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Comment by emodendroket | Hacker News Reader

I studied Japanese in school and I think it would have been extremely difficult to learn on my own. So... I'd say it depends.

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Given the thousands of majors, there are certainly exceptions on both sides. But I'm still comfortable with that assessment in general; "learning an entire language" is also one of the exceptions.

I'd also point out that if for the sake of argument that was your primary goal at college, college is a very cost-ineffective choice. There's plenty of non-college ways of doing that, for way less money, since it's something that business people have to do routinely. Even if it means taking languages courses from the local community college on the side... I'm not aware of much evidence that major colleges teach the courses all that much better or indeed even differently for languages.

I'd be very surprised if business people spend much time reading Japanese literature, learning anything other than pure modern business Japanese, or probably even learning to read and write the language.

Once you embark on the quest to learn japanese, you begin to look for other avenues to hone in on those skills -- whether its finding other people who speak it, or in some people's cases, play on japanese gaming servers, or skyping/hangouts and converse with japanese people in full immersion. After that you want to start reading more literature, so you do what anyone would do and search for japanese books on Amazon. After a while amazon starts offering you remarkable suggestions based on what the majority of japanese speaking people are reading.

You would be surprised how much you could learn on your own!

My case it was german. I was so fascinated with the german language, and germany as a whole, in part I must sadly admit because I was such an avid fan of WW2 history. I actually tried to go the traditional route, and I hated it. I noticed one time some germans playing counterstrike and other MMORPG's I was playing. I got to know them better, in part because of their extreme delight in my ability to say a few things in german. Then it turned into ventrilo/teamspeak sessions, which then turned into me wanting to read actual german books, then it went on to learning about Otto Von Bismarck, German Reunification, the East/West cultural divide, watching foreign german films such as Der Unterfall, Das Leben der Anderen, Good Bye, Lenin!, effects German engineering such as Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler and von Braun, which led me down the path of looking into german businesses, especially the ones that are here in my own home state (which are many), it was so much fun!

edit: I realize you qualified it with 'business' people, implying they won't see the value of learning the other things, but since business people is a large group (of which I myself can be considered a part of) I imagine there are others like me.

Maybe they would, but I've attended Japanese courses intended mostly for businesspeople before college and they were almost universally focused on conversational Japanese -- which is fine but nothing like studying Japanese literature with a professor who is an expert in it. We're getting away from the claim that it would be "easy" to learn this on your own, to be sure.

I've been learning some Korean in my spare time and I feel pretty confident in my assessment that being in a college course would both be easier and see me make more progress more quickly.

I see. I think maybe the difference is enthusiasm? If someone is going into it thinking "It would be really helpful for my work or business to learn Japanese" versus "Japanese is cool. I would really like to immerse myself in this language and learn how to talk to Japanese people" would merit different results. The business-focused person would be more inclined to trod those traditional routes of instructorship and classes, etc, but being a student of languages myself, as well as knowing 3 of them (sorry if this sounds like I am trying to argue by authority), I can say the latter is the only way you really ever learn a language.

My good friend has a PhD in Chinese, (yes that is actually a thing), and he attests to the fact that he didn't grok the language until his travels and studies there, being immersed.

Now typing this I realize we may be debating across each other, because even if you believe you can learn on your own better, or having structured courses is better, the real answer is none of it sticks unless you fully immerse yourself in it, self-taught or not.

I too have studied several languages, both in high school and in college, as well as some dabbling on my own. The classes alone are not enough, no. But they are a tremendous resource and make it much easier to get where you want to go.

You might be able to reach similar levels of language proficiency without the courses but the biggest problems are 1) finding hours and hours a day to drill writing characters and other mundane aspects of learning 2) guidance from an instructor who can tell you whether things that look/sound right are. And also I think a university course also gives you a survey of the literature and culture of that language and insight into it that would be hard to acquire on your own.

But are you fluent in those languages? Sorry I am not trying to come off a presumptuous, I am just trying to emphasize the distinction because I think it is important to bear in mind. If the goal is fluency, do you think that traditional education has succeeded for you?

Also how long have you been studying languages? I ask because I am curious if you think that the web, and later, apps, like Duolingo for example, can make a huge difference versus the pre-web era of language learning. Pre-web, I would agree with anyone that yes it would be extremely difficult to learn a language on your own unless you had traditional schooling. But today there is nothing a traditional course in German could give me that I couldn't get from Deutsche Welle, for example (but I also realize there isn't a 'Deutsche Welle' for every language).

Sorry if this is going further than you wanted, I am just trying to get different perspectives and it seems like you have a good grasp.

I'm hesitant to give too much detail for fear of outing myself here, but: In a few, yes (or at least at one point; I'm sure I've dipped in fluency). In others I am less accomplished. I think traditional education has been very successful for me. I'm not going to argue that it's not possible to graduate with a Japanese degree without being able to carry on a conversation -- it is -- but I think a university program is still a very effective way of not only attaining fluency in the language but also some level of erudition as far literature/culture/etc.

I started studying in middle school. I haven't tried the online stuff you're talking about. I'm not sure that they would be just as good.

If you ever are interested in german, I highly encourage the learn section of deutsche welle, it's among the best.

If while you are there, and are aware of any similar websites like that for any other language I would love to know!

Who cares what other people do? What are you going to do? Are you incapable of leveraging from an intro course in Japanese into anything you want? If so, why do you think you're going to do any better in a formal environment either? It's not like they crack open your head and pour pure distilled knowledge into it while you passively sit back and just take it in.

Also, I think people are fundamentally missing the comparitive here. My claim is not that learning humanities is "easy". Nothing worth doing is easy. My contention is that it is easier to learn math, engineering, and science in school and study humanities on your own that to learn humanities in school and then try to break into math, engineering, and science on your own.

And as I watch the conversation flow here, bear in mind I do mean "math, engineering, and science" here and not just "programming". Which is easier to do on your own, learn Japanese from scratch enough to get a relevant job, or learn biochemistry from scratch enough to get a relevant job? (Note we're also discussing "learning Japanese" as an extreme in the humanities but I consider "biochemistry" an average sort of what I'm talking about.) And part of my "easier" also encompasses the fact that life is a lot easier when you have a job and a paycheck. Someone who actually has leisure time due to not working two-and-a-half jobs and who is much more relaxed about paying off their loans will find it easier to spend their leisure time learning things.

The meta problem is we're in the discussion comments of a linked article that buys into the belief that the only purpose of the higher ed system is monetarily rewarding vocational training.

In the real world that's a completely wrong way to look at the purpose of life and education, but in the small minded narrow constraints of the article its actually "correct".

A side issue is outside bubble areas, every low paid service industry worker has a liberal arts degree and they guarantee the ROI of self taught foreign languages or liberal arts will be zero. A guy looking for employment who merely is a lifelong expert on Japanese will never get hired if the competition is ten baristas, bartenders, and real estate agents all with bachelors or masters or PHDs in Japanese Literature.

The point of view you speak for -- that education is an end in itself -- is a privilege of the rich and reflects their historical attitudes towards education. Back in the day, liberal education was for the children of the rich, and it gave them culture, polish, and perspective that was hard to attain elsewhere. Those are the non-economic benefits of studying the humanities. They're certainly real, and valuable. I'd definitely prefer that people in positions of power and authority have studied philosophy, history, and literature.

However, to argue that a young person of modest means should study the humanities is just cruel. If your family and connections aren't going to set you up as a company vice president or send you to the legislature, your job prospects are dismal.

Look, I'm not going to get into a pissing match about what discipline is harder. The point is that learning Japanese at a university is not an experience that could be easily duplicated somewhere else and that there are probably other "soft" disciplines of which the same could be said.

Learning Japanese is way easier if you just go to the country and live there. I'll guarantee if you go with the same amount of money invested in college you'll learn the language faster.

Part of my studies took place in Japan; being there certainly helps but it's not the same thing (and besides that, how do you get to Japan? It's almost impossible to get a long-term visa unless you are either a student or have a degree)

I studied Japanese in school too. Being young and having free time helped a lot, as did having a Japanese roommate who invited all his buddies over to drink in my room until 3am every weekend.

Nonetheless, I have achieved a level of fluency and especially literacy in Mandarin that puts my Japanese of that time to shame and I have no formal credential backing it up.

You don't need formal classes to become fluent in a language. If you'd like to learn how some very successful language learners have done it, check out http://lingsprout.com/experts

You don't need formal training in anything to practice it unless there is some sort of licensure scheme.

I think you can self learn Japanese by moving to Japan without much formal education ed: in Japanese. This assumes having a background where you could move to Japan. But, over a 20 year time scale it's not unreasonable.

That would be next to impossible without some college degree. Might as well study Japanese.

Yes, but the idea was you are better off studying something else and then picking up Japanese on the side. Instead of studding Japanese and learning that other thing on the side.

Well, besides that, twenty years is a lot longer than it took me to achieve.

Sure, but it's a classic time money tradeoff. If you have a large trust fund it's a non issue. Or, if you can pay for two degrees in time and effort then the second degree need not pay for its self.

However, if you have two interests then gathering credentials in the one which can make more money is probably a better investment.

http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/find-the-thing-youre-most-p...

Language seems like a complicating factor here. It's difficult (especially in non-Latinate cases) to learn self-directed, and people who are fluent and willing to work in the field can actually do quite well traveling and translating for businesses and government agencies.

Of course, all of these numbers are complicated by "salary of graduates" versus "salary of graduates employed in field".

But it does depend. If the above poster was taking Japanese as his sole Major it is probably not worth it. If he/she is taking it as an addendum to say a Business degree then it is very much worth it.

I guess it depends how you define "worth it." I have a satisfying career but it has nothing to do with my ability in Japanese.

If you're studying Japanese because you think it will make you money it is a bad idea

Less well known languages like Japanese tend to have higher returns on investment than common ones like Spanish. IIRC Spanish has a return on investment of about 3%.

In my experience the Japanese translation market was very crowded and didn't pay well so my first plan went out the window.

I forget if it was Planet Money or Freakonomics, but there was a podcast about the ROI of learning a foreign language and according to the research they cited the only foreign language worth learning from a pure ROI perspective was English.

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