Is Learning Japanese Not Popular Anymore?

I think people are just getting more lazy. More and more I know of are learning Japanese from -GASP- anime. I know, I know, its sad. But I personally didn't expect it to be *this* low.

For me, I just got busy with grad school. This is why I kind put learning Japanese on hold for the time being, and I hope I go back to learning once I'm done with school.... Hopefully but summer of 2010. The sad thing is i forgot a lot of what I learned :(

About the decline in interest, I kind of noticed it with my friends who were taking Japanese class with me.... They lost interest not only in the language, but also in anime and manga too, which was one of the reasons why they started learning the langauge.....

I've also noticed the decline in interest for anime/manga and the like. I can't really say that I understand loving anime enough to learn the language( since I myself learned it because I loved the culture), but I do pay strict attention to most of my friends.

It seems that once they tried learning Japanese, they deam it their time to stop loving the country and what it gives them. So many of my friends have gone gaga over a show like Naruto, and once they've learned the basics of the language they drop the show like a hot skillet.

I don't know if its just the american point of view or what but...it scares the dickens out of me.

I learn Japanese from anime because I have no other real choices. There is nowhere in my area where I can take a class. And I need to take classes in person, online classes do not work for me.

So, hey, if someone wants to start teaching Japanese in Scranton, Pennsylvania, I'll be happy to take up that offer and just use anime as entertainment, and not my main learning tool.

If I can get a webcam and microphone for my laptop going, I would be happy to work with you over Skype. Whatever you do, do NOT resort to anime. The language they use in anime can very often get you strange looks. You must understand that Japanese has different levels of language, on top of the 4 alphabets. They uphold these language forms dearly and if you don't, they won't respect you very much...

Okay, maybe a little, but you have to trust me on this. I tried using phrases I learned from anime while I lived in Japan, and many times people couldn't understand what I was saying.

I will also be starting my own blog that will have lots of stuff to do with Japanese, but I don't have that up yet. Anyways, contact me somehow if you like the idea of learning "face-to-face" via Skype video calls.

In a sense I disagree. I think anime can be a great resource in learning Japanese, not only the language but the culture as well. I think, however, you need to grasp at least a certain level of Japanese to be able to differentiate between what is acceptable and not. But once you understand what is and is not okay, then I say embrace anime. Not only is it good listening practice (especially if you are watching the RAW versions) but it's enjoyable as well. And really, the whole cultural aspect is gold.

Also, I wouldn't base your studies just on anime, but on a wide variety of sources (especially for reading and writing practices).

There is just so much out there, and anime is just one of them (the fun ones that is ^^).

I'm curious ano_yatsu...what phrases did you say (that you learned from in anime) that people couldn't understand?

One phrase was 「穴があったら入りたい」【あながあったらはいりたい】(I'd want to go into a hole if there was one). The Japanese probably understood what I said in literal terms, but they still asked 「何？」as in "What are you trying to say?". I tried explaining a little, and mentioned that it was in an anime, and they simply put it aside saying that it was only used in anime, if used at all. Another example is the word 「装着」【そうちゃく】(equip/wear). This one was from a video game, not an anime so I'll give you that. Apparently, this is only used in anime or video games. The word they use normally is 「装備」【そうび】(equip). (NOTE: I was trying to tell them about the Teutons and their armor)

I guess what I was really trying to say is that just like Japanese don't talk like they write, they don't talk like anime or video games. Using words like お前【おまえ】and 俺【おれ】are considered very rude; even though it is heard quite often in anime, movies, and games.

Yes, anime is fun to watch, and you can learn some culture, but I still don't recommend it for a Main source for learning Japanese. It can be used as a study help for listening, no problem. But if you learn any phrases or words from anime, defidently do a little research to find out if it's actually used in actual conversation.

I myself speak Japanese fluently... all thanks to living there for 2 years and having little or no chance to speak English. At first, it seemed almost impossible, but it was a sink or swim situation, so I swam. If you don't speak Japanese fluently, yet, best of luck to you. Just don't rely on anime, have back-up. I suppose that's all I was really trying to say. Thanks for responding, though.

Its funny how I can totally understand what you meant by that phrase about that phrase about the whole, but natives can't quite grasp what it really means (thanks for sharing that by the way)^^

Yea, I totally agree, like I said I wouldn't base your studies merely on anime but on a wide variety of sources. I'm just saying it's an awesome resource if you're into it and you can learn a lot and be exposed to a lot of Japanese culture. Also, what better way to learn than to make mistakes? Maybe people can use anime to learn what not to do, and if they ever end up going to Japan, try out these rather obscure phrases laugh about them with some new Japanese friends?

Were you mainly living in the Tokyo area during your two year stay? (That's very cool, by the way.) Because I know, just as a side note I guess, that in more southern areas (lol) in Japan like Fukuoka, for instance, you may hear females using words such as omae and sometimes even omee. (this is definitely more so with the younger populations...like teens.)

But yeah...thank you for responding. ^^

I both agree and disagree that more people are learning all their Japanese from anime.

While I do believe that more and more people are getting exposure to Japan via anime, there are also more and more resources about Japan popping up online that people are tapping into.

The reason that I think the trend for learning Japanese is declining is that the internet has become so saturated with material that people already have enough sites bookmarked that they don't want to search for more.

i personally have stopped having to google as ive got a ridiculously large bookmark collection of the sites i like
shrug

I think actually the number of people wanting to learn Japanese went way up over the last couple of years. Seemed like some people thought it was the "in" thing to do. Now it's probably going down to more realistic numbers.

Plus there are a lot more resources for people who have questions about the language which may also reduce people searching just under those specific terms. I know LiveJournal has dedicated communities just for learning Japanese. So people will go there if they have questions instead of searching on Google.

In fact that brings me to something else, the trend of people not bothering to look stuff up on Google or Yahoo or wherever, but instead asking others to do it for them...but I digress.

Although aggregating data at the global level when your search parameters are in English is a big methodological error....it seems like "Japanese" (translated into various languages and searched in different nations) follows a general trend of decline, except South Korea.

"일본어"

http://www.google.com/trends?q=%EC%9D%BC%EB%B3%B8%EC%96%B4&ctab=0&geo=kr&geor=all&date=all&sort=0

I don't know enough about Korea's economic relationship with Japan to say if there's any causation there. If the causal factor is more about economy, then I guess your hunch that the J-wave is dying down. I haven't really read about this either though.

As far as korea goes, I had a Japanese class which was primarily made up of Koreans. The language is quite easy for them (I'd say on par with an American learning Spanish). They are very similar grammatically and share a large amount of vocabulary. That coupled with historical "closeness" and economic reasons is probably why.

Funnily enough, I thought it was the opposite. At my university in Australia, the first-year (beginners) Japanese course has well over a hundred participants, whereas last year (my year) it had only sixty or seventy. I think it is because manga and anime are becoming more mainstream (the people who watched pokemon as kids are growing up?)?

Other than that, I can see why it might be in decline. China is beginning to take over (or has taken over) as the major source of interest in the region...

My hypothesis is that anime and manga got super popular and led more people to study Japanese. But then I think anime and manga started to get *too* popular for its own good. It started to seem *obnoxiously* popular too many folks. I imagine this made fans of anime/manga and learners of Japanese self-conscious, especially since those types of people often pride themselves on being different.

Then of course, the terms "weeaboo" (white person who tries to be Asian) and "Japanophile" were coined. That probably scared language learners further away from their books. With Wal-Mart selling Pocky, I think Japan-related things became too common to seem special/ quirky and just started looking gimicky and bizarre.

I don't think I'll quit studying, though. It's fun; and I want to teach, travel, live adventurously and encourage English learns to do the same. Plus, I think it makes me a better world citizen. Maybe I'll tackle other languages later on.

It's only a hypothesis, but what do you think? Could I be on the right track?

PS I know you've got a full plate. If you don't have time to respond, that's cool : )

Well - everything is starting to become very popular and so on that you dont really need to be able to understand japanese to enjoy them. plus the effect from the boom is starting to fade off maybe? i heard there was a low of interest back then since japan's economy seemed to be doing really well compared to the rest of the world (20-30 or so years circa?) - that doesnt seem to be the case anymore.

I don't really care I don't follow fades. But I guess it's still funny to know.

Personally Japanese felt as though it was a fad for far too long it seems as though every time i would tell a person that i was learning Japanese they would say "oh you like anime or manga that's the only reason your learning Japanese huh" but i don't care too much for either. i really don't care that people aren't as interested in Japanese as they used to be i mean the only people that actually care about the language are learning to speak it fluently. i'm in a Japanese 4 class with 5 people and in the japanese 1 class there are 35 people so people realize that you cant learn japanese from anime and they give up anyway.

Perhaps everyone has graduated from beginners classes and has gotten into good habits?

What you've got to remember though is that Google Trends can only pick up when people actually search on Google for these things. If learners of Japanese are using things such as eduFire more, and other resources, or if people are now more aware of the sites that they wish to use with which to learn Japanese, then they aren't going to be accessing Google to get to that information. I must admit, around JLPT time though, I would have thought these trends would have increased, though I have not done a similar search for 'JLPT', so I can't give you any facts.

On top of that (and here he goes on his soapbox), with the recession and all, perhaps it is just something that people outside of full-time (or indeed inside) education can't afford as much at the minute and they're turning their backs on languages in general.

All I know is that for us lot, it means there's a load more space to breath. So put up your feet and relax: Japan is your oyster. Or something like that..

/ agree
maybe the people thaat in 2004 began learning japanese are now in an advanced state and they use online resources to learn the language..so they dont need to google it cause they already have the elements to study

Bingo.

I can't say I'd complain if it happened to become less popular. It gets pretty annoying when people think you're nothing but another trendy. As for whether it actually fell in popularity or not I'm not really sure.

Absolutely agreed. The amount of people who say: "ooooh, I don't know anybody else doing Japanese, it's always something I've wanted to do though.." Yea, right..

At the school I went to there were usually 4 Japanese 1001 classes every Fall. There are usually twenty-something people in each class. Just going to 1002 halves that. This is definitely the, "weed out the weeaboos" process. By the time I was at 3002 there were 7 of us. The following semester the university decided that this was too few and wouldn't allow them to have a class, so I had to attend another school to continue. Luckily my state has a plan for this sort of thing where you attend another school, but it more or less looks like you were at your home institution. I got to go to a very nice school and pay my lowly public school tuition for it (yay Georgia). But I digress. While I think a lot of it may have to do with the way you "researched" on google trends, I think there are probably other reasons that still make your "reseach" meaningful (sorry, don't mean to rag on your methods, but c'mon). I think perhaps the need for speakers has gone down. Americans don't tend to care a whole lot about other languages to begin with, and with the trend for other countries to force their children to learn English, language barrier becomes less of an issue as time goes on. Another part may be that Japan isn't this crazy place of myth anymore. Thanks to sites like this, you can find out most anything you would want to know about the place without so much as learning kana. But if we're talking about this in an America-centric way, I think Japanese still does quite well among the few languages most are willing to learn. Unfortunately, when I was in high school it wasn't even an option for me. It was either Spanish, French, German, or Latin ("Latin? WTF?" I know, right. I took it anyways). But now more and more high schools in the state (Georgia) are offering Japanese (and probably Chinese now). So while the trend may be in slight decline, I think it's more important to consider it relative to the whole of languages, and its rather high popularity in the first place.

The Japanese language has never been popular in The Netherlands. There are only 2 universities here that offers the (cultural) language program Japanese. But the most Asian languages aren't that popular here. If there is a university that offers an Asian language, it's Chinese...

The languages that are popular over here, are European ones like: Spanish, German, French, etc.

I think that's because of the distance of Japan and the other Asian countries. It's relative further away than USA, Australia and surrounding Asian countries. And there are not really benefits of learning a Asian language because of the few Japanese people that live here and corporations that exists here.

So I don't know how the popularity is over there (I guess that the main visitors here are from the States), but if the Japanese language 'trend' is dropping I think, like said above here, because of the recession. A language is not the first priority in times like these.

Studying Japanese is extremely popular in the Netherlands right now, actually, and that popularity is growing here every year by quite a lot.

I'm a student of OTC in Maastricht and there's more than 100 first years for Japanese alone right now, far more than what the study is capable of handling comfortably.

Tests were even changed from open questions to multiple choice because they couldn't hand out the results for so much students while staying within the 15 day deadline in which the results must become known.

Not that there will be much students left after the weeaboos are forcefully weeded out..., but still, I'm hearing stories of too many new Japanese students at universities to the point where it becomes a problem from quite a lot of people studying in Leiden on forums.

Also, Japanese here has about 5 times as much new students here in Maastricht as Chinese has in the first year. If that isn't popularity, I don't know what is.

Let's see what the charts say about this...

http://i45.tinypic.com/x6n1qr.png

Hmm I guess you're wrong!

I kind of feel like everyone who has started to learn Japanese has realized that the fastest way to learn (yes there is a fast way) is to study abroad in the Land of the Rising sun. Not to say that this is the only reason but it is a trend I'm starting to notice that a lot more people are going over sea compared to when my senpai or I went. Plus with the sudden increase of ebooks on torrent sites (not saying that I download RIAA) and other applications out there it's not funny that we see this trend. On top of that since most of the Japanese learners w/ in their on regions know each other it's not to uncommon for one person to find something and spread it to the others. I've ranted to much.

How is it possible to find fellow Japanese learners where you live? I think I'm the only persona in over 100 miles trying to learn the language sometimes!

they're normally friends that share an interest in some type of Japanese culture, ie. anime, manga or J-music. Also if there is a meet up group around your area or a language learning club go out to those. That is how I meet other Japanese learners.

I have a small group of friends online (no one in real life) that are into anime and manga, but that's about it. No such meet up group or club exists where I live (which makes living where I do a living hell). I mean, imagine living somewhere where you are the only one like yourself around. Very alienating.

I envy you guys for either living in big cities or having more diverse things to enjoy where you live!

I get what you mean. Over here I'm the only person studying Japanese by myself. Online classes are very hard for me to learn from but I try. I just wish they'd give a Japanese class in my college.

Maybe the reason for fewer Google searches is that people are actually able to take classes at their schools now rather than having to go it alone using internet resources.

In the online high school classes I teach, I get comments like "OMG I'm so excited, I've wanted to take Japanese since I was 7 years old!" Unfortunately, once they they realize how much work it is, the excitement fades somewhat... :D

There are no available classes where I live which really sucks.

Have you ever tried learning live online? I'm sure there are more than a few people here on this thread that could tell you what it's like :)

NOT Popular if you have a asshole teacher that likes to mislead the entire class and talk only about Japanese culture in a LANGUAGE class and teach ZERO grammar. It discourage people from taking it further, I think that some teachers should really check themselves in the mental hospital. Specially if they know that the students are on the beginning and still learning TE and TA form... And on top of that they don't support you at all with no help at all. Even tho everyone in the class is failing, the teacher still thinks he knows what he's doing. And before exams they dont review in class at all, and expect you to do it on your own... This is one of the reason why Japanese is NOT a popular language to learn.

I think I read/heard recently that the JLPT enrollment (at least in the U.S) has been increasing steadily the past few years. I'll try to find the link....

I went to a very large state school, and the Japanese department has exploded over the last 5 or 6 years. Now I'm really curious to know what the trends are and where!

At first I wanted to say, that it's because there are so many scanlation groups providing us with free English manga and anime translation at the speed of light...but then again, that doesn't keep me from learning Japanese...so maybe it's because you showed us the best resources for Learning Japanese, we just don't need to google it so much anymore. :D

No really for me it's definitely like this: After watching your video about your Top Ten I'm now using iknow and Lang-8 and that keeps me so busy I really don't bother googling for any new sites anymore. （￣ー￣）

So thanks again!! XD

Actually, I tried comparing "learning japanese" with "learning korean" and "learning chinese" into a search engine, and I got entirely different results, with Japanese getting even more hits than Chinese, and the trends of all languages going down. This leads me to believe that people are simply Googling "Japanese language" less than they were in 2004 - probably because they are Google "Rosetta stone" more often - or simply the access of information has become so great that people are searching less for something like how to learn a language. They already know where to go. I don't think it has anything to do with it being less popular.

I just picked up learning Japanese last June and I'm never turning back, it's a great language to learn, and I went to Japan, lots of foreigners over there learning the language. I don't think google trends can be used to draw any correlations, especially when the "trend" is a function of how you throw in your syntax. You get entirely different results between "japanese language" "learning japanese" and "help with japanese".

It doesn't appear to just be Japanese and Asian languages- if you Google other Latin-based languages, like Spanish and French, they're on the decline too (at least in Google searches), so I think people are just generally becoming uninterested in learning other languages, period. Kind of sad.

I think trend for "japanese language" is similar to any other. I checked "english language", "french language", "russian language", "italian language", "spanish language", "german language", "polish language", "korean language", "chinese language", they have similar trends, and I think the same is for any other one. Maybe people around the world really have less interest in languages. I only noticed hindi is anomaly.

Or perhaps it's that more people understand more languages now? Which is good, right?

Teaching HS and community college JPN since 1986, each year I have seen a few MORE rather than less students. Those who start for Anime/Manga rarely last into yr 4, though... We teach JPN, Russian, German, SPN, French, ASL and the majority of our students take a language... many take two or three! Proud, we are.

I personally blame classes. I believe that is the main reason why there aren't a lot of people learning it. They give up at they're first try. I personally believe classes are dumb or maybe stupid in a way but least it's better then no Japanese at all. Me I learn from アニメ I don't care what people say about it in fact I stoped caring a long time ago since I stopped arguing with learning Japanese on the internet. Japanese is too hard for them specifically the 漢字. I saw a survey that what led them to Japanese is アニメ. That led me to learning Japanese too. Classes will have to end someday for learning languages. I hope it does we need to break down that thinking barrier of belief. It's too hard but of course it's hard you read from a text book you learn grammar through that book. What you will never get is the natural language itself. Languages change through time that book gets useless with everyday. People are lazy therefore they get bored that's the problem they quit. They MADE it boring themselves. They seriously believe that's the only way to learn Japanese. I may be a learning Japanese weaboo but I'm that weaboo who did 1,050 kanjis and been doing this for one month and I will keep doing this even when I'm finish till the day I die. It's all a game that I will keep doing till the day I die probaley. Anyways rant over check out my channel for the link to where I get all this random imformation. You will be be greeted with a guy who photesnapped his zits out of the picture. :D Also don't reply please do not this will probaley be my only comment in like a month I think so I won't be doing it for a long time though.

Looks like "learning" is a downwards thread, not only learning Japanese :

http://www.google.com/trends?q=learning&ctab=0&...

I blame ('cause I must blame something, don't I?) the Internet population shifting from mainly tech-savvy, smart people, to a more representative part of the population, including a greater and growing part of the unwashed masses. Which hate learning. Hmpf.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=gossip&ctab=0&ge... <-- Now, this is a growing trend!

That's a very good point Philippe, as more people get on to the internet the demographic shifts towards a more representative sample of the general population. Away from educated tech-savvy people towards people less interested in learning something and more interested in what their favourite celebrity had for lunch.

If you are really interested in learning Japanese, it shouldn't matter what is trending, or even what your friends think, or even what reasons other people have for learning Japanese. Internal motivation matters most: Why do you want to learn Japanese?

If you can't answer this question then it's always going to be problematic for you.

Maybe it has to do with the economy? Japan's economy is really going down...and worse by the day...

I think that there was just a major spike there for a while, and it's dying down.

Also, I think people are learning to use the internet more wisely. People no longer need Google to find a helpful website. I haven't used Google to find a website for learning Japanese since my first month or two at it. Since then, networking has led me to a higher volume of useful websites than searching ever did.

All the trends I can see are downward. I tried Spanish, French, German... they're all the same. Even Physics and Optometry show the same downward trend.

Perhaps Google just isn't as busy as it used to be. Maybe everyone has found websites that work for them now, or they discover them in other ways (twitter, rss, Facebook etc).

I actually started a beginners Japanese language course at college this September. The first time I walked into the class the wasn't a spair empty seat in sight, it was incredibly packed which I really did not expect. I originally thought that the would be at the most, eight or so people but boy was I wrong!

When the teacher, who is actually Chinese but lived in Japan for a long time, asked everyone the reason as to why they want to study Japanese Language most people replied with pretty trivial answers. I personally am studying it because I intend on doing my degree in international business related to Japan and the was one other guy who had a Chinese origin who was planning the same as me. Everyone else there decided to learn Japanese to ether play Japanese video games or watch Anime in Japanese. A couple of people wanted to learn because they have Japanese relatives or are planning to take a vacation to Japan but over all, if this is the size of the class when Japan is going out of fashion then I would hate to see it when it was in fashion!

I blame Google. My number of hours watching anime and learning Japanese has dwindled since I started using Google Reader. That thing is a time-eating monster.

Please investigate a bit more before trying to make weird theories. Replace japanese with any other language and you get exactly same kind of graph. Number of search phrases are maybe increasing or something, but anyway it has nothing to do with japanese language in particular.

Well, it could be a number of factors.
For myself, my entrance into hectic college life really robbed me of time to study Japanese.
Another factor that pulled me away was the Kanji. There were so many, but I am glad that I have been able to memorize a number of them. Then, I found something interesting: If I were to learn Traditional Chinese Hanzi, I would hit many birds with one stone since all Kanji (Traditional and Modern Simplified) and Chinese Simplified Hanzi are either all based on it or are completely identical to it. So, I decided to learn the original prototype first and then learn its descendants later.
But that does not subtract from my interest in Japanese. I'm just using Hanzi as a stepping stone or an investment, if you will.

Very interesting charts. I think I checked out the google trend charts a number of years ago but completely forgot about them. I find it hard to imagine that Japanese as a language and culture is becoming less popular though. My reason for saying so is because the internet is becoming so engrained in our global culture that lots of media (anime, manga) that wasn't available before is now just a few clicks away.

In fact, if it weren't for this media, in combination with my wife, I doubt I ever would have began my Japanese studies. Stop by my Japanese learning blog some time and say hello - I could always use some extra inspiration from my readers :) http://japanesewithchris.blogspot.com

A lot of comments....

I actually am dissuaded from learning Japanese sometimes because its too much of a "fad" and I want to be taken seriously. Also Im still leaning towards Chinese. I thought Chinese was a lot less popular for learning?

I think this just has to do with the internet maturing. People are becoming more and more familiar with their territory of interest, and have less reliance on a search engine as a result. When I first started using the internet, whenever I wanted to find some information, a search engine was my first stop. Now, with almost every aspect of my life, there is a go-to website that I already know of.

I do not think interest in learning Japanese has gone down. My gut tells me it is only going up. Frankly, there are just so many good websites for learning Japanese now. Whenever someone comes to me and is interested, I tell them that there are an overwhelming number of resources to learn the language. When I started a couple of years ago, I was impressed with what I found, but now there are even more. I would say in general, this fact is becoming more transparent to people, who can then pass on the information by word of mouth. We're moving out of a "darker" age, where one begins their quest by making some sort of shot in the dark like, "how do I learn Japanese", on Google.

Anyway, this is a complex question, and one that probably can't be answered too reliably by using some google stats data.

Well, wanting to learn Japanese is still popular where I live but the actual people learning is very very low. The reasons I think it's declining on google is:

1. People may be taking classes in real life and search less online.

2. Lots of the people who wanted to learn the language cuz of Anime/Manga realized that it wasn't going to be so easy and quit.

3. The people are growing up and only the ones who are serious about learning it stay interested.

4. The internet is being used everyday more by "Common" people who are just interested in going to myspace and saying "hiz i jus sendn luff fer yuu 2day k bai!!!11lololol" to all their friends and just don't want to learn anything.

5. Much of the people/generations who started the "Bang" are probably now in college and put learning other languages on hiatus.

6. People bookmarked their favorite websites for learning and don't have to use google.

Also the economic troubles can apply and people are more concerned about their wallet then learning a new language right now.

I just know that I lowered my studying in Japanese (online) mainly because I moved to a new college and living in a dorm of 4 (2 being noisy athletes) makes it nearly impossible for me to study on the computer. In fact, I can't visit my favorite sites as much as I used to. I used to go online everyday for a very long time, now I use my computer to go online 3-5 times a week for a very short period (like one hour) or for uni work.

But in reality I think that learning Japanese is not going down. Maybe just the way people search it and where they learn it. I know I have my fave sites bookmarked. So for me wanting to learn it is going up and where I live another language that is growing popular is German, and Chinese.

Blame China. Everyone I knew back in the states who was once interested in studying Japanese is now interested in studying Chinese. I can't blame them. It does seem more useful than Japanese at this point.

Thgouh I understand the motivation of jobs, whether or not a language is "useful" completely depends on what one wants to do in life, and where! I hope people learn a language because they love the real culture (not just anime)! I loved the architecture first, then studied IN Japan and learned more and more ...after 32 years I love nearly everything. Study what you love, not what might seem "useful"...that is ALWAYS temporary.

Ah, I agree. There aren't many people wanting to learn Japanese anymore, and I think that it's because of it being "too trendy" as well. The people trying to act like anime characters, but coming off as completely obnoxious, ugh.

As for myself, my high school in N.Y.C requires us to choose two languages, and then we have to stick to it through the four years. So it was Greek and Japanese for me, and as the level of the classes increased, the number of students in them stayed constant, as people who were losing motivation couldn't leave the class. ;P Sadly, the school still doesn't offer Mandarin Chinese, which I find would be a lot more helpful for business and work. My brother's did, though--lucky him.

My lil' sis is one of those that try acting like the anime characters, but unsuccessfully. I tried to explain that I had never met or seen any Japanese act like that. Even while I was living there! Granted, I was in Hokkaido in a lot of the smaller cities, but still.

Ma...I'm late to comment, but I'd just to add my two cents. From what I observe from the people surrounding me, I think it's pretty possible that the 'learning Japanese' trend is going down. The main reasons being

1. There are no new 'revolutionary Anime' coming out now (by that, I mean, Anime that really knocks your socks off. )

2. The K-pop industry is slowly overtaking the J-pop.

With no good new anime, there are no new fans, therefore no new 'members' willing to learn Japanese (I know that there are others who learn Jap for other reasons, but the majority still do it b/c of anime) The existing 'members' have either mastered the language, gave up, or are still dwiddling in between.

Reason number 2 is pretty self-explanatory. With K-drama and K-pop rising in popularity, people are now more interested in learning Korean. There are rare cases such as with the fans of 東方神起/Tohoshinki/TVXQ. The group is active in both Japan and Korea so fans are inspired to learn both Korean and Japanese (me being on of them).

Well i think so...
When i talk about going to Japan to some of my peers they, look at me and ask why then they say Japan is gay.):

I still find learning Japanese very interesting, I think this is because there is so much interesting stuff to lean.

I don't see a significant difference in what college freshmen think they want to take (or in the rate at which they drop out of Japanese classes). The big difference I *do* see is that the amount of cruddy Japanese pop culture things getting translated these days is massive compared to even five years ago, never mind ten or fifteen. It's also much easier to find Japanese classes these days.

I just kind of stumbled across this article -- I've been verifying (to my chagrin) that Google Voice is unavailable from Japan -- but I think you're reading too much into Google Trends. You get the same results whether you search for learning Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, German, French, etc. Pretty much everything shows a generalized decline except "learn English". I'd assume that has to do with either methodology or a temporary decline in search volume attributable to the financial crisis -- there's no point looking globally when you're fighting for your job, people travel less, and so forth.

All I know is that my alma mater is expanding its Japanese department. It's a major public research university undergoing budget cuts, so there's enough demand.

Learn [language]: http://bit.ly/cqPSbU
"Learn Japanese" vs "Narita": http://bit.ly/c4oJvs
英語 vs 旅行: http://bit.ly/aLIbn8