Learning different languages seems to become much harder, the more time passes. That bothers me tremendously, as speaking many different languages is something I want to be able to do since my earliest years. “Just because”, but sometimes people ask me why I would want to learn this or that specific language. Like, why would I want to learn Russian?
“To read Crime & Punishment, Anna Karenina and Lolita in the original language, of course.”
And German?
“Faust and, of course, the Ring Saga. No, the other ring saga.”
Italian?
“Divine Comedy. It rhymes in the original, must be awesome – even the boring parts.”
You’d learn Finnish, too?
“Sure. Kalevala.”
Japanese?
And then we have a problem. Ordinarily, I would just say “manga and anime”, but that is simplistic. “The two-volume Musashi”, then, but I confess to have only a half-hearted interest in it (undeserved, I should probably want to read it a lot more). Now I finally found something worth saying I want to learn Japanese for: the Twelve Kingdoms novels.
I watched the entire anime series and often watch random episodes when I remember it is on. The last arc in the anime is the only thing I am not too big a fan of, but that is mainly because it happens after all the main storyline had been wrapped up, does not involve the protagonist (it happened 500 years before her time, even), and I am sure translation problems made it even more confusing than it was originally. Once the shock wore off, however, I noticed I would not mind at all to just keep watching new stories about the other kingdoms, with or without the protagonist – the world is so rich and beautiful, it is a tremendous shame to leave it behind after 45 episodes. I barely got to see four of the twelve kingdoms.
Then, of course, there are the novels, still ongoing (even if halted since 2001), and far more outreaching than the anime. When I learned of their existence, they immediately became my public-relations reason to want to learn Japanese (not that I need one: anyone who would ask me about it already know why I want to learn it). My only concern is that all names (people, places) are based on Chinese, rather than in Japanese, so I expect the books to be full of unexplainable kanji that can be read in half a dozen different ways and have two dozen different meanings. For that, then, if the American translation includes good notes about these things, it may be of interest, but that rather defeats my PR reason (if I am to know Japanese, I want to know enough to understand the books without translation notes!).
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