6 Haikyuu Quotes to Ignite your Japanese Learning
When you are down, motivational quotes from anime can be a major boost to bring the Japanese learning flame back to its full brightness. Below are 6 quotes from the anime ハイキュー!! and how they relate to studying Japanese.
6. 負けたくないことに理由っている?
“Do you need a reason to not want to lose?”
The more you study Japanese, the better you get, and the better you want to get. The desire to win becomes natural, and you absolutely don’t want to lose the battle to fluency. That’s what is important.
5. 不利とか不向きとか関係ないんだ。
“Words like ‘disadvantage’ or ‘unfit’ don’t matter at all.”
You don’t have the time, money, willpower, talent, etc. to learn Japanese. You aren’t good at learning languages. These excuses are irrelevant.
4. 今までのぜんぶ・・・全部無駄だったみたいに言うな!
“Don’t say that it’s like everything up until now was a waste!”
You often take a tool, method, or study strategy and follow it for a while. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. Those weeks or even months you spent trying to succeed with it but didn’t weren’t wasted. You fail your way to success.
3. 先生、俺、メリットがあるからバレーやってるんじゃないんです。
“Sensei, I don’t play volleyball because there is merit to it.”
(In response to being told that time spent on playing volleyball wasn’t going to lead to any future benefit and it is better to spend that time on something that will help your career/education)
Ever been questioned whether there is value in studying Japanese? All that time could be spent on a more valuable language. Or something that will help your future. It doesn’t matter whether there is an objective value or merit to studying Japanese. It only matters what it personally means to you, and what it brings to your life.
2. 最初クリアできそうにないゲームでも繰り返すうちに慣れるんだよ
“With time and repetition, you’ll even eventually get used to a game that looked like you couldn’t beat in the beginning.”
Japanese looks overwhelming right from the start. 3 alphabets. One alphabet (kanji) has thousands of characters, and most characters have multiple readings. Then you have different levels of politeness, seemingly impossible to comprehend listening, and a never ending list of confusing grammar.
All of these appear to be make a ridiculously impossible game. But the more you play, the more you get used to everything.
1. 君達が弱いという事は伸びしろがあるということ。こんな楽しみなことないでしょう。
“You guys being weak means that you have room for growth. There is nothing more exciting to look forward to than that.”
When you start off studying Japanese, you’re level 1. You’re weak. You’re a newbie. But you have so much potential. So much possibility waiting for you. Enjoy looking forward to what is to come.
What has inspired you from ハイキュウ?
For those of you that have read or seen ハイキュウ, is there anything else that has fired up your Japanese learning?
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
Great quotes. One of the things I like best about ハイキュウ, as well as other shows like ちはやふる, is seeing how the different characters develop their own strengths and their own ways of playing and succeeding at a game they love.
Agreed. It really does a great job with every character in its own way.
Can’t wait for season 3! Since I am caught up to the manga in english, I can watch the anime without subtitles and still be able to enjoy it even if I dont understand much of what’s being said, since I know the gist of it already :D
Season 3 is almost here!
4+ years later, I can read & understand all of these quotes; season 3 was my favorite haikyuu season, loved both parts of season 4, AND read the whole manga to the end. What a difference 4 years makes!
Is anyone able to translate the haiku/poem from the very start of Haikyu?
“ A tall, tall wall looms over me. What is the view on the other side? What does it look like?
The view from the top. It’s a view that I could never see by myself. But if I’m not doing it alone, I just might be able to see it.”
Ive wanted to have it turned into a tattoo in the original Japanese but I can neither read nor write it.
Ah man, ハイキュー is my favorite! I have like 8 volumes of the manga haha. I’m a sucker for sports anime. With Haikyuu, just watching the Karasuno team grow and everyone’s individual skills pushing others to becoming great at their passion has been super motivating! I remember when I watched Free!! for the first time and how it pushed me to become better at competitive swimming, which I had been doing for several years.
It’s really easy to get into and enjoy. And it has a great soundtrack.
I really need to read Haikyuu. But Japan is really one of the best sources for inspiring media. It’s basically what the sports genre runs on, and other series like Space Brothers are chock full of them too. And I’m a sucker for all of it.
One of the reasons I started learning Japanese was because there are so many sports series that never get a release in the US.
Haikyuu is a few levels away (and I have some other series I want to read first, like Slam Dunk) but I’m really excited to read it someday :)
Yes please do! And I fully agree that Japan continually produces inspiring works of TV and literature. Space Brothers is top at accomplishing that.
I love the series and it’s at this very moment running on my immersion player, haha ^^
“村人Bも戦えます!” Villager B can fight, too!
Even without super special abilities you can give your best!
Oh and along the lines of your number 6) (I think it’s probably from the same episode? Maybe even the same scene…) I think in the first episode there’s this scene, where the match is nearly over and one of Hinata’s friends asks him why he’s still giving his all or something like that. And he has this scary face and is like “But we haven’t lost yet.” muhaha. I sometimes wanna say that when people are implying that I’m not getting anywhere with what I’m doing.
In general Hinata and some other characters have this “I don’t give up” mindset that’s pretty inspirational!
For a long time I kind of avoided sports anime. I think I once tried one or two and didn’t like them all that much. But during the last half a year or so, I reaaally got into them, especially if there are people sucking at the start around but giving their best (even though that sounds a bit mean spirited of me *haha*). e.g. Hinata in Haikyuu, Eiichiro in Baby Steps :D Though I’ve been digging all kind of sports anime recently to be honest… Another positive… they are usually easy to follow even when your Japanese still sucks ;)
Yeah the village B quote is one of my favorites also.