Comments on: Is It Hard To Learn Japanese?

By: Lenard Swager

Lenard Swager — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:22:48 +0000

You are right on the money with this post, keep up the good work!

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:51:16 +0000

Mitch,

You are right. Motivation is a big part of it. For the most part Japanese is a straight forward language with mostly set rules. It is kanji and the written language that makes it more difficult. However, there is also a method to this. Though it does take some time, Kanji and reading and writing can also be learned.

By: Mitch

Mitch — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:40:33 +0000

Simply put, you need motivation. I’m in my second Japanese class now, and I’m definately starting to move up the learning curve. The mysticism surrounding Japanese about its difficulty is egregious. What you find with Japanese, after getting most of the basic rules down, is a very logical pretty straightforward language. The sentence structure is very fluid, and the conjugating rules are honestly very predictable and pretty standard. With regards to kanji, my preferred method is to get the basic meaning (and radical) of the kanji down, and then learn the kanji with other kanji as compound words. This gives you a practical way to learn them, without wasting hours writing them out repetitively, and will give you a huge vocabulary, which you can use right away. Try to read even just a little everyday, and write creatively (using kanji of course!), and both skills will start to improve very quickly. My point is that you shouldn’t wait to go to Japan to start reading and writing, which take longer to master than speaking. You can get very good at writing with self-study or classroom study. If you can honestly tell me that writing out a kanji or hiragana, seperately or together as a compound, is harder than spelling correctly in this god awful unphonetic language we call English, then I think you’re crazy. I still struggle more with English spelling than kanji. Just a point to consider.

By: Nick

Nick — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:00:48 +0000

Alex, Great points. I completely agree. Anyone can do it. The Japanese language has been perceived for a long time as a “too difficult to learn” language, when in many aspects it is easier than English.

Choosing the right study methods and finding ways to keep the studying fun and interesting are also too often overlooked.

By: Alex

Alex — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:53:06 +0000

It's not hard. Anyone can learn it. Not everyone does, though, because not everyone has the motivation to. Often, people "can't" learn the language because they are employing the "wrong methods" (they don't know which learner-type they are). Other times, people get bored with learning because they think learning has to be a boring process. They try to force themselves through it instead of finding ways to enjoy it.