard for me to believe it could be any easier than Spanish, or going to the point English. Those two languages are ridiculously easy.

That said, I believe getting into a basic conversational level in a year is possible, Japanese never sounded hard to me, but going from basic conversational to actually being able to discus some complex topic in eg. politics, science, philosophy, literature, etc... that is a whole different thing.

And regarding the writing system, hiragana and katakana are piece of cake sure, but Kanjis seem fucking infinite and a PITA to remember the correct stroke order and write them right... Nope, that is way too hard.

Let's see what there is in Japanese... Kanji? You need to know 3000 of them tops to get a linguistics diploma and a mere 500-700 for everyday life and work (most you will learn by repeated exposure to them) and even those are often shown along their Hiragana counterparts, so it's not hard to understand them anyway. Many different words? As if, compared to English (1.4 million words or 4+ billion words including forms), Japanese has a mere 89000 different words (253000 including forms), which is nothing and to be honest, you won't need more than 10000 tops. Grammar? Besides syntax being the exact reverse of English (verb goes last in Japanese and talk is almost exclusively done in passive), you have TWO tenses, present and past, making it a joke to learn and to ask a question 99% of the time you just need to add the "ka" at the end. So really, besides learning the characters, it's a joke and it's no coincidence that to go from complete beginner to top diploma (M1) you only need 5 years (5 diplomas, one per year, M3 alone is at a better level than the average Japanese person)!

 

[sarkwalvein]

Let's see what there is in Japanese... Kanji? You need to know 3000 of them tops to get a linguistics diploma and a mere 500-700 for everyday life and work (most you will learn by repeated exposure to them) and even those are often shown along their Hiragana counterparts, so it's not hard to understand them anyway. Many different words? As if, compared to English (1.4 million words or 4+ billion words including forms), Japanese has a mere 89000 different words (253000 including forms), which is nothing and to be honest, you won't need more than 10000 tops. Grammar? Besides syntax being the exact reverse of English (verb goes last in Japanese and talk is almost exclusively done in passive), you have TWO tenses, present and past, making it a joke to learn and to ask a question 99% of the time you just need to add the "ka" at the end. So really, besides learning the characters, it's a joke and it's no coincidence that to go from complete beginner to top diploma (M1) you only need 5 years (5 diplomas, one per year, M3 alone is at a better level than the average Japanese person)!

True, you have two tenses, but a lot of other shit like modes get into the verb conjugation.
Imperative, conditional, presumptive, provisional, etc, etc.

In english verb conjugation is way more simple, and you only have conjugation for present, past and past participle, future is made up using an auxiliary verb, almost everything else is made using auxiliary verbs...

Take this example (title from ending song of Love Hina, don't judge me for the bad taste, I was too young):

Kimi Sae Ireba

If I were next to you

One verb translates to three words in English (well, I am lying, the "I" pronoun is implied but is not part of the verb), well that kind of thing is not there in English (it is there in Spanish anyway).

PS: And to show more how it is a PITA, that translation above is wrong because it actually means
Kimi Sae Ireba
As long as you are (here?)

With Sae and Ireba mixing up in a very weird way to mean "as long as" / "to be/to exist for living things".

Hell, the grammar is not easy either.

 

[MasterJ360]

How do you guys communicate when you’re on a trip there? I thought barely anyone can speak english there.

I'm pretty sure you can hire a translator to get around I remember that nutcase Logan Paul had one with him while he was being disrespectful.

 

[Deleted User]

I'm not a weeb so I'm not one of those OMG JAPAN IS AMAZING!!! sayers
I see Japan as just another country.
Indifferent about it.

I'd like to say that if the opportunity arises to go to Japan one day, I'd purely go for the scenery of Mt Fuji
Maybe the culture.

I do like asian films, more specifically the horror films they produce but anime, no thank you.

OMG WAPAN IS AMASING!!!!1!
THEY MAKE HENTAI FOR US!!!1
japan is better than wapan
japans weebs are less cancerous than wapan
japan is the land of giant acid spiting wasps that are the size of your hand
so its just another land mass with GIANT FUCKING WASPS and earthquakes

 

[DinohScene]

OMG WAPAN IS AMASING!!!!1!
THEY MAKE HENTAI FOR US!!!1
japan is better than wapan
japans weebs are less cancerous than wapan
japan is the land of giant acid spiting wasps that are the size of your hand
so its just another land mass with GIANT FUCKING WASPS and earthquakes

You really are one of the cringiest users on here...

 

[WiiUBricker]

My wife is Japanese.

You’re a lucky son of a gun.

 

[Termer]

I've never been to Japan, but my Dad told me a funny story that supposedly happened when he was a kid. A Japanese family owned a Japanese restaurant in town. They also happened to live there. They ran it for a few years until they lost their license to run it when they were caught cooking cat. They weren't cooking it for customers, but after hours they were using the equipment to cook it for themselves. Don't know if it's true or not, but a funny story nevertheless.

 

[ThoD]

True, you have two tenses, but a lot of other shit like modes get into the verb conjugation.
Imperative, conditional, presumptive, provisional, etc, etc.

In english verb conjugation is way more simple, and you only have conjugation for present, past and past participle, future is made up using an auxiliary verb, almost everything else is made using auxiliary verbs...

Take this example (title from ending song of Love Hina, don't judge me for the bad taste, I was too young):

Kimi Sae Ireba

If I were next to you

One verb translates to three words in English (well, I am lying, the "I" pronoun is implied but is not part of the verb), well that kind of thing is not there in English (it is there in Spanish anyway).

PS: And to show more how it is a PITA, that translation above is wrong because it actually means
Kimi Sae Ireba
As long as you are (here?)

With Sae and Ireba mixing up in a very weird way to mean "as long as" / "to be/to exist for living things".

Hell, the grammar is not easy either.

If you are taking those examples from fansubs, either change the fansub team you get your stuff from or stop taking fan translations literally. "Sae Ireba" refers to being needed and being satisfied with having, so it roughly should translate to "satisfied with you being here" (hard/literal translation is impossible between English and Japanese as Japanese is more of a contextual language). Anyway, if you actually give Japanese a try, you will see it's not anywhere near as hard as it looks on paper (metaphorically, not literally reading).

 

[Termer]

and then in turn,