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[Chittagong]

I'm thinking of starting my studies of japanese in January. I visit Tokyo every now and then for work, and play lots of import stuff - both are obviously big motivators.

Hence, I'm starting with the basics of the language and culture, as well as a course in writing hiragana and katakana basics.

So, like said, I'm really motivated to learn - however, I've understood that it's an absolutely enormous task.

Any experiences to share?

 

[Jim Bowie]

I've just completed Japanese 101, taking 102 in the spring.

I don't think it's terribly hard, you just have to get used to the sentence structure and use of particles. Once you've got down the particles, it seems a whole lot easier.

Now kanji.... damn.

 

[SHOCKIE]

Man i want so love to learn japanese,just so i could curse someone, would be so kewl

 

[fennec fox]

Learning any language is a monumental task. Have you ever tried picking one up in the past? For an English speaker, I'd say that Japanese is hard but far from the most difficult language to learn out there.

 

[BugCatcher]

So, how horribly hard is japanese to learn?

Compared to other foreign languages, it's about as hard as you can get as an English speaker (save Chinese or Arabic). That doesn't mean it will be hard for you, however. There are plenty of people around here who are quite good at Japanese who will tell you it's easy to learn. Even so, it will generally take you about twice as long to learn how to do something in Japanese as it would in an easy language like Spanish or French. Spending three years to develop high-level proficiency is acceptable, but six?

That said, if you spend time in Japan for work, some basic knowledge can go a long way. After a year of study you won't be chatting up any girls in Japanese or making sense of RPGs; hell, you may not even be able to order your own food at McDonalds without pointing at pictures and grunting. But being able to use polite expressions or read the free drink menu at bars is leagues ahead of looking (and feeling) like a dumb mute wherever you go.

 

[keeblerdrow]

I've just completed Japanese 101, taking 102 in the spring.

I don't think it's terribly hard,

Now kanji.... damn.

There is a disconnect between your first and second quote. Just wait till you get to 200 level, then re-evaluate.

 

[Belfast]

Eh, Kanji ain't so tough. Its that god forsaken grammar system that kills me. Its probably because I don't practice speaking it a lot so I don't get used to the contexts in which certain grammar structures would automatically come out, so I end up speaking a real rudimentary version of the language, functional enough to get around I'm sure, but not enough to hold a real conversation.

 

[MetatronM]

Learning basic Japanese isn't terribly difficult. Learn the basic rules of pronunciation and memorize your hiragana and katakana, and you're already a good way there. The basic grammar rules are pretty easy, and I'd say the first 30 or so kanji that you learn are fairly easy to memorize (granted most of them are likely to be numbers, which are relatively simple and recognizable as far as kanji goes).

Getting real depth in the language, though, strikes me as being very difficult, especially because of all the kanji.

When I was over there this summer, I basically acquired a fairly functional degree of Japanese in a span of about 4 weeks. I could communicate relatively basic thoughts, order off most menus in restaurants (except for ones loaded with kanji), and survive getting around even when there were no English signs. So I guess it really depends just how deep into the language you want to get.

 

[Jim Bowie]

There is a disconnect between your first and second quote. Just wait till you get to 200 level, then re-evaluate.

I've been studying kanji independently for a little bit, and it's really very hard. I learned all of the kanji I know seperate of Japanese classes, so I don't think it's a broken statement.

 

[cvxfreak]

This is my personal story here. Well, I haven't taken any official classes yet, but I've read books on how the language works and have read countless webpages on the language over and over again. For me, the key to learning a language is vocabulary more than anything else. I know about 30 or so kanji, (a miniscule amount) which I memorized because I was forced to look up the word at some point or another. I memorized Katakana and Hiragana, and practice them everyday. You wouldn't believe how I practiced them... everyday in the shower I would write Hiragana and Katakana with my finger on the steamed shower door. Funny, but true. As I said, I haven't taken any classes yet, but I think I'm off to a good start and will be set when I take Japanese in college.

So is it hard? Well my first year Spanish teacher always told me that Chinese and related couldn't be hard if a billion people spoke it, and I agree with his wisdom. It just takes some getting used to.

 

[NotMSRP]

Learning any language should not be hard in of itself. Learning a language rests upon mainly memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules, and memorize learning is the lowest form of learning.

Kanji itself is not hard. There's just a lot of them that can intimidate a person. You just need to find an efficient method of absorbing them, such only concentrating on a small collection of them at a time and finding contextual relationships, like pictures.

In any case, the biggest hurdle for most people is the work ethic. Most are unmotivated or too lazy and will say learning something is too hard.

 

[Chittagong]

Some pretty encouraging experiences, I'm glad to hear! As for my background, I'm a native Finnish speaker, I can speak and write English (with the foreign touch, of course) and I speak fluent Swedish.

I studied French for a few years and know the basics and some vocabulary, but I just didn't have anything to motivate me to study the vocabulary over and over. And those goddamn subjunctifs.

Actually where I live - a language niche - it's fairly common to know three or four languages. You have to do three in school at minimum.

But now for Japanese, I actually have really good motivation. Like being able to pick up Famitsu from the news stand by myself. Or finding my way back to the hotel totally drunk in an area without any English signs. Or to play games like Tendo Dokuta, that'll never get translated.

 

[Macam]

Not that bad, honestly. I'm doing it myself at the moment, and I'm about to resume studying where I left off a few years ago in a class environment, but as long as you're motivated, it's fairly straightforward. Like Fennec said, it's pretty much like any other language, but I wouldn't let the kanji or non-Western alphabets paralyze you; I can tell you firsthand that compared to Italian or Spanish, the verb conjugation is a lot less daunting. Quite enjoying it Japanese at the moment.

That said, I didn't fare as well when I visited Japan as some of you who didn't speak the language; it was probably as close to visiting an alternate reality or outer space planet as I'll ever get. But I sure as hell had a grand time.

 

[Manabanana]

Compared to other foreign languages, it's about as hard as you can get as an English speaker.

Don't listen to him. It's not tough, really. The syllables are all very simple, especially to someone with any exposure to Spanish. Korean has been more difficult for me, just because the syllables are so much more complicated. The toughest part of Japanese will either be the kanji or (lack of) pronouns. Sometimes it gets REALLY tough to know what in the hell someone is talking about. Someone will just throw an adjective or verb out there and it's supposedly "in context" but damned if you'll have a CLUE as to what's being referenced.

 

[BugCatcher]

Reread my post, Manabanana. I didn't say whether or not I thought it was tough, I only said that it was tougher to learn than almost all other languages (for native speakers of English). There is a difference.

 

[Baron Aloha]

Over a dozen replies and no one links to this site?....

http://pepper.idge.net/japanese/

I'm surprised.

 

[Kuro Madoushi]

So is it hard? Well my first year Spanish teacher always told me that Chinese and related couldn't be hard if a billion people spoke it, and I agree with his wisdom. It just takes some getting used to.

Dude...it's not like for those billion Chinese it was their second language or something. Most people in China don't speak another language, and it's pretty difficult for them to pick another one up. That said, I do know one girl who speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, English quite fluently...

Your Spanish teacher should try learning it before deciding how difficult it is

Apparently Japanese, Chinese, and then English are the most difficult languages to learn in (in that order)

 

[MetatronM]

Apparently Japanese, Chinese, and then English are the most difficult languages to learn in (in that order)

I don't believe that Japanese can possibly be harder than Chinese. At least Japanese has a phonetic alphabet. To me, that automatically makes it an easier language to learn than Chinese.

 

[BugCatcher]

The most difficult language to learn depends on your native language, so any sort of difficulty ranking has to be framed in those terms to have any meaning. For example, it's much easier for a native speaker of Korean to learn Japanese than English, but much easier for a native speaker of Spanish to learn English than Japanese.

 

[Chittagong]

Well, they say that Finnish is actually the hardest language in the world to learn, although phonetic.

Finnish is so odd that Tolkien used it as a reference for a language in LoTR, and Star Wars games routinely reference to it (Teräskäsi = Iron Hand, Juhani = finnish name of a dude, although apparently a lesbian character in the game).

I guess I'm most worried about learning to read and write. I have no experience whatsoever in learning a new letter system. Well, I learned a couple of cyrillic letters, but obviously the motivation to continue doing that wasn't too high.

 

[cvxfreak]

Your Spanish teacher should try learning it before deciding how difficult it is

You missed the point. It was just his example, because a lot of people believe Chinese is some impossible, alien language, when it really isn't. He could easily apply it to Spanish, or Arabic, or Zulu. Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese/etc) just happens to be victim to the whole "difficulty" stereotype. And you know what, maybe it IS difficult, but that doesn't stop 1 Billion people from speaking it, either.

Simply put, if something were too hard or unnecessarily hard, then no one would do it.

 

[enjoy bell woods]

Linguistically, there is no such thing as a difficult language.

 

[BugCatcher]

I guess I'm most worried about learning to read and write.

Don't worry too much. You should be able to write all kana after the first few weeks of a typical college course. It's a pain when you're learning it, but once you're done you'll wonder what the fuss was all about. You'll always be learning (and relearning) kanji though, but you eventually get used to the burden.

 

[Manabanana]

The most difficult language to learn depends on your native language, so any sort of difficulty ranking has to be framed in those terms to have any meaning. For example, it's much easier for a native speaker of Korean to learn Japanese than English, but much easier for a native speaker of Spanish to learn English than Japanese.

I'm gonna have to disagree there. Concordia Language Villages has allowed me the opportunity to be exposed to dozens of languages every summer. I've worked at both the Spanish and Japanese camps and I've found that natives of BOTH languages said they were really surprised how easy it was to learn the other. Phonetically, Spanish and Japanese are astoundingly similar. That's what I was saying in my post. Japanese is easier than Korean or Chinese because it's so much easier to pronounce than the other two. Japanese has, almost exclusively, it's basic set of syllables with very little deviation from its a-i-u-e-o pronunciation. The most difficult part of learning spoken Japanese for native English-speakers is most likely going to the "r" sound, as they are not used to "flipping" their r's. However, if they have some exposure to Spanish, they're more likely to have exposure to that sound, so it won't be as difficult. So no, Japanese is not very difficult to learn for native English speakers compared to other Asian languages. It's most likely the easiest.

 

[BugCatcher]

That's nice, but nowhere in my post was I comparing the relative difficulty of Asian languages. Certainly you can say Japanese is the easiest if your only criteria is pronounciation, but I know you aren't so naive as to believe that is the only factor to consider. Don't get the wrong impression (again); I'm not saying Japanese is harder or easier than other Asian languages, only that it is among the hardest languages in the world for an English speaker to learn. And to make extra sure there aren't any misunderstandings: again, I'm not saying that Japanese is a hard (or easy!) language. That depends on each person's language ability, among other things. But for the typical English speaker, it is far more time consuming to learn Japanese than other languages more closely related to English.

 

[MrSingh]

I don't believe that Japanese can possibly be harder than Chinese. At least Japanese has a phonetic alphabet. To me, that automatically makes it an easier language to learn than Chinese.

japanese grammar is tougher than chinese, and you have to deal with 3 writing systems plus speaking proper japanese is quite difficult when you consider humble and honorific situations (many japanese people nowadays have problems speaking properly in formal social situations...)

chinese is definitely tough for people who find it hard to differenciate tone though. 4 tones for mandarin, and up to 12 for cantonese. LOL

how would I rate overall difficulty? (IMHO)

japanese > chinese > english

 

[Blackie]

I thought Japanese was a really easy language to learn, outside of the tons of Kanji you will probably never have the time or energy to memorize. I took japanese 1 and 2 and found the language to be an absolute joy to learn. Sentence structure, vocabularly etc was really easy to grasp. Japanese comes highely recommended from me.

I had a lot more trouble learning Spanish and Latin, to be honest.

 

[Chittagong]

So, I've indeed started learning Japanese now. I'm doing a combination of the following:

(1) Language / grammar / culture - 1.5 h per lecture each week
(2) Writing - 1 h lecture per week

+

(3) Rosetta Stone Japanese vol. 1 + 2 package, whenever I have free time

Seems doable. At first I was intimidated by how different the structure is, but now I'm feeling a lot better. It's actually quite simple in terms of grammar.

The Rosetta Stone way works for me better than the studying-through-translation in the lecture, but the lectures are definately good so that I can verify my findings from Rosetta Stone. I've actually learned already some Hiragana though it, too. It feels pretty magical, for the first time I can recognize even some shapes from the back of my import games. It's a long way before I can make any sense out of them, but I'm motivated alright.

Learning to read seems pretty possible, but I still have a hard time believing that my pen will ever output such nice shapes as needed.

 

[speedpop]

Currently I'm learning Mandarin and the key to learning any language and be fluent in it is this; be strict to yourself. Read through a language dictionary countless times and just ensure you memorize all the time.

As far as difficulty, I've always considered the English language to be difficult. Ever tried reading through an English dictionary from front to back and NOT be stumped at some of the words?

 

[CalTopDog]

I've been studying Japanese at school for about a year and a half now, and have been able to pick up various grammar forms and kanji in that environment. But I've found the best way to accelerate your learning is to be in the country, using the language on an everyday basis. I know it's not a viable option for everyone, but unless I was forced to use the language on an everyday basis, it never really stuck in my head. When speaking the language was the difference between eating, and not eating, you tend to pick things up pretty quick. (Not that you'd ever really starve in Japan, there are too many vending machines, but you get my point. ) I spent 4 weeks in Japan this summer doing a language program, and in those 4 weeks, I probably learned more than I did in a years worth of language classes back home. With whatever method you decide to use, ganbatte ne!

 

[DonasaurusRex]

Its not very hard to learn the basics that will get you around town and what not. However its one of the few languages that gets far more foreign the more you know about it. The levels of politeness *which is the best i can describe it* for social situations is what makes a huge difference. Its all about respect, you always respect your boss , so you say something to him with the respectful form of speech, however at the same time you could be disrepecting him if you dont talk to him in the normal form if he say asks you to go out for a drink, because he may see you as a friend and a co worker, when someone praises you, you dont reply with thanks or yeah i know, you reply with a humble reply like yes but i still need more practice or i will try to do even better next time. The two things you really gotta worry about is the intonation when you speak, because words can be different only by the way you say it, and what form of speaking you are using, saying hello to a stranger is diff than your best friend. Unlike english where hello is hello. Writing and reading is easy especially once you get the hang of hiragana, the system for syllables and sounds are ingeniously simple yet complete in japanese very few tricks or exceptions unlike english. The only difficult thing about reading/writing is Kanji, because its memorization and theres tons of them. You will see many of them enough that it will become like second nature after a while though.

 

[Prince]

i was never really good at languages at school but i started studying Japanese as my major in University last year and i can't say it really hard, the really hard part for myself is practising on a daily basis but that has nothing to do with Japanese just me being lazy.

 

[sasimirobot]

Spoken Japanese isnt shit. If you want to call out all the "anime nerds" and other half-assed language learners out in Japanese just hand them a newspaper and ask them to read aloud the headlines. This tends to weed out the shit talkers.


"oh. look at me! I can order susi with my japanese girlfriend"....

 

[bobafett]

I've been studying Japanese at school for about a year and a half now, and have been able to pick up various grammar forms and kanji in that environment. But I've found the best way to accelerate your learning is to be in the country, using the language on an everyday basis. I know it's not a viable option for everyone, but unless I was forced to use the language on an everyday basis, it never really stuck in my head. When speaking the language was the difference between eating, and not eating, you tend to pick things up pretty quick. (Not that you'd ever really starve in Japan, there are too many vending machines, but you get my point. ) I spent 4 weeks in Japan this summer doing a language program, and in those 4 weeks, I probably learned more than I did in a years worth of language classes back home. With whatever method you decide to use, ganbatte ne!

This man speaks the truth. From my experience, I can tell you that one month in another country can do miracles in your learning experience. If you have the chance, study the language structure first and then go to Japan to take an intensive course. It will save you one year in a regular course.

BTW, Chinese is considered to be the most difficult language in the world, not only because of the thousands Kanjis but also because of the grammar rules and the pronnunciation. Even japanese people have trouble learning Chinese, that's what my japanese teacher told me. And she speaks english, portuguese, spanish and japanese. She tried to study chinese but she gave up due to the difficulty. The only way to speak fluent Chinese is going to China and spend 2 years over there.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Since books are very valuable to me here's some recommendations.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...104-8096634-7041556?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...104-8096634-7041556?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

These two have been invaluable to me for grammar purposes. I paid about $40 a piece while I was in Japan.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos...02210/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/249-8077413-7718729

This has been my Kanji learning book of choice. Coupled with a simple dictionary to get the english meaning, I've greatly improved my Kanji skills.