This is the funniest thing. Thank you for giving me a laugh this morning.
I had a friend in uni who said “I do everything, including becoming a better person, out of spite” and I have always aspired to have that energy. Unfortunately it’s not quite in me, but I salute those of you who have that.
My main reason for learning Japanese was because I love Japanese media and there is and was so much out there that wasn’t being translated, and as I’ve learnt the language I’ve been able to engage with those mediums in a way I couldn’t before. Watching all the unsubbed extras that get released for anime, listening to the seiyu radio shows, reading manga and light novels that I might have only been able to experience as anime or in a single form before.
My motivation partly comes from continuing to experience and engage with the works in a way I couldn’t before, but also because I want to understand everyone involved with these works when they’re talking about them. Also with the rise of AI the quality of what we get in English is just getting worse, so now I don’t even buy manga in English instead opting entirely for Japanese. Makes me sad about the industry but happy I picked up the language when I did.
Many days are a struggle and I emphasis with the feeling of burnout. My advice would be try not to be too hard on yourself, even if you only do a little bit everyday you are doing great and it all eventually adds up. Be kind to yourself 
Ironically, often times the AI translation feels better than the “seven seas entertainment” style censorship.
As for why I am learning Japanese… for job prospects. I’ve already lived here for a few years. but currently still struggling my way through despite studying near every day in various aspects and working at an all Japanese company. It’s always a struggle and there’s lots of burnout- but quitting has never crossed my mind in the years I’ve studied it. I suppose speaking with my wife and kid would also be a perk of learning Japanese, but that’s an aside. (Jokes)
I always had an interest in Japan because it felt really far away and different from my own hometown. It seemed like a big adventure. However, I never thought I could study Japanese because I thought I was too stupid for such a difficult language. I went to college, graduated, and started a web development career all with this in mind. At one point I got into a really bad relationship and my partner told me that I “could never learn Japanese and would/should just give up” and for some reason this pissed me off enough to finally prove to myself I wasn’t stupid and I could do it. I learned about the JET program and for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I realized leaving behind a web development career for education wasn’t smart, but I also realized that life was short and I was sure that someday when I was old I would really regret never having even tried.
I went back to school for my Master’s and started studying Japanese. I graduated and got into JET making about half as much salary but I was about twice as happy as I’d ever been. I started kyudo, I met my wife, I finished JET and passed N2 and got another job. I’ve been here about 9 years now and I regret ever having told myself I couldn’t do it. I really want to develop something someday to help others study and experience the same things I’ve been able to experience!
That being said, there’s a lot about living here I still don’t vibe with. However, there’s stuff at home I don’t vibe with either! Going from one culture to another has really given me an opportunity to learn about me.
My reason is probably a bit weird. I never really cared about Japan much. I watched some anime as a kid, but never as an adult and didn’t particularly know anything about Japanese culture. When COVID happened, I started getting really bored and looked for a way to improve myself. I recalled that as a kid, my worst subject in school by far was Spanish - I felt like learning a language was just something I’m not good at and could never do. Well, I decided that I was going to change that and learn a new language. Which language? The hardest language. And Google says the hardest language for an English speaker is Japanese. So I guess I’m learning Japanese. Not for any real reason other than to prove to myself I can.
Well, COVID is over and I’ve been slowly learning Japanese. Not enough to say I’m fluent or even comfortably conversational, but improving bit by bit. I decide I should actually take a trip there and see if I can use any of it - may as well have some fun, right? I go for almost a full month and fall absolutely in love with the place. I’ve been to over a dozen countries on every inhabited continent and nowhere felt like Japan. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
So over the next year, I hatched a crazy plan - convince my company to let me transfer there. It was an insane long shot but I had to take it. And after more than half a year of trying to get to the right people, they actually said yes! That was in August and it’s been slow going to get everything together, but I just signed my new employment contract this week and the lawyers are preparing to submit the paperwork for my visa. I will be going for 3 weeks next month to start meeting customers and getting things ready for my move.
So while it started as a way to prove to myself that I could do it, it’s now something I need to do to live my new life!
Had to learn Italian cos I live in Italy so I started it, but it wasn’t much fun, thou I understood that I would like learning languages and exploring how to do it.
Japanese made some sense because I can actually use it by watching anime, and it was fun, and had stuff like kanji.
I learn it so can explore the topic of learning something in general, but other things are present for sure. Basically I just feel like learning it so I learn it, if I stop feeling like it’s right for me to learn it I will stop until I feel like that again.
It really depends. The Seven Seas stuff is terrible and they went on a ‘I absolutely won’t buy or support any of their output’ immediately when it all came out about them, but AI stuff can be very stitled even when accurate which is almost as bad since its not conveying the authors intent either. I’m glad I don’t have to rely on either of them that’s for sure. 
A long time ago, I saw a TV program in which there were American children. Those were part of an experiment, aimed at demonstrating that learning a language, the japanese, very different from their native language would make them more intelligents.
But I didn’t even think about learning Japanese at the time.
At school, I was told that I should only learn English, because I wasn’t good at languages.
However, years later, I managed to learn Hebrew, then Italian…so why not Japanese?
In Italian, I progressed as if on a highway; Japanese is something else entirely. For someone like me who enjoys things that take their time, it’s wonderful. Finally, I can take my time and savor it.
I started studying Japanese for a relatively small reason. My wife and I decided to take the kids on a trip to Japan this summer, and I thought it would be useful to pick up some of the language in preparation. Quickly I realized that this would be nothing like adding some Italian to the Spanish I had…but I was interested and intrigued by the language. So I’ve continued on, with it being a fascinating and engaging intellectual hobby more than anything else.
I haven’t personally experienced the burnout you’re describing, but I recognize it. It sounds very much like what my oldest daughter went through, not for language but for fine arts. She is a talented artist (proud papa alert!), and so she enrolled in an Art and Design senior high school. But - that meant what she was doing for fun and self-expression turned into homework. Things she did because she wanted to suddenly became things she had to do. It really turned her off of art altogether for a while there.
She found her way back through dialing down her mandatory art as much as possible (she was still in an art school, but she moved as far away from art courses as she could). And she made a point to find space for art that was just for her.
I don’t know if that’s useful for your situation - if you have to keep up your current level of studies to “survive” and not start failing courses, you may not have the option to move away from mandatory engagement and seek out more “elective” study. But it worked for her. Sometimes just knowing that you’re doing something for you, and not because you have to, can rekindle a desire to do it.
I started studying because I was applying to international opportunities and there are some experts in my field in Japan. Now a few years of trying later I did get an opportunity and I am excited to move there very soon! So it’s not just about the language it does open doors for your career too!
It sounds like we have a lot in common! And I’m sure many here would also relate.
For me, I found that all of the things that I liked happened to be Japanese and then I later began studying much later in life. My first exposure was (Japanese) video games when I was very young, then anime, then music, etc. I had a passing interest in Japanese culture for ~20 years, but it was only about 4 years ago when I decided that I wanted learn more.
But for real, my true honest push for learning (that I never admit out loud to anyone haha) is that I really wanted to learn Japanese because I wanted to understand social media posts about rabbits since they’re my special interest and there’s a whole world of Japanese rabbit accounts 
I started university in 2023 and after taking a few Japanese language and culture classes, I really fell in love with the culture and language and switched to a International Studies (Japanese) major. After my BA, I’ll be pursuing my MA in Japanese Linguistics. One of my dreams is to become a translator for a company like Nintendo, but we’ll see how that goes 
And what keeps me going on a day to day basis is my want to push against AI and all the people in my life who keep saying that AI will “replace” the need to learn other languages. Ugh.
Because I want to consume stuff in their original language, whatever it may be. Because it’s fun. I don’t rely on motivation I rely on routine. I do it every. single. day since April 2017. I still suck at it, but that’s fine too.
Like many, I was young with asparations about Japan and all that Jazz. But that’s a story you’ve heard time and time again, so I guess I’ll tell you why I still study at middle age.
I don’t really know any other way. I don’t think I could see my life without Japanese, even though I live in America. It’s something that I love and has become a part of me. It’s has allowed me to make connections, meet people, and be part of groups I could not be part of without Japanese. Because there is always something more to learn, more to discover. In other words, I love it.
I know you mentioned that you might no longer have the passion for it and that’s fine. But when it comes to Japanese you either love it or need it if you want to be good at it.
I’ve said this before but, if you don’t love it currently, it’s going to be really difficult to keep going. It’s only ever going to be a chore rather than something you look forward to. You seemed to have “burnt out” on Japan it seems. It’s okay, maybe you just need some time. If you truly love something, it will always find a way back into your life one way or another. There were times in my life that I went years without seriously studying Japanese, but I always came back to it or rather, it somehow ended coming back to me.
One of my best friends from college came up to me one day and told me that he had started going to Japanese classes at a language school, and I instantly thought to myself: “I’m already bilingual, why should I stop learning languages now?”
I decided to learn Japanese, too, but without classes, on my own. Eventually I found the whole process to be quite enjoyable, and that pursuing mastery for its own sake is a noble goal. As a bonus, I discovered that anime, games, novels, and all the things I was already interacting with on a daily basis are much better in the original language.
However, one of the main drivers aside from pursuing mastery was the fact that my friend passed away a couple years after we had begun studying. He wanted to live in Japan, so I sort of took it upon myself to honor him by picking up his dream and seeing it through.
I now have the JLPT N1, and the only thing remaining is the final step: moving to Japan.
I began studying Japanese by accident. I didn’t have much interest in anime or manga as a kid (aside from some movies that I really loved, which did have a great impact on me - I just had no idea they were Japanese-made and didn’t care back then). Before I went off to college, I was told I’d need to take a language course for at least 4 semesters. I was like, god, I don’t even know what I want to study as a major yet and now they’re also making me learn a freaking language? Whatever, I’ll just take Spanish!
Well, I didn’t vibe with Spanish. I had taken it for years in middle and high school, got fine grades and all, but just thought I wasn’t a language person. Fast forward to a month before I go off to college, and I’m realizing I actually really DON’T want to take Spanish again. I figured, now’s the perfect time to try something new because everything else around me is going to be new anyway. And might as well do something challenging! So that’s how I ended up choosing Japanese: it was new to me and it looked hard. LOL
I’m turning 29 soon, so it’s been over 10 years since I started my journey with Japanese. In that time I won an award from our Japanese department, studied abroad for a summer in Nagoya, joined the JET programme, lived in rural Japan for 3 years during the pandemic, passed N2 in Japan, got my Master’s degree, went back to my alma mater to give an info session on the JET programme, and now have been teaching international students at a university back in my home country (some of them from Japan - very fun).
I just took N1 in December after taking a long but much-needed break from Japanese study, and I don’t think I passed due to the nearly 2-year rust, but wow, it felt so amazing to study and use Japanese again for the months leading up to the test. Like, my brain just felt good and refreshed, and I had a nice tangible goal to work towards every day.
So, if anything, do it for you. Maybe there are goals you want to reach without wanting to live in Japan, and that’s fine. I personally don’t want to move back there, and I’m at the point in my Japanese language journey where I notice I’m fossilizing and plateauing here and there. That doesn’t really matter to me, I just find that learning a language at the advanced level is great daily exercise for an ever-aging brain. Plus, you never know when your language skill will come in handy for you or for someone else who needs help, friendship, or whatever else. You should also look into some other languages when you feel ready. Sometimes starting at the beginning feels good and is a nice break from the monotonous familiarities of the language you’ve been learning for years.
I hope you find your passion somewhere, even if it’s by complete accident like I did!
I started studying nearly 20 years ago now, first year of high school. Before then I didn’t really have a passion for any subject, but I took to Japanese right away (helped that my sensei was fantastic). Did a summer exchange between my Junior and Senior years to really cement that Japan and Japanese was something I wanted to be able to have in my life. Got up to and passed N4 by that point
Well, life does as life does and my journey went all over. Work, love, kids, loss of love, etc etc. For a long while it wasn’t anywhere connected to Japan, so my only real relation to Japan for a while was maintained through the games I played. At around 31 or so I found myself back in Japan for a few years, and my first year there I hit the ground running to try to make up for lost time. Going to a language school, classes with American university branches on the Navy base I lived near, etc. I was doing really good until Covid hit, and everything once again had to halt. While it was fun living in Japan for a few years after, the results of Covid meant I really couldn’t branch out and it just became a time to enjoy the bit of culture and surroundings I can.
I’ve been back stateside for a bit now and I returned to University to finish my undergraduate. I’m on track to graduate this year with two degrees, one in Japanese and one in Asian Languages and Culture, so I hope to be able to find employment back in Japan, or at least relating to Japan, quickly upon graduation. I took the N3 this past Dec and am planning to take N2 this upcoming Dec, so it’s going to be a busy year in my life! It’s been a rough 5 or so years so I’m excited to have a goal attained soon in regards to my degrees, and I hope I can find some work in Japan and really start forming this “next chapter” for myself, however I deem it to go.
The above is a long winded way to say: if you have a passion for something, pursue it, but don’t feel bad if life derails you for a time! If the passion remains, it’ll be just as fun when you have the chance to return to pursuing it. Our lives are all a long and crazy journey, and I’ve learned that trying to predict where they end up with too much certainty is folly.
It was the summer after covid, I was walking on a bridge listening to Babymetal and thought to myself:
“It would be nice to be able to sing along and know what they’re saying apart from HEADBANGEEEER!”
I believe my interest of Japan overall started when i was young, whent my cousin lent me some “books” i thought looked really cool, it turned out to be Dragonball, thats when i started to take an interest in Manga, then i was later introduced to Bleach and Naruto.
At that time i had no interest in learing the language, fast forward a copule years to around 2013-14, i stumbled upon Babymetal and the song Megitsune, and that started my interest in Japan again, still did not think about learning the language itself.
Then again in 2023 i took an interest in the language itself, and just fell in love with how it sounds and feels, i have always thought it sounded cool and have hade the thoughts about “would it not be amazing if i cool speak this language” but i did not start to appreciate just how amazing the language itself is until i was much older, hade a few “false starts” with the language in 2023 and 2024, and from the beginning of 2025 i have studied the language every single day no matter what to get to the point of having so much hours invested that it would be a waste of time “quitting”.
Now that i am somewhat able to follow along with shows and youtube content and being somewhat able to read its not as “hard” studiyng Japanese, just just got to get over that initial confusion and feeling of understanding nothing until one day it just starts to click, thats an amazing feeling and it motivates me to keep going.
Also being part of a great and helping community as this one also keeps me motivated to keep going.
This is so true!
When I was younger, it was to play the zillions of video games that weren’t getting localized. I still do that sometimes: I get tired of waiting for fan translations or official localizations! I also love metatext for video games and Japanese media, so I often look for tie-in books or art books on BookWalker or eBay.
I have a bunch of other reasons now. I’ve been translating Japanese math to enhance my day job. I’ve found some really useful techniques to help my students, like Vieta’s formulas, Menelaus’s theorem, and algorithms to make explicit versions of recursive sequences.
I want to get back into making art. I like finding older Japanese media to influence me that remains obscure here, like the トラック野郎 and 男はつらいよ films and あんみつ姫. I want to make things that aren’t just the same few bits of American pop culture.
Most of all, a native speaker told me about five and a half years ago that my Japanese sucked because I’d lost almost all of it since college. So I’ve been spite-studying!