Is Japanese a difficult language?

YES~!!!!..I'm going to sign up for a Japanese course soon..the first lesson has already begun but I guess I will catch up..so excited!!..I'm going to learn Japanese soon!!... :love_eyes:

i must say this..
japanese is relly really really really100x hard to learn...

must learn how to pronounce it..
different sound will bring u different meaning...

still learn to read right now....! :sweat:

xiaoshenlong wrote:i don't think it's that hard to learn
personally because i am chinese already, so the kanji is pretty much learning the same words, but different pronouciation
and hirigana and katakana are easy to learn

lucky u!!

TELL ME ABOUT IT!!!!!!!!!! :bonk: i'm learning chinese right now and that's nothing like my native english and tagalog. the difficulty level in japanese should be the same--ah, by the way, does anyone know how many tones the japanese language has?

It depends on how fluent you want to be. The nice thing about the Japanese language is that people whose first language is English will have no trouble making all the sounds (Ah, Ka, Sa, etc).

And it's easy to learn a bunch of nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

The hard part, for me at least, is putting things in a sentence with the little connecting words like "wa", "ga", "wo", "ni", "no", "o", etc. The other hard part is the sentence structure itself. For us mathematicians and engineers, there's an easy out by employing RPN, "Kono ona wa sushi o tabemasu." RPN ne? Subject, object, verb. But it's a double edged sword since not all sentences can be built like that. :beaten:

If you really want to be fluent, you have to "think" Japanese. People (American friends) have described it as a physical thing. It's like, "BAM" a physical change and they are now thinking in Japanese (not just mentally translating what they want to say from English to Japanese). :beaten: :beaten: :beaten:

Hanzo21 wrote:

The hard part, for me at least, is putting things in a sentence with the little connecting words like "wa", "ga", "wo", "ni", "no", "o", etc.

So desu ne! Particles drive me nuts :nut: Do I say "wa" or "ga" and "ni" has about 50 different ways it can be used![/list:u]

gaijin mark wrote: So desu ne! Particles drive me nuts :nut: Do I say "wa" or "ga" and "ni" has about 50 different ways it can be used![/list:u]

you forgot "wo" and "de"

gaijin mark wrote: So desu ne! Particles drive me nuts :nut: Do I say "wa" or "ga" and "ni" has about 50 different ways it can be used![/list:u]

Absolutely. Every time I think I have the particles sorted, the CD course i'm using intruduces a new rule or exception...... :bonk:

"Easier than you thought, harder than you would like"

You have to be really into it and not doing it half heartedly. It depends on a great number of things, I suppose

i guess ALL foreign languages are considered "the hardest", depending on the working knowledge of the person who is learning it. If you are not used to it, it alswys IS the hardest.

niko2x wrote:i guess ALL foreign languages are considered "the hardest", depending on the working knowledge of the person who is learning it. If you are not used to it, it alswys IS the hardest.

true but if you know english or spanish let's say and it has a basis in latin along with other romance languages such as french....it can be easier than having to learn japanese or arabic, let's say....because they employ different linguistics.

Tu_triky wrote:...it can be easier than having to learn japanese or arabic, let's say....because they employ different linguistics.

totally different. but i guess if one were to ask a japanese is arabic harder than english to learn, chances are the jpn will reply arabic is harder because, the world has grown used to the english language with all the sad-a$$ media that we are supplying the world... (sorry to get off tangeant...) :mrgreen:

niko2x wrote:totally different. but i guess if one were to ask a japanese is arabic harder than english to learn, chances are the jpn will reply arabic is harder because, the world has grown used to the english language with all the sad-a$$ media that we are supplying the world... (sorry to get off tangeant...) :mrgreen:

well said.

i agree with you....it's all a matter of one's perspective and frame of reference.

gaijin mark wrote: So desu ne! Particles drive me nuts :nut: Do I say "wa" or "ga" and "ni" has about 50 different ways it can be used![/list:u]

As already mentioned, the key to learning Japanese is learning how to "think in Japanese". Not just thinking in Japanese words, but the thought process used to form thoughts is very different than what native English speakers are used to. Once you learn this skill, things like particles just start making sense. They only seem to have such a wide variety of uses and rules, because such explanations are made in English. More often than not, each particle has one general, and very Japanese-ish meaning. However, trying to translate that particle to a single English word is next to impossible. This site illuminates many of the particles that people have trouble with: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/index.html. It is, hands down, the best site I know of for learning these grammar tools.

EDIT: To answer the question, I think Japanese has its easy and difficult points. The sheer number of kanji and the different style of thinking make Japanese difficult, but the regularity of rules and simplicity of the sounds make it easy. The level of difficulty varies from person to person depending on what kind of learner you are. But I personally feel English to be more difficult than Japanese (even though it's hard to be objective in such a statement :D)

Hanzo21 wrote:It depends on how fluent you want to be. The nice thing about the Japanese language is that people whose first language is English will have no trouble making all the sounds (Ah, Ka, Sa, etc).

And it's easy to learn a bunch of nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

The hard part, for me at least, is putting things in a sentence with the little connecting words like "wa", "ga", "wo", "ni", "no", "o", etc. The other hard part is the sentence structure itself. For us mathematicians and engineers, there's an easy out by employing RPN, "Kono ona wa sushi o tabemasu." RPN ne? Subject, object, verb. But it's a double edged sword since not all sentences can be built like that. :beaten:

If you really want to be fluent, you have to "think" Japanese. People (American friends) have described it as a physical thing. It's like, "BAM" a physical change and they are now thinking in Japanese (not just mentally translating what they want to say from English to Japanese). :beaten: :beaten: :beaten:

i agree man, i'vwe been teaching myself for six months now and the wa, ga, o, ni etc are the trouble i have. more so than the words. i think i've got the sentence order pretty ok, an odd one might throw me, but its those little words that get me.
to be honest though, people here say about how japanese words have different meanins etc but its really no different from english.
of course english is probably easy to learn as its so readily avaliable, but when you think of how many english words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings it must be annoying

Tu_triky wrote:

true but if you know english or spanish let's say and it has a basis in latin along with other romance languages such as french....it can be easier than having to learn japanese or arabic, let's say....because they employ different linguistics.

HAHA you're kidding me right? lol
i find french more difficult haha, i so cannt get to grips with french like i can japanese.
but then i think thats more due to dedication. i'm dedicated to learning japanese, and when i'm not going over kung fu moves i walk around th streets talking japanese to myself (getting odd stares too "kids stay away from him, he's that weird guy who speaks in the devils tongue") and going on japanese websites and seeing all the kanji, hiragana and katakana i can remember.
where as french i was more like "well french was an important language 300 years ago but its not anymore so why bother....." haha

nubs_cooper67 wrote:


HAHA you're kidding me right? lol
i find french more difficult haha, i so cannt get to grips with french like i can japanese.

dedication aside, French more difficult than Japanese..heeeeeelllz no. if you have a strong command of English or any other romance language you could figure out a significant degree of vocabulary just due to the fact that it sounds similar...you can't do that with any native Japanese vocabulary...moreover you have to learn 3 systems of writing as opposed to a measily 26 letters of the alphabet.

i took french and japanese at different points in time.....

i have no particular love for french but it is still second to english as the langauge of diplomacy and commerce.

For me, Japanese is a little difficult but I'm having fun. It was easier for me to learn inside a classroom structure than just studying it on my own. We're starting kanji (oh joy) and already I'm having issues with the first two we learned. Hiragana was a piece of cake, though. I had a few issues with katakana also, mainly trying to figure out what in the heck it's saying.

I found it's easier if you keep on practicing.

MissMonika wrote:For me, Japanese is a little difficult but I'm having fun. It was easier for me to learn inside a classroom structure than just studying it on my own. We're starting kanji (oh joy) and already I'm having issues with the first two we learned. Hiragana was a piece of cake, though. I had a few issues with katakana also, mainly trying to figure out what in the heck it's saying.

I found it's easier if you keep on practicing.

Japanese is difficult especially in the beginning because the learning curve is so steep...you have nothing to compare it to in terms of your experience with English, as a lifelong student....obviously as nubs mentioned when you do have a fervent interest in it...it makes the task less tedious.....

i found a really cool website that you can use to test yourself on hiragana, katakana and kanji to keep up your knowledge of characters...it's a great way to reinforce what you learn in the classroom! check it out!

http://www.manythings.org/japanese/

yayyy im in my first term of japanese lol and its so much fun!!! most of the days english isnt allowed, so we really have learned alot (tho really not *that* much.. i mean i still try and watch some shows and have no idea whats going on... but then on the up side, i notice so many things in the doramas that we've learned!! hahaha)... :D and of course, the begining stuff is great 'cause of course i had to pick up SOME stuff from watching that many doramas.. right..... :P

i liked hiragana. but now adding in all the katakana in a week has made it difficult, two days ago i couldnt remember how to write mi for the life of me. bt then i remembered the next morning haha. xD katakana is fun but it takes me like 26302983x longer to read it than hiragana. gah i need to practice more. the best is... hahaha im a loser :sweat: and i printed out song lyrics in romanji and write them out in hiragana in class when im tryin to stay awake.. it made me writing hiragana so much faster :P wheeee!!!!

and YAY we start kanji tomorrow!!
(im a loser.. i barely know any chinese characters as it is, but when im reading lyrics on tv shows, for the few that i DO know, i can recognize the kanji and translate it over to japanese faster than i can read the hiragana... :crazy: so im excited)

ooh ill hafta check out that site, triky XD thaaaankees.