I firmly believe that Japanese is very easy to learn to speak and understand compared to many languages, yet it is also likely the most difficult language to learn to read and write well.
The grammar is easy for any brain, western or otherwise, to wrap their head around so long as they are good at pattern recognition; compared to something like English, Japanese is incredibly consistent. Anyone who did well at math in school should be able to easily comprehend Japanese grammar. Yeah, they have a couple more conjugations for verbs based on respect/politeness, but the rules have few exceptions, so it isn't too difficult.
Vocabulary, while lacking Greek and Latin roots that simplify transferring word knowledge from one western language to another, is also very limited for non-academic Japanese. There simply aren't many synonyms in conversational (and anime) Japanese, context is typically in how the limited set of vocabulary is spoken. For instance, there really is only one word used for "big," "ooki." How many synonyms for big are there in common, everyday English? Likely over a dozen.
The written side is a bear, and I just have come to accept that, unless I move to Japan, I will never be motivated to learn to read and write Kanji past a basic level. Even in very common usage there just are too many characters, and it is often a 50/50 guess at pronunciation of Kanji.
Summary: learning any language is difficult, but for speaking and understanding Japanese, I believe it is one of the easier ones. Isolation has kept their grammar and vocabulary more fundamentally sound and simple compared to most other languages. Unfortunately, the reading and writing is incredibly difficult.
I agree with the grammar part. I still am not perfect but getting there. I just love how some stuff is easily understood that way but kanji is just a monster. I wish there was some trick to it. I know maybe 50 kanji and that is barely scratching the surface, I would probably never be able to write those by hand mind you, probably only by computer.
Kanji isn’t magic. There are 2000 or so commonly used characters, and kanji are the word markers in Japanese sentences instead of spaces, except where some adverbs, adjectives, and particles are used. Foreign loan words are common and written phonetically in katakana, so you know most of those already. Just say “drink” or “cola” or “internet” with what you believe to be an extreme Japanese accent. That’s actually just how they say the word.
You can find the best materials on the high seas or even for free, and learning a language gives you something to do to keep your brain active.
I firmly believe that Japanese is very easy to learn to speak and understand compared to many languages, yet it is also likely the most difficult language to learn to read and write well.
The grammar is easy for any brain, western or otherwise, to wrap their head around so long as they are good at pattern recognition; compared to something like English, Japanese is incredibly consistent. Anyone who did well at math in school should be able to easily comprehend Japanese grammar. Yeah, they have a couple more conjugations for verbs based on respect/politeness, but the rules have few exceptions, so it isn't too difficult.
Vocabulary, while lacking Greek and Latin roots that simplify transferring word knowledge from one western language to another, is also very limited for non-academic Japanese. There simply aren't many synonyms in conversational (and anime) Japanese, context is typically in how the limited set of vocabulary is spoken. For instance, there really is only one word used for "big," "ooki." How many synonyms for big are there in common, everyday English? Likely over a dozen.
The written side is a bear, and I just have come to accept that, unless I move to Japan, I will never be motivated to learn to read and write Kanji past a basic level. Even in very common usage there just are too many characters, and it is often a 50/50 guess at pronunciation of Kanji.
Summary: learning any language is difficult, but for speaking and understanding Japanese, I believe it is one of the easier ones. Isolation has kept their grammar and vocabulary more fundamentally sound and simple compared to most other languages. Unfortunately, the reading and writing is incredibly difficult.
I agree with the grammar part. I still am not perfect but getting there. I just love how some stuff is easily understood that way but kanji is just a monster. I wish there was some trick to it. I know maybe 50 kanji and that is barely scratching the surface, I would probably never be able to write those by hand mind you, probably only by computer.
Thanks. I’ll definitely keep all this in mind
Kanji isn’t magic. There are 2000 or so commonly used characters, and kanji are the word markers in Japanese sentences instead of spaces, except where some adverbs, adjectives, and particles are used. Foreign loan words are common and written phonetically in katakana, so you know most of those already. Just say “drink” or “cola” or “internet” with what you believe to be an extreme Japanese accent. That’s actually just how they say the word.
You can find the best materials on the high seas or even for free, and learning a language gives you something to do to keep your brain active.