Comments on: Why People Say Japanese Is Hard To Learn And Why They’re Wrong

By: atheist

atheist — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 17:28:00 +0000

I learned decent Japanese in one year. I live here now in Japan where I work full time. I don’t find the language that difficult to learn. I learned Russian in the Army and it was quite difficult. I think that language was harder to learn than Japanese. Some languages are easier to learn with a “clean slate”.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 05:52:00 +0000

Hello there. I’m a 32 yo high school teacher.
When you first start learning japanese it’s just a NIGHTMARE…then it gets progressively easier. The opposite happens with spanish. At first you might think it’s a breeze (like learning english, for instance), then it becomes HELLISH. I speak portuguese, spanish, english and japanese…and I dare say english is BY FAR the easiest language of the bunch, then japanese. Spanish is freaking HARD….and I’m really proficient at it.
I’ve copied the chart for the verb “hacer”…one of the most common verbs and NOT the hardest. Have a blast learning spanish.

PresentPreteritImperfectConditionalFutureyohagohicehacíaharíaharétúhaceshicistehacíasharíasharásél/ella/Ud.hacehizohacíaharíaharánosotroshacemoshicimoshacíamosharíamosharemosvosotroshacéishicisteishacíaisharíaisharéisellos/ellas/Uds.hacenhicieronhacíanharíanharán
SubjunctivePresentImperfectImperfect 2Futureyohagahicierahiciesehicieretúhagashicierashicieseshicieresél/ella/Ud.hagahicierahiciesehicierenosotroshagamoshiciéramoshiciésemoshiciéremosvosotroshagáishicieraishicieseishiciereisellos/ellas/Uds.haganhicieranhiciesenhicieren
ImperativeImperativeyo-túhazél/ella/Ud.haganosotroshagamosvosotroshacedellos/ellas/Uds.hagan
PerfectPresentPreteritPastyohe hechohube hechohabía hechotúhas hechohubiste hechohabías hechoél/ella/Ud.ha hechohubo hechohabía hechonosotroshemos hechohubimos hechohabíamos hechovosotroshabéis hechohubisteis hechohabíais hechoellos/ellas/Uds.han hechohubieron hechohabían hechoConditionalFutureyohabría hechohabré hechotúhabrías hechohabrás hechoél/ella/Ud.habría hechohabrá hechonosotroshabríamos hechohabremos hechovosotroshabríais hechohabréis hechoellos/ellas/Uds.habrían hechohabrán hecho
Perfect SubjunctivePresentPastFutureyohaya hechohubiera hechohubiere hechotúhayas hechohubieras hechohubieres hechoél/ella/Ud.haya hechohubiera hechohubiere hechonosotroshayamos hechohubiéramos hechohubiéremos hechovosotroshayáis hechohubierais hechohubiereis hechoellos/ellas/Uds.hayan hechohubieran hechohubieren hecho

By: Saikou

Saikou — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 12:24:00 +0000

Where to begin… Firstly I’m confused by the sentence “The west got rid of characters thousands of years ago” because I wasn’t aware of western cultures using ideological characters, as most of our written language stems from Greek and Latin, both of which used alphabets. Unless you’re referring to Egyptian hieroglyphics, but they weren’t abolished, so much as was lost and found again. Also, south korea did not abandon Chinese characters, they use hangul along with chinese characters in many of their written communications including newspapers, novels, and text books.

As for the characters themselves, I’m not entirely sure how you’re counting them, “2000 minimum” I assume refers to the jouyou kanji, the required number of kanji to be taught by high school level, but when you say “thousands of permutations” that’s just inaccurate. Perhaps you’re referring to the various onyomi and kunyomi that characters posses, but if that’s the case, calling them “thousands” of permutations is very much an exaggeration. Yes it requires memorisation but it’s not as difficult as you are making it out to be, in fact, kanji are rather logical once you get past the initial barrier of how unfamiliar it is.

Now, let’s talk about the advantages. Once you have a couple kanji under your belt, the language really opens up to you, you can understand roughly what things are trying to tell you even without knowing the word. Example: Lets say you know 大 means “big” and 人 means “person”, now you come across the word 大人. You’ve never seen this word before, but you know it probably means “big person” and it does, the word is otona 「おとな」 and it means “adult”. Also, if you know the onyomi of a word, for the majority of situations you’ll also know how to pronounce new words. Say you know the onyomi of 学 is “gaku” (meaning study), and the on yomi of 大 is “dai” (meaning big). If you see the word 大学, then you can guess it means “daigaku” and you’d be right. This is also a good example of how kanji can be used to remember vocabulary. 大学 means university. You know Dai for big, and Gaku for study, so you now know that “big study” is university. This makes learning new words so much easier.

One final thing, you might argue that 大人 is an example which breaks this, because its not the respective characters onyomi, which would be “daijin”. However, just like any language, there are exceptions, and the exceptions are usually in the more common words. This is true for English, and I believe it’s actually more the case for English than Japanese. Take the following examples:

Eat, Feet, Receipt,

bread, bead,

only, one, on, own, bone,

I read today, I read last night
Wind your watch, feel the wind
Close the door, Stay close to me

With words like this, it’s a wonder any of us can speak this language, let alone explain it.

By: no

no — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 00:50:00 +0000

I think FSI is flawed. For instance, look at the high ranking of English. Anyone familiar with ESL knows English is quite easy–at a basic conversational level. I assume the relatively high ranking of English, other than anti-Westernism, is a product of how hard it is to speak at a fluent graduate level. Even today, I still struggle with different grammar and syntax; however, while speaking English conversationally takes about 2 years of hard of study, Japanese could be years.

By: no

no — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 00:47:00 +0000

This is ridiculas. Japanese is the most difficult language, with Chinese vying for that title. Kanji easy? try memorizing 2000 (minimum) unique complex characters (kanji is not an alphabet) with tens of thousands of permutations. There is a reason the West got rid of characters thousands of years ago. Even Japanese students are learning new kanji in high school.
Japanese is a feudal language. The complexity of hierarchial point-of-view language is mammoth. I have studied for a few years and still don’t understand the difficulty involved, much less have conversational ability. What is the purpose of this article????

By: ~~~

~~~ — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 22:59:00 +0000

For me, Japanese is pretty easy, even though I’m nowhere near fluency. I think one major thing that made it easier for me was the fact that I didn’t have to re-learn kanji, because I’m Chinese and that aspect of Japanese wasn’t intimidating. I think the only thing for me is the grammar, and the particles, which I can never seem to get right. Also, listening comprehension is a huge issue for me…does anyone have any good suggestions? music? dramas? I took the N4 recently though, and so I think I have a very weak grasp of Japanese.