Are the Japanese accepting of somebody who is trying to learn their language, but is not really...good yet?

Question:

What is the general con census? Do a lot of people in Japan feel you should just leave the language to the Japanese people? Because I am not very good yet, so if I made a mistake, would I be mocked? Because when I was learning Spanish, the spanish people were always happy to help me if I slipped on a word or used the incorrect verb, and it really helped me learn the language. Are the Japanese generally the same?

Answer:

Yes, but it depends on you and who you're around.

If you want to learn Japanese, there are lots of people who will like that, who will help you, who will encourage you. On the other hand, there are still lots of people who will want you to basically just stick to English so that they can improve their English talking to you (doesn't work anyway), and people who may not talk to you much, but will discourage you (even if unintentionally).

It's up to you for your own motivation. You'll get too many "Oh. You're studying THAT? We don't use that in Japanese." That can be frustrating. There are only so many good Japanese texts around, and nothing's going to be perfect, so you just have to ignore people sometimes and keep going. Some of these people have no real background learning another language anyway, so don't know what they're talking about.

There are a lot of non-Japanese who use Japanese. Just look around in Japan. Most of them are Chinese or Korean, so physically you might not be able to distinguish them, but just know there are 10's of thousands. Watch TV in Japan and you'll see visible minorities speaking Japanese fluently.

Some people in Japan actually expect you to speak more Japanese than you do, especially in the countryside, or with old people or young kids.

I think young kids are the best because they haven't formed their preconceptions yet and just expect that you can speak with them like anyone else.

It's very rare that you would be mocked in Japan for making mistakes in Japanese. What goes around, comes around. In general Japanese don't want bad karma.