What's difficult in Japanese ?

[ultimabaka]

Coming from a Romance language background in general and a Spanish background specifically, I've taken great joy in the Japanese pronounciation and verb/grammar structure systems. Maybe it's just me, but it simply sounds beautiful rolling off the tongue. Not like English, where everything kinda sounds blocky and disorganized in comparison.
I've never been good with vocabulary in any language, so that's just a personal thing. And the kanji system just kinda goes without saying. My Japanese professor tells me to sit down with a pen and paper and tells me to write each kanji 100 times or something, and instead I go home and try and figure out a personal system for forming more complicated kanji based off the ones I know. I've learned from doing a lot of the latter that you're basically stuck with that pen and paper.

As for things like particles, the only problem I have with them is when native Japanese speakers just sorta neglect them completely. To say the least, it requires some getting used to.

-- Gerardo

[The_Temonius]

Hey... im from mexico... im doing my best.. cause i want to learn japanese..

[Camui]

I don't think I'd be able to remember all the symbols..like kanji...they seem pretty difficult to remember...but I wouldn't know...

[Sensuikan San]

Apart from a long-standing interest in Japanese culture, one of my reasons for wanting to learn the language was a simple desire to accept the challenge of a non European tongue.

Over the years, I have studied Latin, Attic Greek (both of them extremely useful in furthering one's knowledge of English - but otherwise a waste of energy !) French (Which I used to be quite at ease in - but have now forgotten most of it !) German (Which I picked up the hard, but possibly the best way - like a child has to ...) and some Italian (I lived in Toronto for 20 years, and worked in the construction industry - need I say more ?)

I can now "get by" in French, survive in German, and get myself into trouble quite quickly in Italian.

In comparison, I find (spoken) Japanese relatively easy ! Although I have only been studying it, on my own, for an extremely short period, I am already starting to "hear" it quite well on the radio, TV, movies etc. (although my vocabulary is severely limited, of course). It's also great fun, because most folks I know seem quite in awe ! If only they knew it wasn't so bad ! (Incidentally, I had also looked at Cantonese and Mandarin .... but my choice became obvious ... ! )

BUT ...... writing/reading is a different matter ! I have the greatest sympathy for every Japanese child about to start school ! Poor little mites !

I'm finding that learning Hiragana is not too bad; just a little more demanding than learning a Greek or Cyrillic alphabet. So far I'm about half way with it.

Then I'll have to learn Katakana too !

As for Kanji - I've pretty well abandoned any hope, at my age, of getting anywhere with it ! But - we'll see.... !

And I think that that is one of the main difficulties about learning what is a relatively straightforward language - the mere fact that I can't rush off, read and try to translate as I go ! It slows the whole learning process down.

I've yet to see a Japanese publication printed in Romaji !

BUT I SHALL PERSEVERE!

Finally - if anyone wants a real challenge .... try learning Irish/Gaelic !

It would make your eyes water !

[Suki-Yaki]

The Japanese language gives much emphasis for numbers , counting ,etc..

I HATE numbers !

For example there is much difference in the counting methods. like when you wanna say "Ippon - hitotsu - ichi mai - ichi dai - ippiki ..etc etc .. "

In the English , it is always one pen , one book , one orange etc etc ..

also , the confusion around days and date , it just makes me dizzy .. :dizzy:

[J C]

The particles are the really difficult thing for me to get right. Even Japanese kids get them wrong or more commonly just leave them out when speaking.

In fact a Japanese friend said that in conversation, if you're unsure, just don't bother - your listeners will get your jist and it's painful waiting around for someone to pick out the right particle when 90% of the time you can work out what someone is saying without them.

With writing though, the particles have to be right and it's definitely more noticeable if you get them wrong....

[Tsukimiya]

the writing (especially the kanji)
the pronuciation

That's so difficult.. yoy.. -_-

[eric]

well I've only been learning for a year, but the hardest thing for me is definitely listening

[quamp]

Admittedly I'm somewhat new to the language (only about a year or so's worth of experience,) but the hardest thing for me is telling where one word ends and another begins, especially if it's written completely in hirigana or completely in katakana.

[quamp]

Something else that I've been having trouble with is this:
there seems to be a lot of homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently and mean different things; an example in English would be blue and blew) in Japanese.

Example:
加, 蚊, 課, 科, 可, 佳, 戈, 乎, 架, 日, 化, 顆 and 仮 can all be pronounced the same way - ka. To someone new to the languge (like me) that can be a bit confusing at first. (Viz. - when someone says ka in a sentence, which of those kanji is it? It's only something experience will tell a person.)

[kaitagsd]

While learning grammar structure, vocabulary, and kanji are okay for me (I'm Chinese, so I probably know more Kanji than a Japanese person... MEANING-wise that is), I find that listening to native speakers speak the language is very hard. The words just speed by so fast... and I can't pick up anything at all.