As far as I know, I am the one who started this thread, and I am the one who decide what this thread is about. Are you saying that you know better than me what I had in mind and meant when I started this thread ?Originally Posted by Gaijin 06
That's completely irrelevant. I have learnt many European languages and Japanese, and Japanese is not much more difficult. It's just an impression that people who haven't learnt it have. In fact, Japanese has so much more words that come from English that once you get used to the katakana pronuciation (I guess after a few weeks in Japan), Japanese becomes more similar to English that most European languages for many daily things. You mentioned going the hairdresser.Did you miss the bit where we agreed that it is much easier to move from one European language to another than it is to move between a European language and Japanese?
How do you say 'haircut' in Japanese ? 'Heakatto" or just "katto" from the English. Is that more or less difficult to understand than the French "coupe de cheveux" or Spanish "corte de pelo" or Italian "taglio" or German "Haarschnitt" ? I suppose that any English speaker would say easier.
There thousands of daily words in Japanese that come from English : doa (door), te-buru (table), gaidobukku (guidebook), mauzu (mouse), konpyuta- (computer), sofuto (software), ea-kon (air-con) ju-su (juice), rentaka- (rent-a-car), pen (pen), kontakuto lenzu (contact lenses), wain (wine), kyabetsu (cabbage), sukedyu-ru (schedule), kamera (camera), no-to (notebook), surippa (slippers), handobaggu (handbag), furaipan (frying pan), shawa- (shower), bakettsu (bucket), nettowa-ku (network), sokkusu (socks), pantsu (pants), ka-digan (cardigan), sha-tsu (shirt), etc.
I could make a huge list and compare them to the words in French, Italian, Spanish, German and Dutch, and you'd see that most of them are completely different from English. I'll just compare the above with French, as I don't have time to do everything (keep in mind that the pronuciation of French is completely different from English for the same spelling, and that someone pronoucing a word with an English accent will almost never be understood) :
door : porte
table : table
guidebook : guide de voyage
computer : ordinateur
software : logiciel
mouse : souris
air con : climatisation
juice : jus
rent-a-car : voiture de location
pen : stylo
contact lenses : lentilles
wine : vin
cabbage : choux
schedule : agenda/emploi du temps
camera : appareil photo
notebook : cahier
slippers : pantoufles
handbag : sac a main
frying pan : poele
shower : douche
bucket : seau
network : reseau
socks : chausettes
pants (US) : pantalon
cardigan : gillet
shirt : chemise
Being a native speaker of French, and being also fluent in English and Italian and conversational in Spanish and German, I know that the vast majority of the thousands of katakana words used the most commonly in Japanese come from English, and that these are usually very different from their European equivalent. This further makes Japan, and indeed Japanese language, more English-friendly. I have met a lot of French people in Japan (and discussed on French forums), and I found that those whose English was not good (or inexistent), had a notable disadvantage to learn Japanese. They didn't have the head start of the thousands of katakana words. Maybe it's difficult to realise that when you only speak English.
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