Job Discussion Forums

[Precise]

This goes out to you people who speak 2 or more foreign languages and one of which is Japanese. Did you think Japanese was harder or easier to grasp than the other language(s) you learned? When it comes to learning Japanese, do you think pronunciation, writing, and reading is easier or harder than the other language(s) you learned? Do you think it's more important to spend your time studying from books or by conversating with other native speakers, or an even balance of both?

Thanks.

[Gypsy Rose Kim]

[wintersweet]

It just depends on the individual, including your first language, other languages you've studied, your personality, your learning style, the quality of your classes and materials, your motivation, and your opportunities to practice. This goes for both "is X language 'harder' than Y language?" and the book/class/spontaneous communication ratio.

For me, Japanese is easier than Chinese in most ways (including reading, writing, and pronunciation).

[canuck]

[sethness]

Canuck has a point. (And "props" to Canuck for providing all the links)

I've seen newbies get cut down for not searching for oft-repeated topics, and I sympathize, so I'll reply to the OP despite Canuck's well-founded objection.

1) You've got to divide the Japanese language into 2 broad categories: written and spoken.

Written J is a total monster, unless you're Chinese and therefore know a lot of Chinese/Japanese ideograms already.

Spoken J, on the other hand, isn't too bad-- there's no tonal/pitch variation, and all the sounds are well within the set of Egnlish sounds. This makes spoken Japanese easier to hear, speak and remember than, say, Thai or Chinese, but not as easy as a european language.

2) Japanese has an extraordinary number of English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese loan-words. There's a book from Tuttle publishers, for example, that lists 3,300 foreign words that Japanese use regularly, and which you probably already know. This is a massive help to beginner learners.

3) Granted, Japanese doesn't have to conjugate verbs, which makes the grammar a lot more bearable than many European languages. On the other hand, once you get past intriductory Japanese's middle-politeness-form, there is a huge variety of other politeness levels that you'd use in schools, offices, and with friends.

I knew German and a smattering of other European and Asian languages before attempting Japanese. German was child's play-- it's practically English. Japanese has been a hard language to learn, but far easier than Chinese.

[Odango]

Quite simply as you probably know, if you stick at it and never give up, you WILL make progress so don't worry. Though at times confidence can drain due to the amount needed to study to be good at it.

[Gordon]

Is Japanese difficult to learn? How long is a piece of string?

[Apsara]

Actually, I think the OP's question is a valid one, although I seem to be in the minority (yes, I have seen his/ her other posts). Even if the topic has been discussed before there's no harm in some fresh discussion sometimes.

To answer, I learned French and Japanese through high school (5 years), then picked up Spaniah at university (as my major) and Chinese for just a year more or less as a hobby.

In all areas- spoken, written etc- my level of French far exceeded my level of Japanese when I finished high school. Then after a year of university study my Spanish had already outstripped my Japanese- I was able to understand most of Spanish movies I went to see, and read a newspaper. Chinese I found quite difficult because of the tones and the apparent similarity of so many words. The grammar isn't so hard.

My listening/ speaking skills in Japanese didn't really reach the level of my Spanish and French until I had been here in Japan several years

Studies have shown that about 3 times the number of study hours are needed for English speakers to learn an Asian language like Japanese compared to most European languages- true in my case.

After 8 years of studying kanji and grammar I was tired of it so I have never taken a lesson in the 9 years I've been in Japan- I prefer to pick up new vocab, kanji, structures etc. from conversations, TV, train advertisements, reading magazines etc. This approach is only possible if you have a lot of study behind you as I did when I arrived.

When I first arrived I spent 3 months working at a ski resort where I had to speak Japanese pretty much all day, every day. My spoken Japanese went from quite hesitant (not much focus on speaking Japanese at my university) to reasonable in that time. Then while I was teaching at a standard eikaiwa I didn't improve a huge amount over the next few years.

About 4 years ago I started working in an environment where I was using mostly Japanese and have had a lot more improvement since then. Now I understand 90 percent of what I hear and can read parts of newspapers- and it has taken me 19 years to reach this point! Of course it can be achieved more quickly- if I had actually studied once I got here instead of using the osmosis method I would have reached this point faster I'm sure.

Basically pronunciation of Japanese words is easy, achieving natural intonation is harder. Japanese grammar at the basic level isn't difficult, but it doesn't come as naturally to the English speaker as the grammar in European languages does.

It takes a very long time to be able to read to newspaper level and writing requires constant practice in order not to forget the kanji. I mostly type kanji on word processors or my cell phone so always have to check kanji if I have to write something, even if it is quite simple.

I would say that 3 years of fairly dedicated study and plenty of speaking practice (means putting yourself in situations where you have to speak Japanese every day) would bring someone to a level of Japanese where they could get by in most situations.