When did you learn Japanese? Under what circumstances? What age? I’d love to learn it but feel like I’ve left it too late to learn such a different language!
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It’s never too late to learn a language.
I learned Japanese at the ripe age of 17 
Japanese is actually quite an easy language to pick up. Give it a crack now, plenty of free resources available online too!
Lol I wouldn’t say it’s an easy language to pick up. It’s incredibly difficult in comparison to Latin-based languages for example.
I’m in Japan, moved here last September and started learning Japanese then. It’s said that if you study a 4 year bachelors Japanese course, you’ll be N2 level by the end of it (N5 being lowest level, N1 being highest). The scheme I’m on right now includes a 1 year language learning portion where by the end of it I ‘should’ be N2 level (I just took the N3 exam yesterday). But that’s living in Japan, and going to a language school in Tokyo every day full time. It takes immersion and dedication to learn the language to a fluent level, definitely, but I wouldn’t put you off learning in your own time at home. In fact, I did a little every now and again when I lived in the UK and it’s definitely helped me in my pronunciation, and ability to pick up new grammar concepts easily etc. But you need to speak to Japanese people to ‘speak properly’ - by which I mean, not like a textbook. That’s probably the main difference between learning in your own country, and actually learning/ using the language in Japan. But it’s definitely doable, as if it weren’t, there wouldn’t be so many of us foreigners in Japan in the first place lol.
Definitely doable, but let’s not forget the creepy number of foreigners who come to live in Japan and barely try learning the language, if at all. I don’t think any of us here fit that description though, because our passion for Pokémon does gift us with a natural leaning towards learning the game’s mother tongue 
Here are my thoughts on learning Japanese : you just need one of two things. First option : having way-above-average determination and be able to stick to a strict learning schedule over a long period of time. Yes, latest learning materials have made it much more fun, but it’s still not a walk in the park. More like a long jog in a very beautiful, steep mountain.
Second option, which I’ve picked after failing at the first one several times : create for yourself an environment where you have absolutely no choice but to use Japanese daily, most of the time. That’s the main reason I moved to Japan!
I came with some shaky language foundations one year ago, and have considerably improved within a year thanks to twice-weekly private classes, and daily exposure to the language. My Japanese is still just ok at best (I’m somewhere between level N3 and N2, if that means anything), but there’s no denying I’m getting closer to my language goal every day When I finally get a job in a Japanese company I expect everything to get even faster (and challenging). The most important step for me in my learning journey was : making Japanese friends! And you know what’s a good way to make friends? Of course you know. Pokémon 
If you are really serious about learning Japanese, I’d be delighted to share all the experience and tips I have with a fellow Pokéfan!
Ha, and one last thing : saying it’s too late to learn a language is like saying it’s too late to collect old Pokémon cards. It’s harder than if you’d done it way back then, sure. And now you have to do it through completely different means, sure. But has that ever stopped you from collecting these rare cards?
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Hmmms so i suppose you mean the way they actually say things… Like for instance how strange they say this stuff:
commodity content ■ Pokemon Nintendo Media Factory from the old back Pokemon card game, is a gift and a card five by extension sheet communication evolution campaign. · “Gengar LV.40” - “Fudin LV.45” - “Kairiki LV.54” - “Goronya LV.37” - “Omusuta LV.36” (attention) because it is an exhibition of secondhand goods as, nervous regard to state person please refrain from the tender. In addition, because that can not be put on all the image, because it is also possible that there is damage to the part other than the image, that effect We acknowledge, anxious points Thank you to be sure to ask a question in advance. (Because we will give answers as soon as it is within the business hours, please contact us with time to spare.) ■ commodity condition ■ “Gengar” is seen frame Kira and fine crack, etc. somewhat, noticeable damage especially not seen. The other four are, faint scratches and, but is seen trace etc. of the mount of when it was sent, none of nearly damage is seen, it seems that a beautiful state. Product is everything that exists in the image (if the refill is reflected in the image is the equipment for photography, please understand that it does not include in the product). Please see in the image for more information. Please give me a bid of it will be delivery in the current situation in the state on you enough for your understanding.
Product pages of the image, please bid with confidence because available upon return only if there is not in the description deficiencies. If the returns you would like thank you so please contact me in dealings Navi within 5 days from the commodity arrival day. It should be noted that the postage at the time of the return will be taken as our burden. ※ returned goods by 1 customer convenience is not received at all. ※ except for the ones that are specified with the junk / disposal goods to 2 product page - the point to worry relates to product please feel free to ask a question (request of prompt decision will be refused, regardless of the amount of money) - outside business hours (weekdays AM10: 00 ~ PM5: 00) of so I can not do is answer your question, the time question please have a margin to - those of the image is all. HIC other than those in the image - it will be an exhibition of secondhand goods as, those who care about a fine state, please refrain from the tender.
p.S when people bullied me at school all the time, i should have told them to please refrain from the tender, as Im experiencing anxious points. I reckon that would have worked.
They talk with such big words but they put the other words together leading up to them so strange.
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That’s one space-consuming way to show how translation softwares are not a good alternative to actually learning a language.
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hehehehe hmmms so they be talking much differently then xD and they dont talk like this strange?
Well sure it seems completely strange at first – I mean, we’re talking about a language that only has three tenses related to time (there’s no future tense!), and over ten tenses related to emotion (yup, there are tenses for things like desire and regret, as in “I really wanted that University Magikarp, but gosh I let it slip”).
Once you’ve trained your brain to not try and translate word-for-word like a computer would, all this new alien grammar ends up sounding pretty natural.
Kinda like reading through your collection thread for the first time 
“Dem no raritan venubae…” Nah, that’s no less weird than Japanese
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Yeah I love the japanese peeps, i not trying to be meany racingtons or stuff like that if thats what it sounded like… But yeah I actually think its really funny, but also awesome cause they use big words in there vocab on average. I really want to move there so i can live at the hobby shops and get a job in there card stock rooms or some crap. Id take all the gem no raritan and golden starnens… I can see it now… Life completion.
“please refrain from the tender, as Im experiencing anxious points” that seems straight from Yahoo .
But yeah, that’s just an example of how you can’t just literally translate one language to another (if you could, learning would be a lot more easy!). Saying that, google translate actually uses literal algorithms, but also uses AI to ‘learn’ more ‘proper’ translations by examining documents in multiple languages. Really interesting stuff, so much so that I’m hoping to go into something similar after my course here.
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Google is alive and up your but! and there are snoogles on the rooftops errywhere… be careful peeps because if you eat to much chicken google will detect this in your but, and they will send a million adds to your smart phone telling you to start eating more kale because the chicken to kale ratio in your colon is cancerous. This is the future, and its good your doing computer scieneces @Viral , because things are changin man and you can create storage for the brain so we dont have to put so muchy effort into learning. And when the interworld is here, and you can download languages into your brain without learning… GOogle is everywhere… dun dun dun. I have always had an act for predicting futures… ill just wait till den to learn japanese.
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Japanese has to be much easier to learn than the language my boy Pokesyn uses!
My wife speaks conversational Mandarin, fluent English and Vietnamese, and some Japanese since her mothers side of the family was Japanese. She just told me Vietnamese might be toughest and English may be the most confusing because there’s so many like sounding words with different meanings.
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I must be a language master then garinson. A few months and im already almost 100 % fluent in syndicates languagington der boi!
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Hahahahahaha…you sure have 
You can do the classic drunk white guy thing and just yell ‘SUMIMASEN’ while pointing at whatever you want. That works like a charm.
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