Have you ever learned Japanese?

[J girl]

Hi, have you ever learned Japanese? if so, what kinds of vocabulary did you learn?
Did you have any difficulties learning it? or was it interesting?
I am curious about our language for foreigner.

Japanese must be difficult and different from English.
Because, I saw lots of English speaker in Japan, even though they have been living in Japan doesn`t speak much Japanese.

[Forest]

I did, but found it quite hard, I was very interested learning before I went on my Japan trip, but now I am home again I don't have the same motivation anymore.
I just learn the greetings, how to buy some things and food names. But that was like over a year ago and I have already forgotten most of it

[Misaki]

For western people, I think to study English is very difficult, but, for Korean people, it`s easy to study Japanese as Grammar is similar, when I went to Korea for travel, many shop people talked to me in Japanese, I was quite surprised. But sometimes, too annoyed because feel like they do speak Japanese because of they just want to sell products, sometime too pushy.

[Kmoss]

Yes the web is always a good start, but you have to balance with real people and have conversations

[Louie]

I can only read Hiragana, Katakana and a handful of Kanji. Unfortunately my vocabulary is not that big but I'm still studying (self study) at the moment and I can pretty much understand simple conversations in Japanese. Right now I'm immersing myself in the language and it helps me learn a few words everyday, which builds up my vocabulary. I wish that someday I'll be able to read, understand and speak Japanese fluently. Seriously, If you really want to learn Japanese you need to put some effort and motivate yourself in learning the language. Based on my experience, motivation is the key to success and striving to set a goal for yourself will make things a bit easier.

[Sakurahime]

I learned Japanese at university, which was quite intense, but it did give a good balance of grammar, kanji learning and conversation. I think the grammar can be difficult for English-speakers, as can kanji and keigo, but the pronunciation is extremely straight-forward. I would also argue that it's nice to learn a language that doesn't have gender and number agreements, or verbs conjugated to first person, second person, etc. There are even fewer tenses than most European languages I know! Which gives away that I know other languages, which probably made learning Japanese a bit easier, I guess.

[minervasirius]

Let's admit it, most of those who learned a bit of nihongo started from anime right?

[tsubaki nakajima]

More than anything, I find their three types of writing amusing, like you use Hiragana (I'm calling it the basic form) and Kanji (the complicated/ Chinese inspired one) for Japanese terms, and you use katakana for foreign terms. I'n a matter of speaking the language (meaning, accent/how you pronounce their words), I find it easy because its syllabic and my native language is also like that but since I'm more familiar with English, it is harder to compose sentences since they're all jumbled up in my perspective. Nonetheless, I think, it is easier to learn it with a company to talk to.

[minervasirius]

I wonder how a Japanese and German would talk to each other haha
People would think they are both angry.

Poster here is right, it is easy to learn Japanese if you put your heart to it.

[Sakurahime]

minervasirius, do you find the sound of Japanese harsh? I don't find it to be at all. I really enjoy the rhythm of it, and it can be very expressive both orally and in writing. I do have to say, that some of my interest in learning Japanese was from anime, but I also had other influences, such as a family member who did aikido. I also learned a few words in school, in a Geography lesson of all things!
There are many routes to learning Japanese and a love of Japan, but I agree that if you're dedicated, you can learn Japanese fairly quickly. I memorized both hiragana and katakana in the summer before I started university (I didn't have much choice!) A friend of a friend taught himself entirely and passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test N1 (the highest level) in a few years, I think it was. It does depend what time you have to devote to the learning, but little and often worked well for me.

[Akash Singh]

Hi!!

Japanese can be a tough language to get into. Not because it's a hard language to learn but because there are a bunch of mental hurdle and misconceptions. Japanese has a status for being tough to learn because you have to study all these brand new characters, grammatical arrangement and kanji.

But what I feel is that it's all a bunch of crap. People tend to build up Japanese as an impossible language to learn but, in my experience, Japanese is straight-forward and easy to learn because of some of the following reasons:

1. There are lots of English loan words in Japanese

• Example “mic” → maiku

“table” → teeburu
“Internet” → intaanetto
“romantic” → romanchikku
“driveshaft” → doraibushafuto

2. Japanese verbs don’t have to necessarily “concur” with the subject.

3. Each Japanese syllable can be said in only one method.

4. Japanese is not a “tonal” speech unlike Thai or Chinese.

5. Knowing Kanji allows you to guess the sense of some new words which you don’t know.

6. Japanese is as rational as any human language.

Conclusion: don’t create a self-fulfilling prophecy and good luck…

[Sakurahime]

English loan words are really useful, but there are also fake loan words, called wasei eigo, or English Made in Japan. And some loan words are from other languages, like "pan", which means bread. Loan words can be really fun to try and work out, though! Saying the katakana out loud feels embarrassing, but hearing it out loud can really help you to understand what the word is.

[SpaceManatee]

I learned it in high school and I found learning the characters through mnemonics to be very helpful as I was still able to remember them many years later.