Well, if you go that route, It's costly (no aid) and you won't get a degree, but the point is more to acclimate you to college and give you some skills even if you find you don't like it. You still should probably try for at least a 2 year degree, if not a 4 year (2 years tend to cram more classes, I think. That's how it was for me at least) at some point, at least once you figure out what you want to do for a real career.

And what's wrong with being 30?

Also @jon, I didn't know you were mickymac... You seem different (in a good way)

Probably because I never act myself when I'm under the monicker of "Mickeymac", a name I'm trying to distance myself from. This is just me, being myself here for once.

It's actually not that hard to read once you know what they're supposed to say. Though I find I often have to squint at Kanji. They were definitely not made for 12 point or lower font...

What easy way? There's no easy way or cheat for anything. Get your head in those books! Study, have discipline, make it your life. That's the only way to master anything.

If you think Japanese is hard, that just means you have to study more. The harder something is, the more time and energy you need to put into it. Study!

You think anyone who studies Japanese seriously has time for video games and anime all day? I'm not nearly as studious as some of my friends, but even I have like, 3 dictionaries, 5 different textbooks, a really expensive electronic dictionary (trilingual with French as well), mountains of flashcards, at about 2-3 years into my Japanese study I cut off all English usage with my Japanese friends, I moved in with a Japanese roommate when I was in california and had a Japanese only policy. I got really serious about it.

@jon there's nothing wrong with being 30 it's just there's only a certain amount of years we live, so my goal is to get there ASAP

@Tsuchinoko And I think if there was an easy way to learn languages...would we really need 12 years of schooling just to learn our native language(s)?

@HarmoKnight - Man you really remind me of me sometimes. Do you have a lot of anxiety? Because that sounds like something that goes through my mind when I'm anxious.

Also, the Tengu is interesting. It has bird-like characteristics? So that's why Tenguman could fly. I always wondered about that.

Ok so I looked up some symbols and the words: alcohol, rain, drawing, and rice field look exactly how I would picture them to be drawn on a piece of paper, if they were indeed the correct form in kanji

雨 ...I guess that looks like rain. Maybe if you're looking out a window?

^yep that's what I thought

Man, why can't people understand that college isn't made for everyone? Also there are plenty of other jobs that earn you quite a bit of money with out a college degree. For example, my starting wages when I used to paint was $15 per hour and I worked plenty of hours. That isn't bad for a starting job at all and it required zero college..

Doctors, lawyers, and teachers went to college

Lots of people get that. Only problem is that that those people aren't in charge...

It's sad because college doesn't mean your smart or hard working or vis versa

@tsuchinoko Dood you give really good advice and I am interested in Japanese language and culture. I don't know about moving there or anything, but a study abroad program during college would be really cool. In college what was your major/minor that let you take Japanese language courses and do the study abroad program? I am a Junior in high school and just starting college visits and I'd like to find some with good Japanese language programs and with a study abroad program ther (not assuming you know all the colleges or whatever) but to take Japanese language and culture classes do you have to major or minor in japanese language and culture? I don't really know what I want to do for college other than continue my studies in Spanish and then study Japanese language and culture as well so I'd like some advice on how to best go about doing that and study abroad program as well.
Also, you do a really good job on those translation articles on the site (well I'm assuming you do and don't just make it say random stuff to screw with us xD) and it's cool that you do stuff like that on NL. Seems like you worked hard to achieve your dream of moving to Japan and I admire you for that. Keep up the good work man

I'm not saying it is for everyone, I never said it was, but the requirement for any job in Japan that will grant a workers visa to a foreigner has a minimum of a Bachelor's degree as part of its entree stipulations. If he really wants to live in a foreign country, legally, there's a lot he has to do before that.

Sure, if he doesn't go to college, he can work a lot of jobs in his own country, particularly in trade schools, but he won't have a chance of coming here. Even if he was just going to go to, lets say a trade vocational program for computers or something, his lack of Japanese skills would also make it so he has zero chance.

So sure, college isn't for everyone, but for the things he wants, its one of the only things that will even give him a chance of going to step one in the process.

@SMEXIZELDAMAN What area do you live in? These days a lot of areas in North America/EU have good Japanese programs, but depending on where you live, there might not be anyone to practice with. The amount of people emigrating out of Japan is significantly less than it was in the 70's and 80's.

I do have some recommendations for schools in Japan, so if the colleges you look at in your own country send students to those schools, I can give you my impressions of them. Even going for jobs after college domestically, having some of these Japanese colleges on your job resume looks really good.

oh ok. I get you

Quality does not equal quantity.

What do you want to do in the work place.

Living in Japan and finding a girl funnily enough isn't doesn't have the best employment opportunities.

Think about what you want to do with your life (work wise), then look at what courses in college will help you achieve that.

Oh, and thank you for the compliment. I take some liberties with the translations of those videos, more out of time and space saving than anything else. For the 45 minute videos, translating all that dialogue and text would take a lot more time than the 2 hours it takes me to write what I usually send in. I usually watch the videos 3-4 times, take out the unnecessary parts in my head while I'm writing, and change things around based on culture differences or intent of the speaker. I'm not a fan of the Google/Babelfish methos of translation, where you do a word-for-word literal translation based on dictionary definitions. For something English/Spanish or English/German, its a bit easier to find words that will mean the exact same thing, but Japanese is so different, grammatically, culturally, and linguistically that its impossible not to have to tweak things when translating meaning.

I'm not a fan of culture tweaks though, so I will usually write the original word in Roman letters (the alphabet), then write the most common meaning in parenthesis. If a word in Japanese just doesn't exist in English, I won't make up a meaning for it, but I'll explain it. A lot of Japanese translators don't like literal or culture changing translations. This is one of the reasons why, and I love them for putting the money and effort in, many Japanese speakers don't like the Disney translations for some of the Ghibli movies. Mononoke-hime (Princess Mononoke) in particular has quite a few problems that stand out for me.

Well I'm going to go see what my friends know about moving to Japan, since some of them want to move as well, maybe they can help with what I need, since I see it as there's always many different paths to achieve a goal, I'll see which path is right for me

I'm actually in the same boat Harmoknight is, and want to move to Japan to take a collage there when I get old enough. I've been preparing early, however, by trying more japan-only food and also learning their language (I can read the kanji in YS II Nes, FFII NES, and Mother NES very well now, helping me in the games)

The hardest kanji based game I've played is Jump ultimate stars... I really wish there was a way to change the text to Japanese in all my games (not just RE R, DoAD, and pokedex 3D) I'd love to try an RPG in Japanese, also Kid Icarus Uprising in Japanese to listen to what they say compared to the NA can do what ever fits, because IIRC that was one of the first Nintendo games that they didn't really translate at all they just put dialog in that fit the situation