Welcome to Gaia! ::

If snubsnub's family member "hates asians in general", is it likely that he is Chinese or Korean?

On the other hand though, what DID the Japanese do to non-Asians that was so bad? I know about Pearl Harbour, but wasn't that a military attack?

Someone in my family also hates me for learning Japanese, and having an interest in Japan in general, because of WWII. I won't even tell you guys what he's been saying.
However, he's pretty glad that I'm learning Cornish because it's Celtic.

My mother is pretty fed up with my interest in languages, but she doesn't hate me XD

They get annoyed at me and think I'm strange, especially for learning Irish. They can't see why I would want to learn a language spoken by so few who mostly speak English too anyway. But what they really dislike is when I talk to them in Irish or Spanish.

Whenever my friend and I speak Japanese to each other in front of the father, he always says "OH Japanese got bombed!" but that is when the dad is mad and we talk about him in Japanese.

I have encountered people who said that I should learn Chinese because China is booming up in economy so thus it is useful. I would not want to learn a language for monetary gain, I would learn it out of the interest for the culture.

I wish I could learn a European language; not the commonly taught ones (French, German, Italian, Spanish, etc) but either Finnish or Swedish.

xD I can see why for the Mormons especially Samoan and Tongan. Oh well, that is why we make friends and that is why this guild is here for.

I don't know if this was mentioned, but I've noticed some people have an attitude towards anyone trying to learn Japanese. It's as if they think every student of Japanese is an anime-crazed Japanophile who's just trying to be stylish. The funny thing is my interest in the language did start with anime and Japanese pop culture, and it's the same story for a lot of people, but it's long since graduated to far more than that. In fact I would say my progression went something like => anime => Japanese pop culture => Japanese culture => Japanese language => Foreign languages => General Linguistics. So it was central to deciding my career path. razz

People trying to learn Spanish are also met with an attitude I think, for kind of the opposite reason of Japanese students. Trying to learn Spanish is sometimes considered lame, and the early stages of learning the language (trying to pronounce words, "yo no hablo", etc) gives off this stereotypical image of the "hopeless gringo" trying to adopt Spanish culture.

They're unfortunate attitudes really, I don't think learning any language should ever be frowned upon or met with obstacles like that.