I am currently torn between focusing my efforts in two languages. One language appeals more from a practical sense while the other language is something I have wanted to learn since I was a child. The languages are quite different from one another and neither one would benefit as much in learning the other one. The two languages, of course, are German and Japanese. I want to lay out my logic for each here in hopes that someone else on Reddit has been in a similar position and may have some advice that will help me figure out where to go from here.
The case for German is pretty simple: My family is from West Germany (about two generations back, my father does not speak German) and I have native friends that I communicate with on a daily basis. I visit Germany about once a year because it is the most financially feasible foreign destination for me - I simply have to cover the cost of airfare and food, since I stay with my German friends there is no lodging cost. Originally I had thought that English would take me very far in Germany as a tourist, but surprisingly outside of large cities such as Berlin, it is more difficult to get around with just English. They live outside of Stuttgart in Berkheim and I found that many of the locals did not speak English well enough to be comfortable speaking it to an American - which is fine, I am in Germany after all and I shouldn't expect everyone to speak in my native language. The rest of Germany in smaller areas seemed hit or miss, though in traveling to the Netherlands I found that a lot of people did speak fluent English once I got to more populated areas.
There isn't a huge interest in German literature and not too much in music. I enjoy listening to some German pop music - only because the rhythm is good. German history is interesting though, one of the memories I have from my first trip is standing in a castle that was once the cities central defense and realizing that this castle has stood for longer than my home country has been founded. One of the appeals of learning German is being able to converse with some of the older population and learn more about the history of the country from firsthand accounts.
German itself is closer to English than Japanese, so I would expect to reach a usable level much faster based on that. What I have found though, is that there isn't as big of a community for learning it as Japanese and that there aren't as many highly recommended at-home study materials for German. My resources are currently: Babbel, GermanPod101, memrise, and SmarterGerman. Of those resources, GermanPod101 has been my faovirte so far. One of the perks with the language being a bit easier to learn for a native English speaker is that I will see progress faster and that will encourage me more. Though I do hear horror stories of German taking multiple years for someone to have a basic conversation - I imagine those speakers were not really motivated or didn't take the learning effort seriously. I don't have a fear of German grammar, especially with genders. Though I don't remember hardly any of it after school because I don't use it at all, I did have four years of Classical Latin, and if I can survive that, then I don't think genders in German will mess me up too bad. That being said, I don't seek to "master" German, only reach a level of being able to converse in it. I would wager that many English speaking Americans would fail a grammar exam in our native tongue, so I want to focus more on being able to talk in German rather than be proficient in an exam.
While German is more of a desire from adulthood, Japanese has been a desire since I was a child. I am drawn by the culture, both traditional and modern. Japan is a great technology center and is home to some of the greatest electronic and gaming companies, at least in my opinion. The food is amazing and yes - the anime and manga. There are more resources available (at least from my findings) and the learning community is vast and accepting. I do plan on visiting Japan in about 2~ years (currently saving/planning) so knowing Japanese at a somewhat conversation level, even if basic, would probably help me out in visiting. Even though it isn't my primary goal, being able to understand anime without subtitles and read manga in Japanese are secondary goals. My primary goal is to be able to travel off of the beaten in Japan and be able to meet more of the locals. Once upon a time, I wanted to live in Japan but that is a far future goal if it still exists.
An additional secondary goal would be speaking more easily to Japanese natives in the online community. I play FFXIV occasionally and there are friends that I play with that rely mostly on the translations to communicate with me. I would love to be able to have a basic conversation with them. The downside of Japanese would be that in-person I do not know any native speakers so conversations would have to rely on online friends, tutors, or locating some locals.
Genki and JapanesePod101 seem to be really good starting good points, though I have not purchased either one yet. I wanted to get Reddits take on which language makes more sense. There is no reason I couldn't eventually learn them both but I would really love to reach a somewhat proficient level in one of them prior to turning 30 (2 years from now, just a personal goal).
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