Does Japanese has a good reputation language wise?

[Hedonologist]

Would you say Japanese has a good reputation for English speakers? I've heard a few people give negative reactions when you tell them you study Japanese, and others seem very intrigued. It seems that Japanese has this kind of bad reputation that other languages, even Chinese doesn't.

[Elly]

Japan is still quite an economically powerful, industrious nation. It would be handy to learn if you were getting into the international business world, especially since a lot of Japanese people are comfortable with not learning anything but Japanese (unlike, well...many Asian colonies I can name that basically balance several dialects of a native language with the language of all our conquerers just to keep up with our history.)

Japanese has its own writing system. I love that, because I think the Latin alphabet is frightfully boring, but a new writing system is off-putting to some new language learners.

There's also quite an international cultural impact. Fans of Japanese anime, manga, video games, J-pop and J-rock, live action dramas filmed in Japan, as well as Japanese classical literature and poetry and so on would certainly benefit from learning the original language, as well as the language itself being quite beautiful. Those who don't see the profound appeal of the nation's entertainment media might not understand the enthusiasm.

[Kandikkal]

I do not think Japanese has a bad reputation. How can a language have a bad reputation? I am willing to learn Japanese too. But I will have to finish learning my current languages before starting with Japanese.

[Baburra]

I think it's because Japanese culture still seems a bit odd to other cultures, so if you say you are studying their language, then they assume you have an interest in said odd culture. I think it's okay to be fascinated by odd cultures, though, because it's definitely a lot easier to get interested with these than with simpler or more traditional ones.

[Elly]

I also suspect that it could be just a little bit of ethnocentrism... Japanese is a difficult syntax to get used to for those used to romance languages and English. For those used to the syntax of some Asian languages, it might be easier to catch so it's only the writing system that needs drills and learning (which, as I mentioned, I'm a huge fan of.)

[Lasonax]

I'm not very open with studying japanese, because if I told some people I'm sure they would look at me like "You're one heck of a weaboo aren't ya?".

I think it's really mixed, it's probably true that a lot of people who study japanese do it mostly because of japanese entertainment medias and such (Visual Novels, Anime, Manga, Light Novels, etc), and I'm certain that a lot of people consider it to be a waste of time to learn japanese just for that... But I also believe that a lot of people think it's all right.

I would probably get weirder looks if I said I was studying some other asian language. But I guess it really depends on what kind of people you "hang out" with.