Learning Japanese, Your thoughts, opinions?

In this thread: people who will never learn Japanese.* ricky_ runs

Replying to #21

It seems ricky has an opinion on everything...

Romaji is very easy to learn though, as it's just the english spelling of what the letters sound like.

Replying to #23

I thought that was Katakana?

and Hiragana. Katakana is mostly derived from Chinese.

ひらがな <-- Hiragana
カタカナ <-- Katakana
Romaji <-- Romaji
ricky_ <-- Troller?Hiragana is the curvy lines, "elegant" writing style.
Katakana is more "straight-liney".
Romaji is the Roman alphabet. Easy to remember, as Romaji has part of the word Roman in it.Japanese is simpler than English in some places, but other places may seem harder to those who know no other languages.The Japanese phonetic system is simpler than English because it has only five vowel sounds: a, i, u, e, and o. You pronounce them ahh, eee, oooh, ehh, ohh. Also, most kana represent two English characters, rather than one.Anand: Hiragana is more closely derived from Chinese; Katakana is more similar to fragmented parts of Chinese, with Hiragana being evolved versions.

Yeah my bad.

Seriously, how hard is it for an American to learn Japanese? I've been looking into learning this language (because everyone knows all the good stuff is in Japanese) but I've heard from alot of places and people that it takes years to learn. How hard is it really and whats up with all this kanji, hiragi, katakana stuff? Why can't they just put it all together. If I learn this it will be my 4th (well 3rd) language I fully know.

It's not that hard, easier to learn it if you have a teacher, or even better, someone who's from Japan. That's just how it works, hiragana etc. It takes years to be fluent in it definitely, but it'll only take a few months or a year or two to get the gist of it and under some or most of it's speech. Harder to learn also as the words are mostly in different orders to english. Also, katakana is mostly used for words that come from other languages such as English, French etc, such as ham is hamu, seafood is shifudo.

I was thinking on learning japenese but from all this...... I wonder how much it costs to hire a translater, a good one.

err · #28Seriously, how hard is it for an American to learn Japanese? I've been looking into learning this language (because everyone knows all the good stuff is in Japanese) but I've heard from alot of places and people that it takes years to learn. How hard is it really and whats up with all this kanji, hiragi, katakana stuff? Why can't they just put it all together. If I learn this it will be my 4th (well 3rd) language I fully know.

It takes years to learn any language...Don't make any mistake about it....
It will be more difficult than learning a European language...
But also more fun...Due to the lack of definite article, lack of plural, future tense etc.
And the ease of verb conjugation...
You can start speaking very quickly...But it will take years to master the kanji,
to be able to say exactly what you want...
And most importantly, to be able to understand the natives...

hum i love learning japanese and i started 1 year ago it's not really all that hard but im just sayin coz i haven't started kanji yet lool but if you want to improve i liked www.japanesepod101.com which is a great site you should visit it sometimes

I learned Japanese through osmosis.Realistically, look into some language programs. If you're willing to spend some time, you can find Rosetta Stone on some of the more popular internets file sharing sites. Immersion is the best way to learn a foreign language, but it takes some time still. Start off by learning the basics, things like grammar, conjugation, and the like. Do this to learn small bits and pieces and then immerse yourself in it. Read news websites, watch online video, even try to get a pen-pal (or these days, someone you can email back and forth with). Find a friend who speaks the language, if you can. Talk to them. They will correct you on pronunciation and grammar, and the like. After a while, take a trip to whichever country you're learning the language of. It not only will be a fun trip, but also a learning experience and a good chance to put your linguistic skills to use, while improving and cementing the content you learned previously.

nemer · #32hum i love learning japanese and i started 1 year ago it's not really all that hard but im just sayin coz i haven't started kanji yet lool but if you want to improve i liked www.japanesepod101.com which is a great site you should visit it sometimes

Please read the [rules]. Posting in internet shorthand, such as "coz" and "sayin" is against the rules.

The best way to learn a language is to learn the basic sentences and some words and then just go to the country where they speak it.I've been trying a little bit of Japanese as well, and I found the rosetta stone as well, only I don't really like the rosetta program. It's just pictures and no real translations. Maybe it's easier this way, but not for me.Btw, I'm in China now and I don't know any chinese. The people here are kind enough to translate my english, so I don't need a translator.

Replying to #35

Sounds OK in theory...
But what would you define as the basic sentences?
If all you can say is
"How do you do? My name is..."
or
"How much for two stamps?""It's not going to be a very fruitful experience...