So how hard is Japanese to learn?

[The Protagonist 332]

Was wondering since I intend to learn Japanese someday(probably in university).I've heard learning the speaking part isn't really hard but writing is another story.

So how hard is it to learn?

[Shard the Gentleman 2,891]

In my opinion, really hard. I mean, three different Alphabets. BUT! Don't let anyone discourage you. If you're dedicated enough, you can do it.

[Dracozombie 4,554]

Usually depends on what your native language is.  Spanish speakers don't have a terrible time with it because their grammatical structure and sounds are similar.  For English speakers?  Better have a flexible mind and plenty of determination.

[Cucco 1,907]

I've tried to learn it before, and i quit because i got bored. I didn't think it was very hard

[Lalalablah 1,538]

Was wondering since I intend to learn Japanese someday(probably in university).I've heard learning the speaking part isn't really hard but writing is another story.So how hard is it to learn?

I would say its all a matter of how you view it. Some people say English is the hardest language to learn others say its Chinese. So, some say learning the Japanese alphabet is somewhat easy. Looking at it from a linguistic standpoint, learning the language seems relatively simple. Speaking it is easy, writing it takes dedication and a lot of practice to learn it. I've heard the sounds come very natural and easy for an English speaker. There are R sound however sounds like the English L Edited July 18, 2013 by Lalalablah

[The Protagonist 332]

Usually depends on what your native language is.  Spanish speakers don't have a terrible time with it because their grammatical structure and sounds are similar.  For English speakers?  Better have a flexible mind and plenty of determination.

Actually,I heard its pretty easier to speak Japanese if your native language is English.

[Taeyeon 1,137]

In my opinion for any language, I don't think they're hard to learn as long as you don't give up and your really into it. The hard part is writing another language down or it could be vice versa for some others.

Edited July 18, 2013 by Neos

[The Protagonist 332]

I would say its all a matter of how you view it. Some people say English is the hardest language to learn others say its Chinese. So, some say learning the Japanese alphabet is somewhat easy. Looking at it from a linguistic standpoint, learning the language seems relatively simple. Speaking it is easy, writing it takes dedication and a lot of practice to learn it. I've heard the sounds come very natural and easy for an English speaker. There are R sound however sounds like the English L

Dude.I just read  that exact same thing about the R sound and the part about it being natural and easy for an English speaker to speak it.Been on the internet have you?

[Lalalablah 1,538]

Dude.I just read that exact same thing about the R sound and the part about it being natural and easy for an English speaker to speak it.Been on the internet have you?

Aahh you caught me

[Xer 670]

Usually depends on what your native language is.  Spanish speakers don't have a terrible time with it because their grammatical structure and sounds are similar.  For English speakers?  Better have a flexible mind and plenty of determination.

What about portuguese?

[Dracozombie 4,554]

What about portuguese?

 

Not familiar with Portuguese so I wouldn't know.

[The Protagonist 332]

What about portuguese?

Well portugese is very similar to spanish and according to Dracozombie it shouldn't be to hard for you.Wait do you mean learning Portuguese?

Edited July 18, 2013 by Keyblade Master101

[Xer 670]

Well portugese is very similar to spanish and according to Dracozombie it shouldn't be to hard for you.Wait do you mean learning Portuguese?

I AM Portuguese. And due to the counts, Spanish is similar to portuguese.

[Caity 3,946]

It's hard.  It's not even like with other languages where they're using your own letters in a different order with a few accents or fa das.  There's new symbols, learning how to read those characters and then being able to pronounce it.  For someone who grew up with English, having to learn of, what basically would be a bunch of pictures (symbols) would be different, I know that it's meant to be a lot easier, if you learn Mandarin/Chinese first, and that's considered the hardest language for a native english person to learn.  

[mosokisa 93]

Well, it of course depends of a person. For me, I think Russian kind of "should be" easier to study than Japanese because the letters are pretty similiar to my language and others I've learned like English and the grammatic is more like English, unlike Japanese which is very different from every language I've ever studied. Still, Japanese wasn't harder actually (when I studied it last year) and I think it's because I was interested in it and had heard it more and felt like I might even need it, while when it comes to Russian I'm not even sure where I could use  it. So I think it depends a lot of motivation.

 

In my opinion kanjis are quite hard, not because they really were hard but because there's so many of them and you need to know many to be able to read something. And it's hard to remember them all when there's many. But on the other hand, learning new symbols you can write is fun : ) And hiraganas and katakanas at least aren't as difficult.

 

It's the same with grammatic, I think, because the rules aren't really that hard as long as you don't compare them to western languages, because they are different. But there's a lot of particles (I quess that's the right word.. O.o) and for me at least it's often hard to remember which one I should use in which situation.

 

So I wouldn't say it's any harder than learning any other language! I myself studied it last year and it was fun and I'm going to study more, though I must admit that I've forgotten a lot of what I learned already : S But that's not because Japanese was especially hard, I'm just not that good with languages in general.

[The Protagonist 332]

I AM Portuguese. And due to the counts, Spanish is similar to portuguese.

Oh then i was correct in assuming you wanting to learn Japanese then.

Well, it of course depends of a person. For me, I think Russian kind of "should be" easier to study than Japanese because the letters are pretty similiar to my language and others I've learned like English and the grammatic is more like English, unlike Japanese which is very different from every language I've ever studied. Still, Japanese wasn't harder actually (when I studied it last year) and I think it's because I was interested in it and had heard it more and felt like I might even need it, while when it comes to Russian I'm not even sure where I could use  it. So I think it depends a lot of motivation.

 

In my opinion kanjis are quite hard, not because they really were hard but because there's so many of them and you need to know many to be able to read something. And it's hard to remember them all when there's many. But on the other hand, learning new symbols you can write is fun : ) And hiraganas and katakanas at least aren't as difficult.

 

It's the same with grammatic, I think, because the rules aren't really that hard as long as you don't compare them to western languages, because they are different. But there's a lot of particles (I quess that's the right word.. O.o) and for me at least it's often hard to remember which one I should use in which situation.

 

So I wouldn't say it's any harder than learning any other language! I myself studied it last year and it was fun and I'm going to study more, though I must admit that I've forgotten a lot of what I learned already : S But that's not because Japanese was especially hard, I'm just not that good with languages in general.

I think the word you were looking for was principles.Btw you wrote quess in brackets .

[SHAZOW 269]

Many of you here want to learn Japanese so you can get Kingdom Hearts early? Lol That's exactly what I would do.

[The Protagonist 332]

Many of you here want to learn Japanese so you can get Kingdom Hearts early? Lol That's exactly what I would do.

Well,I want to learn it cause I wanna visit Japan and experience its culture,that and many benefits it would have to being a Jrpg gamer(you all those awesome games they never localize)Plus my friends would be like "Ways u cou speak japanese,da rel bad!" (and thats how you speak broken English,which is the native language of my country,we talk really fast and its pretty hard to read sometimes,could give you guys more examples if you want.)

[phantomhive 26]

It's not that hard if you have the patience to learn and the determination, take it from a random dude like me I learned a bit of Japanese from a tutor at my school. It's very fun and interesting and as Dracozombie pointed out it's a bit easier if you speak Spanish (I'm from Puerto Rico) as some of the pronunciation and sounds are similar. But it all depends if you have the willingness to learn, hope this helped. ^_^

[tothecikpah 230]

the hardest for me was the writing systems..you need to master 3 of them, when it comes to speaking..it would be easy if you're first language is SOV type (Korean, indian, etc) + if you know chinese characters, it's easy to learn kanji. normally people will learn hiragana first (becasue it is like abc for english) and for me once you learn katakana, you will able to play kingdom hearts in japanese (by guessing) ;D

Edited July 18, 2013 by tothecikpah

[Col.Random 3,683]

Personally i think it depends on who or what book/site your learning from.

[mosokisa 93]

I think the word you were looking for was principles.Btw you wrote quess in brackets .

 

Haha, I'm so good at writing Englihs!  I've noticed I write it "quess" really often

 

But I meant those little words between other words. A bit like "from" and "in" and "under" etc, I think.

[XxCobaltxX 321]

Was wondering since I intend to learn Japanese someday(probably in university).I've heard learning the speaking part isn't really hard but writing is another story.

So how hard is it to learn?

I'm not trying to discourage or anything, but my school friends say it's difficult, but think about how much it'll pay off in the future, you'd be able to perfectly play Japanese imports or watch anime episodes before they're released in English

[Oishii 3,987]

So I wouldn't say it's any harder than learning any other language!

 Probably the best quote here.  People want to make out that some languages are harder implying that there are "easier" languages.  While there will be languages that share the same language family so there will be some transfer between the languages, learning a new language will be difficult anyway. 

Giant blocks of text about Japanesejafesofjasfijdsiojsfjmestuff

One thing to note is that you pick up languages easier the more languages you learn.  There are people who can speak 10+ languages where their first few languages were difficult but they picked up more momentum and learned their later languages faster.  It's like they were lifting weights in the language compartment of their brain so going up a new weight bracket became easier and easier. So if Japanese is your first second language, it is going to be your hardest.  But since you're 13, chances are you will be taking a foreign language class soon.  I highly encourage putting a lot of effort into whatever language you choose because that will make Japanese easier to learn latter.  I took Spanish for four years and I feel like I wouldn't have done so well in Japanese if it weren't for that. Also, the writing system takes time to learn, but I wouldn't connect it so closely to the language.  The most important thing about learning a language is to use it to communicate with others.  That's what language is all about.  If you can be in an environment where you are actively using another language to talk and listen to other people, that's going to be the best way to learn.  That's why people who travel to another country learn faster than in their home country.  But that means studying by yourself without using the language to talk to others will be the most difficult way to learn.  Keep that in mind. And just a general note about some myths brought up here, there are plenty of sounds in Japanese that don't occur in English.  The 'R' is neither an English 'R' or 'L', but a sort of "R" sound produced while flapping the tongue.  The "n" sound (ん) is usually a nasalized vowel (which English doesn't have phonologically), and it's pronunciation changes depending on its context.  Some common dialects of English speakers aspirate consonants like "p", "k", and "t", meaning we add a puff of air while pronouncing it.  Compare saying "top" (aspirated) and "stop" (not aspirated) and you'll see what I mean.  But Japanese doesn't do this so one of the things you learn to do to lower your English accent is to stop aspirating those sounds, which isn't easy.  Once more, most dialects of Japanese are pitch dialects. There is a high pitch and a low pitch and can distinguish different words.  As an example, saying "kaki" (H-L) means fence, "kaki" (L-H) means oyster, and "kaki" (L-L) means persimmon.  (And where I'll be living there is an extra system of pitch in the dialect I know nothing about, so that'll be fun )

 

DOESN'T SEEMS SO EASY TO PRONOUNCE, DOES IT?! 

 

But all languages have their own unique sounds that we have to adopt to, like the "th" sound in English is very difficult for foreigners to learn.  But we all manage to learn other languages anyway, so don't sweat the details.  I just get frustrated when people over simplify things.  

 

Personally, I would say please learn a language for the right reasons.  Do it because you love the people and culture and want to communicate with them, for that's what a language is for.  Don't do it because you want to understand a video game that didn't release internationally or to watch anime in Japanese.  It's a perk, but that's not what speaking a language is for.

 

[Lalalablah 1,538]

I tried learning Japanese once. Back when I was 11 and a total loser lol I had a paper on my wall with Sora, Riku, Axel, Roxas: Kingdom Hearts written in Japanese. Which now that I think about it was probably completely wrong haha!

If I have time next year I'll take a class at the college and learn it correctly.