What's difficult in Japanese ?

[dadako]

pronounciation is easy, japanese people always mistake me for japanese on the phone

I have problems remebering to say moraimasu instead of arimasu at the moment for "have" not "there is".

[Elizabeth]

pronounciation is easy, japanese people always mistake me for japanese on the phone

I have problems remebering to say moraimasu instead of arimasu at the moment for "have" not "there is".

Morau is either a main or modal verb used for received, take, accept and getting someone to do something. Aru, never morau, refers to 'have' as well as 'be,' or 'is' depending on the context.

[lunar_reim]

i'm learning japanese because i'm highly intrested in the culture and hopefully live there one day. i'm currently self-teaching until i can get into college because my high school doesn't offer japanese as a second language. where im having problems with learning is definetely memorizing the different particles. i had the same problem with learning korean and it's still something i struggle with everyday. another is the verb endings or the -tte endings or something like that. i don't understand those at all. im slowly memorizing kanji but it is a really slow process and i get confused with other kanji that look incredibly similar to one another.
but i'm not letting it stop me from learning because i really do want to visit and hopefully, im really hoping, to live in japan one day so i want to learn the lanugage. the only language i have to compare it to, is my korean. but yes, i struggle with particles the most, the verb endings and the kanji.

[kdynamic]

I think the hardest thing is counters!!!! My friend atsuko and i saw a plane in the sky the other day, and I said, "Do you use dai to count planes, like you do to count cars and machines?" At first she said yes. Then a second later she said, "Wait, actually you use 'ki' as in hikouKI." Argh! It never ends! I related this story to another friend Naomi-chan, and she said "I'm Japanese, but I don't get counters! I just use 'ko' for everything! Movies? Ko. Airplanes? Ko. It's just easier that way."

Not to mention that you have several ways to pronouce each number (ikkai, hitotsu, ichi-en are all from 1) and there's no logic to which one you're supposed to use.

Of course, Kanji is hard. But after I got past a certain point learning kanji (after I could read 600 or 700) i realized that they make the language EASIER not harder, because if you understand new vocab via kanji you already know from other words, theya re easier to remember, and also, if you understand the structure and logic of kanji, a lot of things about japanese that seem arbitrary start to make sense.

that's my ni-en.

[God]

I personally like using the japanese ime that comes with being on a computer and using that to type, it helped refresh my memory on katakana,hiragana, and a bit of kanji. it helps designate what should be kanji and if you don't know that kanji you can look it up, i find the japanese ime system helps increase my productivity.

but most of all i would like to say not know which material is the real material you should be looking at to study japanese. i had a japanese book in japanese year one in highschool and i still wonder if doomo arigatoo is correct. i've seen people say doumo, domo, or even domou it's very hard to find what is the real deal out there, hopefully as more people become self aware in the japanese language, these problems will fade away and be a thing of the past. It is a very well thought out, fun, and beautiful language of any other language I have seen next to american slang. ya know wa i'mm tawkin bout g.

[Shin Asura]

Most difficult thing for me in learning Japanese are Kanji, everything else is simple. I've already learned all the Katakana and Hiragana.

If all signs in Japan had Furigana then I would be one happy person, but that's not the case.

[SajberJohan]

Iｴm really bad with the "ni" particle and all the verb and adjective conjugations, other than that Iｴm fine

[TwistedMac]

everything except the kana >_<
but yes, admitedly I suck.
not just at japanese, I'm just generally bad at stuff

[ベ-ネ]

I've been learning japanese f&uuml;r 3 months. i think the forms for politeness are the most difficult.

[nhk9]

I used to get stuck on -morau - kureru - sashiageru those kind of stuff, but then later on I found out that they don't use much of the other ones except for -morau and -kureru, so I was able to use those without much troubles later on.

I think the thing that bothers me the most is the large number of homophones in the language. Maybe it's because my mother tongue is Chinese, and there is not too many homophones in that language, I found the huge number of similar sounding words in Japanese to be quite frustrating...

[Ma Cherie]

the particles, to me they're the most difficult. I wonder if most people have a hard time distingushing the 'wa' from the 'ga'. Particles are my main problem. I don't like studying them, but I know I have to.

[miu]

I voted for the particles, too. Also the way of thinking in the language is a bit different form what I've used to... Right now I don't even want to think about the problem of being polite enough ^^; I read from a book about the Japanese wrapping culture that one Japanese professory found it mind-wrenching to listen to some foreigner's Japanese because he didn't know what the "true meaning" of their utterances were *_*

[masayoshi]

At this stage, I'm often confused with the use of particles Besides, my vocabulary is way too limited to hold a sensible conversation. I'll be stammering and struggling like a dumb guy. Don't know enough verbs and all. Verb tenses are basically OK except for the occasional exceptions which leaves me like Well, at least verbs are much easier than French ones!!

Of course, kanji is another big mountain yet to climb. Some of them, I can guess their meaning but when it comes to pronounciation, that's another mind bogging task! They have like at least 2 ways of being spelled. WTH!! Recently I've been told by my Japanese friend that they have subtle different tones for distinguishing between homophones (and of course, that's usually not being taught! ).

[Scrivener]

Don't worry too much about the tones - it's not like Chinese. If you got a tone wrong it would be very unusual to be misunderstood. That's something you worry about if you are trying to win a speech competition or something.


You pick up kanji "on" and "kun" readings naturally as you become familiar with the kanji. You will find your brain has room for the information.

[Scozwi]

I just having problems remembering the Kanji also Im not too keen on the katakana too (I know the katakana but I just dont like using it).
Does any guides, tips on how to remembering the kanji and the readings?
any techinques u use?
That u could share with us?

[Flowerbird]

According to a book I read, Japanese does not really have tenses in the way Indo-European and other languages do. It is rather whether an action has been completed or not what determines the ending of a verb. This is confusing!

。

[swanoos]

Kanji is the most difficult part of Japanese for me.
The grammar is very easy comparing to Polish. For now, it's the easiest language I've been learning. Exept of kanji ofcourse. I cant' imagine learning about 2 000 kanji. But for now I'm not thinking about it. First of all I have to learn to talk, than I'll be worried about writing and reading.

[Damicci]

i'd have to say, verb conjugation now that i think about it, i was going to say vocabulary also but when i think about verbs there many different ways to conjugate a verb to make it make more sense in a sentence. one site showe dlike almost 10 different ways to conjugate a single verb. it's ridiculous... but it's what you have to do if you want to get better.
2nd i think would be reading and memorizing kanji since each kanji can have 3 or more different readings.

[Pox]

I voted on "the pronuciation".
When I was 7 or 8, I was taught by my grand father how to pronounce じ and ぢ(ず and づ) differently. But I couldn't pronounce, and still can't.
the じ and ぢ matter is the most difficult part of Japanese for me!

[-Rudel-]

Although I'm just getting into learning Kanji, the most part that I think will be hard for me is learning how to pronounce the kanji when another Kanji is added to one. For example:

日　＝　にち
日本　＝　にほん　

I guess it is all in memorizing.

[kevinsano]

I've listened to Irish/Gaelic and all I can say is that it sounds like an extremely beautiful language, but I think I'll stay with Japanese.

Well, the hardest thing about Japanese would be the Kanji(the writing part ONLY)
I can remember them, but then I can only read them without being able to recreate it.

I'm really surprised at how fast I learned Katakana and Hiragana. Must have been all those japanese videogames I played...

for anyone trying to learn hiragana/katakana, try finding an import of Pokemon(yes, pokemon). It's a very addicting RPG plus it has no Kanji! (Okay, fire red had ONE kanji in the title screen:赤)

[Malaika]

What's the most difficult thing in understanding japanese? well I marked all the above

*laughs*, because I have so much things on my mind. That it is hard to multitask *sighs*

no matter how hard I want to learn japanese, I end up being so fried. though I have been practicing my hiragana, so I know all 41, but the thing is that I read the symbols slow if some one posted something and its all in hiragana, but for katakana - that I don't know

o_o

[Mcspi]

for me the grammatical structure and verb forms are what is difficult.

[Sensuikan San]

I agree with Suki-Yaki ....

COUNTING !

This is where I feel the Japanese really dropped the ball !

It seems quite incredible to me that you'd even want to differentiate between counting thin objects, flat objects, fat objects, people, votes ..... you even have to think, sometimes, about which category covers the subject you have in mind !

.... I don't think I'll ever master it ... !

Do the Japanese actually bother with this in everyday life ?

Are there parallells in any other languages ?

Regards,

ジョン

[WHEATTHlNS]

Hadnt thought about the counting but I can see where that may well become an annoyance. . .

But all that is secondary to the writing. . .my handwriting is atrocious in English and I've gone from what should be A quizzes to C quizzes because my te looked to much like fu. . .

Being left handed EVERYTHING i write leans to the right side. . .

But yea those counters. . .