To anyone who've tried to study Nihongo like me, we both know that installing that language as one of your own is like trying to stab yourself with a plastic spoon. It's difficult and ineffective, but not pointless. For starters, you will have to memorize two new "alphabets" (or writing systems), Hiragana (ひらがな) and Katakana (カタカナ).
That shouldn't be too hard wouldn't it? After all, you only have to memorize 192 characters, and that includes their だくおん (dakuon) and はんだくおん (handakuon), as well as the よおん (yoon) combinations. While that seems like a feat that requires months to accomplish, I've managed to read (albeit at a slow pace) Hira and Kata without peeking into a reference sheet every ten seconds in three and a half weeks. Also, don't forget that you have to learn how to write that shit as well.
Memorizing the "alphabet" doesn't end with Hira and Kata. You will now have to go through memorizing Kanji. Kanji is basically Chinese characters borrowed from the...Chinese. The sad fact in getting your Kanji on is that you have to able to read, write, speak, and understand 1,945 of them. Now I didn't pull that number out of my ass, that's actually the number the Japanese Ministry of Education expects people living in Japan to know in order for them to be considered literate in the language.
Oh, and keep in note that Nihongo uses a completely different grammatical structure when compared to English. Saying "I am awesome" would turn into "I awesome am" when written in Japanese grammar. That's why no matter how great your translation program is, a clean automated Nihongo to English translation is almost always never achieved. Good translations are provided only by people who master both English and Japanese. Combine that with the fact that there are no Japanese syllables that constitute to the sound of "L" (hence "Engrish"), you might want to use a metallic spoon to impale on yourself than a plastic one, or you could use a lot of plastic spoons.
In addition to learning Japanese part time I'm also trying to get a grip of the Java programming language, as well as get acquainted with scripting languages like Python and Lua. While these languages are only used within a circle of geeks, the Java language is actually quite difficult, as it requires people to grasp an entirely new concept of programming which is called "Object Oriented Programming", also known as the sad attempt at making programming simple by attributing stuff in your code to real life entities.
At the rate I'm studying, I should be able to at least understand everything I need to understand so that I may pass the JPLT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test, the exam designed to test a foreigner's proficiency in Nihongo) in all levels, in about a year or sooner if I focus hard enough. Then the time will come when I successfully did everything I had to do then stare into the horizon, thinking, "What the fuck did I just do?", then spend some time thinking what language should I learn next. I heard Russian and Deutsche (German) is pretty cool, though, might want to put them in my list.
