going to study japanese at uni.

[noneedforname]

So after a year in the air force fixing f-16s I was done with the required service bullcrap; got a job and decided to earn some cash.
financial crisis hit Norway and i got fired.
so further education is probably my best option now, but i had a real hard time choosing what to major in.

I chose Japanese, because people told me to pick something i had a little interest in. So i was wondering.
exactly what kind of work is out there for a guy who speaks 6 languages? (norwegian, swedish, danish, decent german, english and japanese if things go as planned) =P.

I kinda want an education that has some future job possibilities. Are interpreters needed in Japan?
Is it hard getting a job related to language over there? any info about work that's language related (teaching, interpreting etc.) would be nice!

[isisbathory]

Originally Posted by noneedforname

So after a year in the air force fixing f-16s I was done with the required service bullcrap; got a job and decided to earn some cash.
financial crisis hit Norway and i got fired.
so further education is probably my best option now, but i had a real hard time choosing what to major in.

I chose Japanese, because people told me to pick something i had a little interest in. So i was wondering.
exactly what kind of work is out there for a guy who speaks 6 languages? (norwegian, swedish, danish, decent german, english and japanese if things go as planned) =P.

I kinda want an education that has some future job possibilities. Are interpreters needed in Japan?
Is it hard getting a job related to language over there? any info about work that's language related (teaching, interpreting etc.) would be nice!

Well speaking all those languages you can be lucky,
You can be lucky and get a job translating books and all of that.
I do believe that there are interpreters in Japan, like in every other country, but if you are not lucky getting visa there or whatever, you can always try other countries in the europe.
I wish you good luck

[freel4ncer]

i do think that interpreters are becoming less and less valuable in the job market. (probably due to most people adhering to either spanish, english or mandarin if they were to work internationally). but studying japanese is the way to go! I have done this for 3 years and am loving. but a word of warning though, dont be too confident with just picking up japanese right away because you're a fluent linguist, ive seen many caucasians falter and struggle to keep up in class. This is because the kanji script will be extremely difficult for non kanji users to pick up, especially if they're not based in Japan. But anyways, good luck! and yes i know, the financial crisis sucks. Perhaps take a short course? like 3 months or something and see how things go with your japanese

[noneedforname]

Thanks for the input. I'm already prepared for it to be hard learning kanji, but I hope i'll manage.
Btw. swedish, norwegian and danish are almost the same language, only with major differences regarding how to pronounce words.
So I'm not a crazy god when it comes to languages (like it kinda looks like I was implying in opening post).
Still, I really really want to try it out.

[KyleGoetz]

Just to point out, to be a Japanese interpreter, you're looking at something at a minimum six years down the road unless you can move to Japan for at least two years after studying two years prior to going.

And that's assuming you are very good at learning languages (which it seems you are). Polyglottery is awesome.

But it is (almost) cheating to count Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian as three languages! It's not fair. The best I can do with my native language is a very tiny bit of German and Dutch, but that is a very, very little bit. Well, I can read a bit of Scots...

Fortunately I learned Spanish at an early age, so I can read some French, Italian, and Portuguese.

But good luck, noneedforname!