Hi, I am planning to learn Japanese and I hoped that some of you could give me some information about this language before I start. What do you think are the hardest aspects (aside from the characters) and the easiest? I really don't know anything about it so any information would be appreciated. Also how long do you think it would take to get a reasonable knowledge, enough to carry out an everyday conversation for example if I went to visit Japan?
Thank you
These are good questions. I have one other to add.
I know that Japanese uses three different alphabets (Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana). Are these alphabets interchangeable, or are they each used in specific situations.
I took a conversational Japanese class about 10 years ago, it was the toughest thing I have every done.
Many foreigners who go to Japan to teach English learn Japanese quite easily. For a European language speaker the difficulties are
1) Chinese characters (Kanji)
The hiragana and katakana are not that difficult to learn. They are not alphabets since each symbol represents a syllable. They are also parallel in the sense that there is a hiragana and katakana symbol for each syllable. All three writing symbols are used at the same time, Chinese characters for Chinese origin words, hiragana for most Japanese native words and katakana for recent foreign loan words or words representing a sound like "bang" etc.
2) The vocabulary is all foreign, not related to any language you know (except for a few loan words that usually have changed quite a bit)
3) Japanese has few sounds so that many words seem the same at first. "wakarimasu " = understand and "kawarimasu" = change etc.
4) There are certain types of language structure, often related to politeness that do not exist in European languages. It takes a lot of exposure to get used to them.
The grammar is easy with a little more structure than Chinese. The pronunciation is easy, with clear basic consistent vowels. As with all new languages, what seems difficult at first is gradually overcome with enough practice.
If you are studying on you your own away from Japan and willing to put in 1-2 hours a day of listening and reading it will take 6 months to be able to say something and 3 years to be able to speak intelligently, roughly.
The course I took was for tourists and I don't think I learned anything that I was able to use during my trip. The few phrases I could manage resulted in a Japanese response that I could not understand. I still had to rely on people who spoke English to get around, although I think a few of the politeness phrases I picked up were appreciated by my hosts.
The only words I remember today were the ones that were borrowed from English... like Elevator and Butter.
The names of the anime caracters are written in a sylabic alphabet (sorry the oxymoron).
For example, the name Mimi consisted in something similar to two slashes like these: / / , if I remember well. So Mi = /, maybe.
I saw the movie "Spirited Away". There was a scene in which the old witch absorbed Chihiro's name written on a paper, and the only sylable that stayed on the paper was "Chi", but they pronounced it like "Sen"! So that's not sylabic alphabet, because 2 sylables share the same symbol (which was like a = with a perpendicular line).
I'm not sure of any of the things I've written, and if someone can correct my mistakes, I'll be very pleased.
I had Studied Japanese for 2 years, that is a difficult language, but I like to study Japanese. I can say some simple sentences. O genki desu ka?= how are you?, genki desu= I'm fine, watashi wa Thuy desu= I am Thuy. Shinnen omedeto gozai masu= happy new year
My advice: Burn every Hiragana symbol into your brain no matter the cost. Practise writing them until your fingers are numb, then begin again. Visit a Japanese language website and read, read, read. Do this every day for as long as you can stand.
I say this because if you master Hiragana, you will be able to read virtually anything in Japanese, even without knowing any kanji symbols (although there are a few basic kanji you should really learn along with the hiragana). And when you master that Hiragana, you can move along to Katakana and then to Kanji.
The advice of David's is good advice however I wouldn't agree that "you will be able to read virtually anything in Japanese, even without knowing any kanji symbols". Yes, learn hiragana first don't bother with romanisation. If you find a romanised Japanese/English dictionary, don't buy it. Oxford has a kana one.
Sorry I can't spare any more time to better answer the question at the moment but I'll be back next week.
Xatufan,
"Mi" in katakana is three slashes so "mimi" is six. Also, I guess the caracter was not a katakana "chi" but the Chinese character (kanji) for 1000, pronounced "sen" in Japanese. They look similar but "chi" swishes away to the left on the down stroke.
I am a native Japanese speaker so I'd be happy to answer any questions about my language:)
I think Japanese is fairly easy to pronouce, but there are some important aspects you need to be aware of, such as long vowels and short vowels, glottal stops (or double consonants... whatever it's called... the small "tsu" if you know what I mean), and intonation. Particularly double consonants and long-short vowels can totally change the meanings of words, so it's very important that you get them right. As for the pronunciation everything else is fairly easy if your aim is just to communicate in Japanese. You may have trouble with the Japanese r if your first language is Japanese, but just think of a Spanish r. (not rr)
As for grammar, I recommend that you learn lots of basic patterns at first so that when you want to say something, you can simply change words and u can make yourself understood. As Japanese syntax is very different from that of English, you may find it difficult at first, but I'm sure you'll get used to it soon... just like I did when I learned English.
also: its quite important to learn the proper stroke orders for each hiragana and katakana... otherwise you may get them mixed up, as some of them look quite similar in appearance. (just like Jim mentioned before)
My experience:
You need the Romaji for the first few months or there is just too much strange stuff happening at once.
Learn Kanji a few at a time from the beginning if you want to be able to read in the real world.
Learn hiragana in order to be able to read children's books and to develop some fluency in the language,
Ignore katakana or at least do not put too much effort into it.
To master pronunciation do a lot of listening and repeating , recording your own voice and comparing. Then the double consonants and long vowels will become clear. Not a bit problem.
Sho, I must compliment your english! Many Japanese where I work have a difficult time with the articles (a, an and the) as well as sentence structure, but your grammar is superb.
Thanks for the information, it sounds very interesting. By the way does anybody know any good websites to help with learning Japanese.?
Actually, "Chi" is also a less common reading for the Kanji meaning a thousand and would be combined with other Kanji for the reading of "chi" instead of "sen", so it wasn't katakana.