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Deleted user
4 Jan 2021

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Is Japanese an easy language to learn?

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Milksteak
4 Jan 2021

  • Country or region United States

It hasn't been for me, here's why. There are thousands of chinese symbols called Kanji that you need to memorize in order to read, the grammar is extremely different from english, there are a lot of homonyms, each word has its own pitch that you need to memorize to sound good, there are different levels of politeness so you'll need to know how to say the same sentence in several different ways.

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aly26451
5 Jan 2021

  • Country or region United States
Depends. Pronunciation wise you just have to get the pitch, which may take a little bit of time. However, once you get the pronunciation down it’s easy. The only challenge may be the grammar and the particle words and measure words. The words are more difficult to memorize in my opinion than Korean and Chinese words for example, and of course more difficult than most European languages. Verbs are more difficult than Chinese ones (verbs remain the same in Chinese), but easier than European ones, since there are ending changes for tenses, but no conjugations for different people. Adjectives are tricky because there are two types, and so the ending changes depending on the type, which means you have to memorize what type of adjective each one is. Writing is difficult (worse than simplified Chinese, comparable to to traditional Chinese + an alphabet). The characters (Kanji) are more difficult to memorize than simplified Chinese characters since they have more strokes, thus making them comparable to traditional Chinese characters, however their many readings and the fact that there are not only characters, but also an alphabet (technically two “alphabets”, hiragana and katakana, or kana) makes words and the characters that go along with them much more difficult to memorize than Chinese words. Reading is easier than writing because you don’t actually have to remember how to write the kanji and words, you just have to be able to recognize them. Plus there’s a lot of resources that have furigana (kana next to the kanji to help with reading). Listening is quite easy if you’ve got an understanding of the grammar and a substantial vocabulary knowledge. So overall I’d say: 1 (easy) 5 (difficult) ☆☆ Speaking ☆ Listening ☆☆☆ Reading ☆☆☆☆☆ Writing

Depends.

Pronunciation wise you just have to get the pitch, which may take a little bit of time. However, once you get the pronunciation down it’s easy. The only challenge may be the grammar and the particle words and measure words.

The words are more difficult to memorize in my opinion than Korean and Chinese words for example, and of course more difficult than most European languages.

Verbs are more difficult than Chinese ones (verbs remain the same in Chinese), but easier than European ones, since there are ending changes for tenses, but no conjugations for different people.

Adjectives are tricky because there are two types, and so the ending changes depending on the type, which means you have to memorize what type of adjective each one is.

Writing is difficult (worse than simplified Chinese, comparable to to traditional Chinese + an alphabet). The characters (Kanji) are more difficult to memorize than simplified Chinese characters since they have more strokes, thus making them comparable to traditional Chinese characters, however their many readings and the fact that there are not only characters, but also an alphabet (technically two “alphabets”, hiragana and katakana, or kana) makes words and the characters that go along with them much more difficult to memorize than Chinese words.

Reading is easier than writing because you don’t actually have to remember how to write the kanji and words, you just have to be able to recognize them. Plus there’s a lot of resources that have furigana (kana next to the kanji to help with reading).

Listening is quite easy if you’ve got an understanding of the grammar and a substantial vocabulary knowledge.

So overall I’d say:
1 (easy) 5 (difficult)

☆☆ Speaking
☆ Listening
☆☆☆ Reading
☆☆☆☆☆ Writing

idkidcslma
6 Jan 2021

  • Country or region United States

I think it is. I catch on fairly to the words and hiragana and katakana are very easy to remember. And because I’m learning Korean the sentence structure is also easy to remember. Where in English we would say “There is a supermarket over there.” In Japanese it would be あそこにスーパーがあります which would translate to “Over there supermarket there is”. The only downside is kanji. But it’s easy if you also are learning Chinese cause the characters are the same, some of them just have different sounds.

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