Learning, reading and/or speaking Japanese?

Post Reply New Topic

The closest I'm coming to learning japanese is watching the One Piece with subs only figured out some things like counting up to 5 the different ways of greeting, and the names of some animals.

Yes, it's nothing like the US in the way they communicate.

I really like Japanese culture (not anime/manga), but the language seems like it could be overwhelming. I have a high school acquaintance who moved to Japan to be closer to his wife's family and a longtime friend who's moving to teach English next year, so perhaps I'll try to learn a little just to see. I'm sure they could offer some starting points.

I studied Japanese in high school and found it much easier to learn than Spanish.

I study Japanese for the second year on the University.
And... yes.
English is also a foreign language for me and I've tried to learn many languages so far, so I can compare them. English is grammatically easier than my mother language, but on the other side there are many idioms and words which I consider as difficult for learning. Japanese is much difficult but very structured and logic language, therefore I enjoy studying it very much.

I am not sure if I can explain it.
And I am also not sure if you can think about Japanese as a "good language for Aspies". Maybe. I'm learning Chinese about a month and because of knowing kanji symbols I can understand to some Chinese sentences without knowing how to pronounce them
I am obsessed with learning kanji. And I find Japanese the most suitable language for me. I just can't get enough.

why?

When I applied to read japanese at a UK university I was told that, because of the nature of the language, they preferred a maths background to a languages one.

This tends to emphasise just how different japanese is.

Chinese? My understanding is that learning to read chinese involves little more than learning the characters.

So now that I've read into Japanese a bit and started to learn it, I think I can make a very basic opinion:

Japanese has only 5 vowels and about 13 consonants. So even with an accent, you propably will be understood and it is easy to understand. Also the grammar is easy, because it is very regular.

So saying very basic stuff will be easy at first BUT there is a draw back...

because of the fact that Japanese has borrowed from several different languages words, they have many many words. A Japanese magazine uses in average 30.000 words, but 90% are "just" 10.000 words. In Spanish for example (and in most European languages) this number drops down to about 3.000 words and in French even to 2.000 words.
Also they have different writing systems: Hiragana, Katakana and als Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana is easy to learn to read and each has I think it was 48 characters. But Kunji uses Chinese characters and about 2.000 to 3.000 characters are the most basic once wich most magazines uses, but there are about 100.000. But also Japanese ppl don't know all. To read Japanese you have to be able to read both Hiragana and Katakana and in addition at least 2.000 to 3.000 Kanji characters. Japanese also uses sometimes Latin letters and also uses Arabic numbers.
Also the language has a casual form and a polite form, so you always have to keep in mind to whom you are talking, this is not so much the case in english, who just has this in a slight way compared to Japanese.

So Japanese is a language where a basic understanding is easy to learn BUT to speak and especially read it in an advanced level is very very difficult to achive. French on the other hand for example has a very difficult start, but doesn't use many words. So speaking simple sentences in French for example is more difficult at the beginning BUT you will be faster at an advanced level once you have understood it.

I would still recomend learning some Japanese out of different reasons:
1) eventhough it is very difficult to reach an advanced level in Japanese, it is easy for you to learn how to speak on a basic level and you will be very likely understood.
2) Not many ppl from non Asian counries learn Japanese, but it is still an important language, especially in the bussiness world
3) You can learn something about a totally different culture
4) Japanese ppl very often have huge difficulties learning English
5) Japanese teaches a lot about social roules and how to talk to whom, what can be very usefull to learn especially for an autistic person

I lived in Japan when I was very little and then in high school I lived in an area which was predominantly Japanese. So Having been exposed to the Japanese language and culture from a very early age made it more natural and familiar to me than Spanish. I identify with more Japanese things than with Spanish type things. But I also speak French and even though my French is very good, I still found Spanish very frustrating and difficult. Maybe the reason is that except for when I was actually in Spain, I never liked Spanish. It always seemed forced upon me and sometimes not in a good way. So it could be a psychological distaste to the language. The only times I ever felt like I wanted to learn Spanish were the two times I went to Spain. But I have always loved Japanese because it is a part of my identity.

I find that Hiragana and Katakana are not a problem for me to learn and Kanji, you just learn more and more as you learn it. It takes a very long time to get proficient at Kanji but I was never discouraged by that. And I don't read magazines and I don't live in an environment where much is written in Japanese so I can take my time learning Kanji and just enjoy it as I go.

I know a guy who is bilingual and stutters in one language but not in the other because the one was thought by his very dominant father where he was afrait of, so he started stuttering just in the one language.

I have this problem a bit with Italian (but I think I could come over that), but right now it reminds me on a very difficult time of my life, because I was also in Italy at that time and I don't like thinking about it, eventhough I like very much the language. That's why I want to study it again, when I'm more stable. I already read a bit Italian, but not so much at the moment. But even little steps are steps...



You comment was very interesting.
Hm yeah, I think the difficulty with Kanji is mainly the fact that it's time consuming...!
I'll just see how far I'll go in learning Japanese and how much I'll enjoy it.

I found Japanese grammar very logical and easy to learn. But since ideas are conceptualized and expressed differently in any language, there are countless patterns that must be learned in order to communicate like a native speaker rather than resort to translating literally from one's native language. Conversation practice is probably necessary to nail these down. Although I studied Japanese and other languages for years and am literate, I am not fluent in any of them because it's been so difficult for me to participate in conversation practice. It's hard enough making conversation in my native language.

I've been learning on rosetta stone for almost a year now and being the fact that I'm in lvl 3 at this time I still consider myself a beginner because I don't get to use it as much as I would like to. Of course like any "textbook" form you always have to be mindful especially when going into chatrooms or watching stuff where you hear and see real Japanese folks speaking. You learn very early on that the natives do not speak in textbook form But atleast most people are polite enough not to bluntly comment on it even if you literally sound like a robot that just translated something from English to Japanese.