Is Learning Japanese Not Popular Anymore?

ninjas-guitars

This is an example of something really cool (i.e. not Japanese learning)

Of course, one of Tofugu’s goals is to make Japanese learning cool again. “Again?” you ask. “But I’m so cool.” Sorry friend, but the All-Mighty Google doesn’t lie. It looks like learning Japanese is trending down, despite the popularity of anime, manga, and the like (though, actually, if you look it up those keywords are also trending down as well… Cause/correlation? Hard to tell). So how dorky and niche has Japanese learning gotten?

Japanese Language Trends

japanese-language

Over at Google Trends, you can see what people are searching for. In this search, I looked at “Japanese Language” to see how that was doing. As you can see since the beginning of 2004, the search “Japanese Language” has really gone down. It looks like it hasn’t quite leveled out yet, so I imagine we’ll continue to see a bit of downward trends. I wonder how language learning companies have been doing. Perhaps they are in trouble right now?

learn-japanese

The term “Learn Japanese” has also gone down – it’s not as sharp as “Japanese Language,” but it still reflects the downward trend. Uh oh, Japanese. So, how is Japanese doing against other Asian languages?

comparing languages

Over the last twelve months things have been fairly level. I was surprised to see that Chinese isn’t that far ahead of Japanese, especially considering the popularity of the Chinese language recently.

So what do you think (that’s why I wrote this post, because I’m curious of your opinion)? Has Japanese become less popular? Have you noticed this trend, or is Google crazy? I’d love to hear about your experience and what you’ve noticed in the Japanese learning space.

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  • Dokebie

    Japanese writing system poses a real challenge to people who take first step into learning Japanese. Just to be able to read street signs would take tremendous efforts to the people. Korean and Japanese are related, and it’s easy for them to learn the other language, but for other people, if you have mastered speaking and writing to a descent level, you ought to give a tab on your shoulder. As far as the popularity goes for Japanese, its trends have cooled off. Nowadays, learning Korean is more poular. I think that Korean langauge is a lauguage for entertainment, and it should a world language for people communicating socially friendly atmosphere. Many people find Korean sound pleasant and it’s goes deeper into human emotion as reflective with all variation in polite forms.  And Hangel is fascianting!  Even if you have no intention of learning the language, figuring out Hangul and being about to make the appropirate sound is like solving puzzle that is alot more interesting and satisfying than solving zigsaw puzzles. I think it would be interesting for children to learn the language because the characters are very simple and scientific. 

  • Masa

    I feel the same that learning japanese is getting less popular.  There are mainly 3 reasosns for it. 1, many people are loosing interest in manga, anime which has been one of the 3 biggest profit japan earn. 2, because of the recession in japan, many people find learning japanese less useful for the future.  3, some people say japan is weird country in some areas such as anime porn, it is not good for childresn to see those porn stuff displayed in book stores or gas station. such incinsideration of law makes people have negative image about japan which leads to less people learning japanese.  I am Japanese.

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