They are many reason to learn japanese language and from out of many reason travel can be one reason because you may be about to travel to a Japanese speaking country for business purpose. Once you gain the competence in Japanese, you will open up many personal and business related opportunities. For example, the U.S.A. does more business with Japan than any other country. You will be a valuable employee if you speak the language of the customer. Japanese is among the top 10 languages on Earth and spoken by over 130 million people. "Speaks Japanese" looks great on a resume or curriculum vitae, no matter what your line of work.
Everybody says Japanese is one of the hardest languages to learn... I really don't know why though, because it's actually one of the easiest! I think the two major hurdles people are talking about when they say it's hard is that:
a) Pretty much all sentences in Japanese are structured backwards from English. Eg. English: I'm going to the supermarket now. Japanese: Now, supermarket to, I'm going.
b) Because of it's three separate "alphabets" (including the Kanji system, with over 10,000 characters! Compare that to English's 26 character system, and you'll have an idea of what I mean), It's one of the hardest written languages to learn.
Your goal should be to learn to read, speak, and understand modern Japanese. Obviously this can't be done from just a book. One of the better proven ways of doing this with less effort is utilizing "picture learning". Some computerized courses feature this approach to build vocabulary in terms of understanding, speaking, reading, and writing Japanese.
This system makes the whole process more fun and can have the student mastering hundreds of words in a matter of days. By using the power of vocabulary imagery, you too can learn Japanese fast. Imagine the time you'll save with this innovative system for memorizing vocabulary. You'll be the envy of your friends and business associates, as they wonder where you've found the time to learn so much vocabulary in such a short amount of time. Be sure to explain to them all about your time-saving method, so that they too can learn Japanese fast.
Make sure that whatever course you take covers both the Hiragana and Katakana Japanese alphabets. The better courses utilized a "game" type approach to reduce boredom, stimulate interest and improve speed of results.
In Japan especially, language has been grooved by culture. So as you study Japanese you also discover and learn more about their wonderful culture. Stepping outside your own culture and language will give you a fresh, new perspective. In addition, Japan has lots of great music that can be appreciated so much more because you can now understand it.
