Japanese, just like any other foreign language, has its easy and difficult aspects. I'm sure you will all agree with me when I say that one of the most difficult parts of Japanese would be Kanji

German uses gender of nouns, and verb conjugations depend on gender, and so on. Japanese has no such thing. In that regard, Japanese is easier than German.

The thing with studying Nihongo is that you really have to have a genuine interest in it. As chiba said, you should try and make learning fun for you. If you like anime, go on and watch all the anime you want until you are good enough to watch without subs. Just remember to keep on practicing, and always take your Nihongo to the next level.

It's Not Hard AT ALL.

it's subjective, for some it could be a breeze and they quickly grasp the subtleties of the language and gain fluency relatively quickly, for some it may be hard to get their head around the slightly different word orders and the usage of many words like wa ni ka and so forth. it also depends on how much you study, if you only study like say...an hour a week it might be somewhat difficult to learn wheras if ur studying like an hour or 2 a day, it could be significantly easier for you to learn

so it just depends

Lifo wrote:

It's Not Hard AT ALL.

I would love to have a conversation with you (in Japanese).
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True, any language has its easy and tear-jerking aspects. I'm Filipino, so speaking it is as easy as hell, and was taught English at an early age so I can also handle the language effortlessly. The best time to learn another language is when you're still young and your mind's still a sponge (take note of that--when you have kids, teach them Japanese so they can translate stuff for you!)

When I was in high school, I studied Spanish (not that it was mandatory; I just thought it cool to study another language), and it was quite easy because of its proximity to English and since the Philippines inherited a lot of Spanish culture in the past. So I'm happy when I find dirt-cheap Spanish books at stores. Not that I'm totally fluent, but I can understand most of it.

Then in college I tried Japanese. While I got the grip on Spanish in two years, I still haven't completely mastered the basics of Japanese after all these years. The structure is easy, but the vocabulary is what daunts me up to this day. What words to use and what exactly is its meaning... there are so many contextual nuances in Japanese, which has no equal in either English, Spanish or even Filipino (and I'm pretty sure if the world tries to learn Filipino, they'll find it just as hard as Japanese). While I can get along with a Spanish movie quite well (but they sure speak damn fast), I can only catch a few words when watching a Japanese show.

My best suggestion for those of you who can afford: nothing beats a good teacher. I study on my own, so i do not have the bonus of talking to a native speaker who can also teach well. And exposure to the language is something you should really make time for.

I started learning a while ago, maybe 2-3 years ago and I still am not completely fluent or comfortable with my Japanese. However, its a work in progress and the more you continue to be surrounded by it, the easier it will get for you.

As for Kanji, I'm staying away from it entirely for now.

I lstudy japan language with book.First time i don't understand but now i can speak Japan but not very well.From now i will not give up to learn japan language.Akirametakunai.Ganbate kudasai Minna.Inamoto kara.

inamoto_yoi wrote:

I lstudy japan language with book.First time i don't understand but now i can speak Japan but not very well.From now i will not give up to learn japan language.Akirametakunai.Ganbate kudasai Minna.Inamoto kara.

You re a terrorist...Nobody is interested in postimg with you...kindly find another venue....
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The Cutest Girl in the World!

I guess it's really difficult. It gets more so when you study more about it
But i heard somewhere that the most difficult language is Persian, or something...Arabic maybe?

Anyway, kanji is difficult, but I'm sure there're many kanji maniacs out there who find kanji interesting and stimulating instead of boring
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runpup wrote:

You re a terrorist...Nobody is interested in postimg with you...kindly find another venue....

That was absolutely unnecessary. Please refrain from personal attacks and accusations that are unsubstantiated or you can go and find another venue.
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"I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy."
-Bern Williams

kokuou wrote:

That was absolutely unnecessary. Please refrain from personal attacks and accusations that are unsubstantiated or you can go and find another venue.

In runpup's defense, I remember that person making offensive posts, but it looks like they were deleted. And this warning was about 1 year too late.
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Japanese drama trades (on hiatus)

Currently watching: Netflix stuff

sadacori wrote:

In runpup's defense, I remember that person making offensive posts, but it looks like they were deleted.

Yup.

That person was making some rather ignorant and racist remarks.

sadacori wrote:

In runpup's defense, I remember that person making offensive posts, but it looks like they were deleted. And this warning was about 1 year too late.

Oops

I think that came after a long bout of late-night translation work, so all I saw was Oct. 23. I've since apologized to runpup privately, so take this as one of my blunders. o_O
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"I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy."
-Bern Williams

Hi, I am a little bit interested about learned Japanese. I heard there are some of Japanese kanjis that are very similar to Chinese kanjis. I really wanted to know because I once learned Chinese too. Does it (learned Chinese before) will help? for example I founded out that the word "ai" = love in Chinese has a very similar kanji with the in Japanese one.

kinda

yohanm wrote:

Hi, I am a little bit interested about learned Japanese. I heard there are some of Japanese kanjis that are very similar to Chinese kanjis. I really wanted to know because I once learned Chinese too. Does it (learned Chinese before) will help? for example I founded out that the word "ai" = love in Chinese has a very similar kanji with the in Japanese one.

The usefulness of Chinese in terms of learning Japanese is similar to the usefulness of knowing English for learning French in terms of etymologies. English and French originally came from the same language (Proto-Indo European), whereas Chinese and Japanese are not genetically related at all. They have had enough influence on each other, though, that it is useful to know one when learning the other. They're not so useful, however, that I would go out of my way to learn one just to help with learning the other.

Long story short: If you already know Chinese, great, but don't go out of your way to learn it.
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"I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy."
-Bern Williams

learning a second language functions on a lot of different things. For one thing, each individual has different skills. I know a guy who picks up languages like you wouldn't believe (i'm incredibly jealous). For another thing, your mother tongue definately makes a difference. At my school in Japan, us few whities were so jealous of the chinese and the koreans. According to my korean friends, Korean grammar is really similar to japanese grammar, making it easy for them to pick up sentence structure and the like. On the other hand, my chinese friends never had to study for kanji quizes, which are probably the hardest part of learning japanese.
And of course, your teachers, method of study, and location are also really important!! You may be able to pick some things up from watching dramas, or you might have straight a's in your class in america, but unless you go to Japan and >fully< immerse yourself in the language, you won't be fluent.

There are many hard parts about japanese, namely kanji and honorable/humble language. Kanji is all about memorizing those essential 2000 symbols that are easy to forget how to write if you don't practice on a daily basis! not to mention each one has several meanings, pronunciations, and there are several kanji that mean the same thing and are pronounced the same way but are different symbols. As for honorific and humble... for me its difficult to remember when to use these types of language, plus you've got to remember the irregular verbs and whatnot. Anyway, I spent around 10 months in Japan where i was at an international school, which meant an excellent and incredibly fun and wonderful experience, but also being surrounding in english just as much, or perhaps more than, japanese. because of this my spoken japanese did not improve greatly (also factor in the fact that i'm dead shy and totally choke). All in all, what this teaches us is that if you're serious about learning japanese, you've got to study really hard, and you've got to spend a lot of time in japan. My teacher told me that serious students should spend at least 3 years in Japan to become fluent. Depending on who you are, it could be different, but hell, I'm going back.

I'm learning Japanese at University, I haven't found it too bad considering but I have put a lot of hard work in, we are supposed to put in about 3 hours of self study a night and we have 2/3 hours of Japanese a day.
It's pretty helpful the way they do it because 3 days a week we will have grammar from an English teacher who speaks Japanese and she will tell us about sentence patterns and stuff we are learning this week, then in then later on we will go to oral grammar practice where we have a Japanese lesson and we have to speak out what we've learned and answer questions from a text book.
Sometimes it's quite difficult but it's very helpful.

I think it depends on a couple of things really how it's taught and how easy you find languages.
I've not found this course too bad but I've had a couple of friends who have really struggled and yet a couple of friends who have done amazing.
When I tried to self teach it I didn't get very far but this way of teaching has definitely helped me a lot... oh and it's easy to forget so until it's second nature yeah have to keep practicing ^^; I didn't do any over Christmas so I have a long week of studying ahead before my first lesson of the new term on the 26th ><
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^ Hey Scrapped, nice to see you.

I think you hit the nail on the head there: It's probably a lot easier if you can get proper instruction such as a university or college course rather than trying to teach yourself Having someone to practice with would also be a huge benefit!

I've been taking Japanese courses for 2 years and I also think that learning at a university / institute is more advantageous -and easier. Because, they follow certain books which are published to teach Japanese to foreign learners.
To give an example, anyone can learn Kanji from the internet. There are lots of good sources which provide user with animated gifs so you will get no bad habits drawing them.
But, memorizing them massively will simply take enormous time, on the other hand a course book slowly and repetitively -systematically- introduce those kanji. Same goes with grammar, vocabulary etc.
In other words, imo, one can learn Japanese from home but it simply will take some more time.
Maybe most of you already know those but still can be helpful to the ones who cant decide to study themselves .