Thread: How hard is it to learn Japanese

I'd say it's pretty hard. Memorizing all the different Kanji's and how to say them is much harder than learning a normal school language. Mainly because of writing kanji. There's so many ways to do it that you could make a mistake just by having a tiny extra line. It's really complex stuff. Reading it is almost equally as hard I'd assume.

Good make it challiging and intersting just hope I do it right

Well right now I am learning to speak Japanese, and that has it's tough times,
but I bet the writing has got to be even harder to understand.
but it gives you a sense of humiliation towards the asian speaking world.

Japanese is a moderately difficult language to learn to speak fluently.
It is a very difficult language to learn to read and write properly.
It is a very difficult language to master.

But there's hope. You already know English, a language that is, grammatically and phonetically more difficult than Japanese.

Things to consider when anyone tells you that Japanese is "easy" or that they've "mastered it":
-Japanese is currently one of the most popular languages to learn (especially independantly).
-Most people who begin learning Japanese give up before they can read a book intended for Japanese 8 year-olds.
-More than half of those who do give up will brag that they are fluent on the internet.

To have any hope of becoming functional in Japanese, you must devote a great deal of time to memorization, reading, drills, speaking, pronunciation, etc. It's not something you can learn by listening to tapes in your car on the way to work. A few phrases: maybe. Enough to communicate: good freaking luck.

If you seriously want to learn Japanese, you will need to resign yourself to the sad reality that you will have to master material spanning several textbooks, more that isn't included in any, memorize 2 phonetic alphabets, learn to read and write 2,000 kanji, force yourself to read and listen to things over your head constantly (with a goal of understanding), and likely need to live abroad for a number of years.

Anyone claiming they're "studying Japanese" by watching anime and looking up words in their romaji dictionaries is full of it ^^;

I have studied Japanese for 7 years and I am just now tackling "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in Japanese. I'm on page 146... it has taken me 3 months to get that far.

Ya i know that you can't learn from just listing to music or watching anime but i still think its important so that you can formilize your self so it won't sound so forerien. But I got no problem investing time into learning JP.
P.S. Sorry about the spelling.

i agree that it is pry that hard. i've taken about three and a half years worth of classes in french and if you don't speak, read, or write it constantly it just falls out of your head.

i like japanese and i think it sounds so much more beautiful than french and am going to try to start learning it. i've got the full gamut of textbooks, dictionaries, scriptwriting, etc. so i'm going to go through those and try to start a study regimen. it's on my own and not through school so it's hard to find time but i would love so much to say one day (pry long down the road) that i'm fluent in another language.

Originally Posted by tsurara

But there's hope. You already know English, a language that is, grammatically and phonetically more difficult than Japanese.

What a nice way to give them hope Tsurara.
Not to discourage you Redragon495, but English is an incredibly easy language to learn. Especially compared to Japanese.

If you're really serious about learning it, I suggest going to university and learning Japanese there. It really is the best way to go about it without moving to Japan and attending school over there.

In about 3 years (Bachelor) or 4 years (Master) you'll have a very high level of Japanese AND you'll know a lot about Japan as well. On top of that, many universities have scholarships for able students which they can use to study in Japan for 1 year.

Self study options are plentiful but if you're really serious about it, university is the way to go. This way, your level of Japanese in all its aspects will even be above some native speakers.


Good luck.