Difficulty of Japanese

Skippy   Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:18 am GMT
How difficult is it really? Only two tenses, no plural, agglutinative, it doesn't sound that difficult... As an English speaker exactly how difficult would it be to learn?
Guest   Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:22 am GMT
If it weren't for Kanji, I'd say it's about as hard as Russian or Arabic. The grammar is pretty flexible and not so hard to get used to. But the characters are very very painful to learn (unless you have some out of the ordinary inclinations or LOT of spare time...)
Guest   Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:35 am GMT
Don't bother to learn how to write it at all. Just learn the Romanized version. It really isn't worth it, as you won't really be able to read anything useful unless you continue learning the characters for years and years. You may want to learn the Katakana and Hiragana though--it can be useful, as you can recognize some things if you decide to ever visit Japan. But otherwise, dealing with the writing system will really hamper your progress learning how to actually speak the language, and will be a big waste of time. I've known students how could basically only say "Hello, how are you", after taking it for a year, because 3/4 the time was wasted on learning how to write it. (Contrast this with say, learning Spanish, where after a year, most people are quite competent in the language, and could actually be able to communicate if they visited a Spanish-speaking country.) People that didn't bother with learning the writing system generally can learn to speak it in a much shorter time--they make almost as much progress as French and Spanish students in the same amount of time.
Skippy   Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:38 am GMT
So, the writing system aside, is Japanese all that difficult?
Guest   Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:45 am GMT
I wouldn't say that. With the right study method, you can learn to write thousands of characters in a few years, enough to match most adult Japanese. I'm not saying that part is easy, though.

Anyway, one of the things that's nice about Japanese is that the verbs are highly regular. It's not like Spanish or French where you'll have to deal with massive lists of irregular forms.
Guest   Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:45 am GMT
No, no it's not! It may take longer to reach the communicative level than Western languages. But all up it's not so bad. It is really flexible, you can kind of just "throw sentences together", if you get what I mean... you can make one word sentences and the like quite easily.

But yeah, unless you plan to live in Japan for a long period of time, don't learn the characters. It's terribly time consuming and frustrating, enough to drive one to suicide or mass murder.
K. T.   Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:08 am GMT
The sounds are easy. The writing is a bear, but only because it takes so much time. It has been the hardest language I've studied or learned. I know it at about the JLPT level two (about 6,000 word vocabulary), but I've studied all the common use Kanji, so I can finally read and enjoy the language.

It's more like "trudge...trudge...trudge". I found it to be an interesting language and culture.
Guest   Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:19 am GMT
Yeah, the pronunciation is easy which is a great plus!
zatsu   Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:25 pm GMT
Well, so if you don't want to learn the characters, how do you study the language? For me, learning the kanjis was also a part of the study, get to know different vocabulary, get to know how people write, read some magazines and so on.

But without that, how do you guys study?
With a Romanized textbook, or is it more of a Pimsleur thing, plus watching hundreds of dramas and movies, listening to music?
Guest   Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:42 pm GMT
-I know it at about the JLPT level two (about 6,000 word vocabulary)-

So, you're like a 6y.o. child
Super Korean   Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:52 pm GMT
"The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State has compiled approximate learning expectations for a number of languages"[2]. Of the 70 languages analyzed, the 5 most difficult languages to reach proficiency in speaking and proficiency in reading (for native English speakers who already know other languages), requiring 88 weeks, are: "Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean", with Japanese being the most difficult.

In the Defense Language Institute, Korean is seen as the hardest of the Category IV languages, which are Arabic, Chinese, and Korean. "Right now only 8 Languages are being taught (for Navy). Cat IV: Arabic, Chinese, Korean. Cat III: Persian, Serb-Croatian, Hebrew, Russian. Cat I: Spanish. ...Korean is the hardest language here [Navy], apparently it is 75 weeks long now, and they are trying to make it a Cat V language."[1]

Anyway, for Korean speakers, Japanese is the easiest foreign language.
K. T.   Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:21 pm GMT
"So, you're like a 6y.o. child"

Not at all. If you knew about this test I don't think you would write that.
Xie   Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:40 am GMT
Even in ordinary forums full of trolls and dickheads who bash everything possible, I can see sensible Chinese guys who say Kanji and some elements of grammar not so important as a requirement for real proficiency in the language AND jobs.

I don't mean you don't need JLPT level 1 (which has become the gold standard in my country), but I know: as some advanced learners say, they know even more Kanji than the young Japanese themselves (while older people are complaining) for purely linguistic...and probably culture-specific reasons. By the same token, they say that many Japanese actually can't figure out grammar easily at that level.

Exam and real proficiency are two quite different things. You don't need grammar to speak English, but it's a must if you want to be a foreign teacher, like a waijiao (FT, i.e.) in China. If there were HSK level 1 (I don't know, I'll never take it), I'd fail miserably too when I'd simply think: WTF? I speak in WHATEVER ways I like! That's my native language! Why shouldn't it be put that way?... well, I couldn't get the hang of this darn grammar test...
Xie   Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:31 am GMT
Ignore what I just say. I am a total loser, I know.
beneficii   Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:35 am GMT