learning japanese help?

Question

i have many questions and wonder if a japanese speaker or japan native can answer
1.is it hard to learn japanese
2.is it worth learning japanese
3.how long would it take
4.is writing/reading or speaking/understanding harder
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I'm asking for i wish to learn and i have for along time. i plan on visting japan oneday and would also. like to show off to my friend because i speak and read and understand and all that stuff. is this a bad reason to learn japanese? I was acutually going to watch and read japanese things without subtitles and whatnot. but then would like to learn the language study the culture and see if they acutually are 8+ yrs. ahead of us Americans technology wise. so can anyone from japan or who knows alot about the language help me?

Answer 1

I don't know why people insist on claiming one language is "harder" than another. They all involve the same thing - memorization of the rules, grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, etc. I am an American that started learning Japanese in 1998 and am now fluent (lived there for a while) and work at a Japanese company. Some languages are easier for some people (of course Spanish would be easier to learn for an English speaker than Japanese), but they all have their own merit.


Here's what I can tell you about the language:

Is it hard? No.... Is it different? Very.

Pronunciation:
Pronunciation is actually the easiest - In English, we have 26 letters, but each letter has more than one pronunciation (as do combinations of letters). In Japanese, all letters are pronounced the same way all the time (except two), thus why the language sounds very "choppy" - there are only about 17 sounds that they actually use.

Vocabulary:
Vocab is actually kind of easy to remember if you learn the written characters....tons of words are combinations....Also, there are a ton of English words in use in Japanese today.

Writing:
This is where people don't realize that we didn't just learn 26 letters, then magically knew how to spell every word in the English language. We had to remember every word we learned - remember spelling tests?
Chinese characters (Kanji) are the same - they are all built out of the same "parts" and you have to memorize them one by one. But just like English, sometimes the spelling makes sense, and sometimes it doesn't....
For example: The character for "forest" is made up of three characters that mean "tree."
The character for "noisy" (one of my favorite Kanji) is three characters that mean "woman."
The character for "profitable" is made up of the characters "to believe" and "person."

Anyway, every language is time consuming....not difficult. If you're willing to put in the time to learn, it definitely is a great experience learning a new language - and Japanese is definitely a great choice.

Answer 2

1. Yes. Because people whose native language is English usually find difficulty in learning Kanji and grammar usage of Japanese which are the fundamental skill of acquiring Japanese.
2. Yes. Because there are not so many foreigners who have a good command of real Japanese.
3. It depends what level of Japanese you want to acquire.
4. Writing is the hardest. writing>reading>speaking>understanding. But sometimes it depends. One of my friends who comes from N.Y. can speak Japanese fluently but he neither reads nor writes in Japanese.

P.S. I myself was educated at school in Japan.

Answer 3

Would you mind hearing from a Canadian who is trying to learn Japanese?

Speaking and listening is fairly easy.

To me it is much more logical then French (no genders) or Latin,
which is more complicated.

They have and use 4 written alphabets so that takes a while.

I find as I learn more about the language, more about the culture makes sense.

It won't take you as long to learn as English did

Answer 4

my answers and opinions...

1. yes, it is hard (for some people, as me, but other people i know think its easier)
2. yes it is worth it, because it'll always be worth it if you want to learn the language, also because you will be able to communicate with other Japanese people
3. i don't know exactly how long it will take...
4. writing/reading is harder (well, for me)

Answer 5

1. It is VERY HARD
2. I think learning Chinese would be more practical, them being the next global superpower and all
3. Years
4. i think writing and reading might be harder

so precise, for instance: my grandma (now deceased) used to travel the world, and she learned to count to ten in Japanese, and her friend (who was Japanese) said "no, you learned to count to ten in *cylindrical objects*"