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| Screenshot from "Japan Shrine" by ITOAR in VRChat I know you're not supposed to stand in the middle of the pathway in a shrine, but screw it--this is just a game and I wanted to show my avatar to make it feel like I'm really here. |
I know Genshin Impact is a heavily anime-inspired game, but I asked four bonafide weebs I know if playing it a lot makes me a weeb. 1 of them called AnimeFan69420 said yes, while 3, including YoSquid, said no.
Side note: YoSquid has VERY high standards when it comes to weebs. According to him, it's not enough to simply watch the popular anime. You have to be fully immersed in anime culture: watch and appreciate as many anime as you can, even the not-so-popular ones.
And no, when I started learning Japanese, I had no personal relations with any Japanese person. I didn't even anticipate that I'd teach English to Japanese students or know that VRChat was also a PC game that Japanese people often played.
So, what IS my reason?
I can't stand the use of Gratuitous Foreign Languages (especially Gratuitous English and Gratuitous Japanese) by Filipinos I see in Facebook Dating and my family store.
Background
Now, I will admit that I've been a Grammar Nazi since I first knew how to handwrite and use a keyboard at maybe 5 years old. I was a more hardcore perfectionist when I was younger compared to now, so I think I imagined I was preparing for tests, so I wrote everything as correctly as I could. I also had little exposure to text lingo since I (like many other early 2000s kids) didn't have a phone. As such, seeing one of my maternal uncles use "brok" instead of "broken" in a text message to my mom made me laugh like crazy.
Text lingo became more normal to me as I watched Big Brother engage in long conversations using text lingo and emoji. Good thing he never got mad at me for snooping, but I do feel guilty now.
I also dislike speaking English with Filipinos in general because I get treated like an aristocratic nerd and then they start speaking mostly Gratuitous English with a little Filipino sprinkled in...and hurt their brains in the process. I only speak English in my normal American accent with family members, friends, and foreigners.
Hmmm, maybe next time, I should ask them why they suddenly speak English. Are they secretly asking me to improve their English? If so, I'm more than happy to oblige... Mwahahahaha!
I don't know why my mom, who is also of Chinese descent, doesn't get the same treatment even if we speak Filipino roughly the same way. Perhaps it's because I look so young that I'm mistaken for a kid.
And before you ask, yes, I can read, speak, and write Filipino. Yes, I can even write academic papers in Filipino.
I consider myself bad at Filipino, however, because, #1, transactions in our family store are fast so I only need to speak a few simple words and my customers do the same; #2, I am far less familiar with Filipino text lingo, especially gay lingo, than English text lingo; #3, to keep things familiar and intimate between family and friends, I only speak English because they're perfectly aware of how fluent I am; #4, tinatamad lang ako (I'm just feeling lazy).
I haven't translated any of my posts into Filipino because, #1, I use a lot of complicated English sentences that I think are difficult to translate to Filipino; #2, most Filipinos either have a lot of work experience or watch anime with English subtitles, so I think many of the English words I use will be familiar to them; #3, again, I'm lazy.
Stop Using Japanese to Look Cool!
Anyway, I get ticked off when I see a social media profile of someone who is clearly Filipino but has written their name in カタカナ (katakana; often used for words derived from non-Japanese languages) and/or uses overused Japanese words and expressions like "konnichiwa" (hello) and "ohayou gozaimasu" (good morning).
For me, it's like they're trying too hard to look cool when they really aren't.
I know this is an example of neediness, but I'm a chaotic neutral slacker, so learning Japanese is my way of saying, "Hmmm, you think you can speak Japanese, huh? Let me show you how little you know."
The reason I told my parents is I'm addicted to Yandere Simulator. They hate it when I use online dating. But hey, Yandere Simulator was one of my baby steps towards learning Japanese culture; I enjoyed how YandereDev explained the similarities between Akademi High School and real-life Japanese schools.
How Do You Learn Japanese?
I started by using Duolingo 'cause that was the first thing that popped into my head; my younger brother used it to learn German.
I mainly spammed the kana lessons 'cause I just wanted to farm XP. I hate real-life school eating my time.
Shortly after becoming an English tutor for Japanese students, I needed to take studying Japanese culture more seriously, so I actively watched videos, including Paolo fromTOKYO and That Japanese Man Yuta.
It just so happens, Yuta-san (Reina Scully used the honorific "-san" when commenting on his Logan Paul reaction) also teaches Japanese, so I watched a bunch of his videos to see how credible of a sensei he was. Afterward, I signed up for his email group "Japanese with Yuta" and got the $1 trial for his course "Japanese Vocabulary: The Shortcut".
I love how the course breaks down individual Japanese words, including particles and verb tenses, clearly and slowly.
This is probably my weirdest resource, but I also watch Sora The Troll a lot. For the most part, Sora-san's friends speak natural everyday Japanese, except when calling Sora-san "cringe" or some other directly offensive stuff. (It's unlikely that real-life Japanese people would say negative stuff about you to your face.) For me, once you know some Japanese, this channel lets you understand the differences between anime Japanese and real-life Japanese...through Sora-san's acting. (He's a voice actor too.)
And hey, it's tons of fun!
Plus, Sora-san was an English teacher to Japanese students for 5 years, so he's an inspiration for me to teach and act better.
If we have extra time during English lessons, I ask my Japanese students to correct my Japanese, and they are very kind to correct me with a smile and sometimes a friendly laugh.
VRChat Flexing
Anyway, my first experience with speaking straight Japanese was talking with someone in VRChat whose username had kanji (Chinese characters in the Japanese language). He was one of those trolls who say "I love you" to random people (my avatar was Sucrose at the time), but just in case maybe he was just looking for a friend (I was also looking for an opportunity for a 1-on-1 chat), I asked, "Suimasen, Nihonjin desu ka?" (Excuse me, are you a Japanese person?)
He told me my Japanese was very good but in English. Turns out, he was Chinese. Yeah, I still get bamboozled by kanji that don't have kana. (In Chinese, the characters are called hanzi.)
He legit thought I was Japanese until I spoke English and said I'm from the Philippines.
In the same session, I heard a guy saying he wanted to learn Japanese. Earlier, he heard me speaking Japanese and I refused to say "I want to eat your dick" because, #1, I didn't know how to translate it; #2, I wouldn't dare ask such a question to a Japanese person, so I politely told him that what he said was disrespectful. (My wild guess now is "Kimi no ochinchin tabetai.")
I later encountered him asking to learn Japanese from actual Japanese people, so I interrupted him, summoned my inner Sora The Troll, and said, "Unchi daisuki." (I love poop.)
In a session with Miyako (an Italian cosplayer), I demonstrated my Japanese skills by reading kana. However, I wasn't able to read the kanji.
As for a real Japanese person in VRChat, after the "Nihonjin desu ka?" question, he spoke a lot of straight Japanese quickly. I paused for a really long time before saying, "Suimasen. Wakarimasen." (Sorry, I don't understand.)
In retrospect, I could have said, "Boku no Nihongo jouzu dewanai desu." (My Japanese isn't good.)
But at least he was entertained by me when I voice-acted Genshin Impact characters in English.
How good is your Japanese?
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being a noob who can only do basic expressions and greetings while 10 being native speaker-like, I give myself a 3.
I know many of the common anime expressions, as well as words often spammed by other level 2 students like "taberu" and "wakaru", but I have a very narrow vocabulary overall, which was my main reason for joining Japanese Vocabulary: The Shortcut.
In terms of particles, I rarely use them, but when I do, I spam "ne" the most.
I still stutter a lot, though.
I still make lots of grammar mistakes (which is ironic for a Grammar Nazi), particularly when I count things. There are so many specific freakin' ways to count in Japanese--I can't simply rely on "ichi", "ni", "san", etc. depending on what I'm counting!
In conversations with both Japanese people and English speakers who are beginners at Japanese, we usually say 2 simple sentences each in Japanese before talking in all-English.
This is actually my favorite way so far to learn Japanese because I have already built friendly connections with these people. I feel motivated to strengthen those connections.
So far, the anime I can understand the most is Teasing Master Takagi-san, but only a few words. Once I turned the English subtitles on, I realized how little I understood.
But hey, I still appreciated the story.
And hey, Takagi-san is voiced by Rie Takahashi, just like Hu Tao from Genshin Impact! They sound so darn similar!
I tried Demon Slayer without subtitles and it was HARD as heck.
So was playing Genshin Impact in all-Japanese.
Honkai Impact 3rd does not have English voice acting. I still can't understand much of it except for a few combat voice lines. (Yes, I started playing it because Fischl is getting added to the game.)
When online, I rely heavily on jisho.org, a Japanese dictionary, to get some individual words. As such, I pause a lot while sometimes muttering "Etto...(English word)-tte nan desu ka?" (Uhhh...what is (English word) [in Japanese]?)
But of course, when starting text conversations, they have absolutely no idea. I think I know enough to obviously show I'm not using Google Translate; after all, when inputting the pronoun "I", Google Translate shows "watashi" by default, but I personally prefer to use "boku" or "ore". So far, one girl on Facebook Dating who claims to know some Japanese gave up after four exchanges and just wrote Filipino.
This also means I can mock people who claim to know Japanese AND have dumb dating profiles using words like "kisama" (an extremely offensive version of the pronoun "you"). Google Translate translates "kisama" by default to "you", so when I input "Kisama, unchi daisuki ka?", it translates to "Do you love poop?", which, in English, sounds more like a light-hearted joke question than an insult.
Why Japanese, not Korean?
Korean pop culture in general is more popular with Filipinos. Singing and dancing shows and competitions are regularly shown on Filipino variety TV shows, as well as Korean dramas. Filipinos, both male and female, are crazy about karaoke, but I don't know anyone who gushes about karaoke because it's a Japanese invention. That's why K-Pop is so popular, not to mention the fact that K-Pop stars are real people whose appearances are achievable in real life, unlike anime characters whose typically large eyes are impossible.
As far as I know, anime rarely, if not never, airs on local TV channels, and has to be watched on cable TV or a service like Netflix. J-Pop, for the most part, is much more popular in Japan than in the rest of the world.
The only K-Pop thing I was--and still am a small fan of--is PSY, who made "Gangnam Style". I jumped on the bandwagon because I was curious about its sudden popularity, not to mention its parodies such as CaptainSparklez's "Minecraft Style".
Edit: I'm now a fan of BTS's "Butter" thanks to Griffin Burns, the voice of Tartaglia, doing a cover of the song.
I grew up with anime at a much younger age and for a longer time. I watched the Pokémon movies with my parents and some episodes of Naruto with my older brother.
Now, I get a lot more exposure to anime tropes because I play more anime-themed video games. That's why I sometimes talk like an anime character outside of formal situations.
At the time I started learning Japanese, I didn't foresee I would teach Japanese students. Now, it's more important than ever for me to learn.
Aside from teaching, I legitimately want to make Japanese friends. As unusual as some of their many ways of respect are for me, I think it's still a fun opportunity to learn them, and it's nice to be respected the same way...as long as their honne (true opinion) doesn't mean the opposite.
As for making friends with Filipinos, I can simply speak English or Filipino, depending on which language they specialize in. Funny enough, despite seeing lots of hangul and katakana in social media profiles, I never hear Japanese or Korean in Filipino teens' conversations.
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