Japanese is easy, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. There is no language in the world that you can’t learn.
The only real problem is getting a Western brain to throw away everything about language that it learned and teaching it a new way to communicate; teaching it an even simpler way to communicate.
I could try to convince you of this by spouting off a few wise-sounding remarks about how, “It’s only as difficult as you make it be.” Let me give you a few points to consider instead using Japanese as my model.
- Kanji (Chinese characters) – They’re like having a cheat sheet in the words themselves!
- Rarely wavering grammatical structure
- A limited number of sounds of which most exist in English
- Tons of media sources to study from
Of course there are a few fences to get over, but nothing that even resembles a wall if you’re studying the right way.
Now let’s consider a few hurdles in English.
- Exceptions to rules are almost the norm
- Fundamentally 3 tiers of vocabulary that mean the same thing (Earth, Terra-, Geo-)
- Spelling. The terrible, terrible spelling. (Phone?!)
- Phrasal verbs. They’re evil.
How kanji make you a rockstar
Imagine knowing what a word means without even knowing how to pronounce it. That’s what kanji can do for you. Now imagine being able to recognize every common kanji in only 2 or 3 months. That’s what the Heisig method can do for you.
Change the way you think about kanji – They aren’t an obstacle, they’re a tool.
Grammar is your friend
You don’t have to study Japanese grammar to master it. It’s pretty straightforward. A “rule” in Japanese grammar is typically that – A structure that is rarely broken. (And when I say “rarely”, I mean only 3 verbs in the entire language have unique forms)
You can study grammar if that’s what kind of learner you are, but it’s not necessary. I suggest using it as reinforcement to language you’ve already started to internalize. That’s how we do it in our first language – Listen, listen, listen, speak, study. We don’t really start studying our native grammar until we’re in our secondary and tertiary educational levels.
Become your favorite Japanese actor or actress
You can sound pretty good in Japanese with just a little bit of effort. Consider the roller coaster of expression that English is, and then consider that Japanese is at most half of that. There’s really only one sound in Japanese that we don’t fully use in English, and even that you can get away with by using its closest English equivalent. (I’m referring to the がぎぐげご range of sounds that sound like a nasalized ‘g’ / ‘n’ hybrid when spoken “correctly”. It’s easy enough to pick up, anyway.)
What I suggest is that you “play the part” of your favorite actor, actress, or TV personality. Choose someone you can be exposed to often, and mimic their speech characteristics. What you’re doing is actually imitating a native speaker, which is good practice for your pronunciation.
Did I mention there’s manga?
One of the best features of Japanese is the sheer amount of media that you can expose yourself to. Unfortunately, this may not be as true for other languages, but I can tell you that both Korean and Chinese offer similar, if not slightly different, native sources.
Imagine how fun elementary school would have been if we’d used comic books to learn. It’s effective, it’s scalable, and it’s fun. For whatever interest you may have, there are native materials out there for you to learn from. Language shouldn’t be tedious, after all.
Play to win, strive to acquire
The bottom line is that if you go into the game expecting to lose, you’ve already lost. If you think Japanese is an impossible hurdle to overcome, it’s going to stay that way for you (and you alone). I know it’s possible, because I speak it. And if you think I’m just an exceptional language learner, you should contact my old high school Spanish teacher and tell him my poor grades must have been a clerical error.
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{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
The nasalized version of the initial consonant in がぎぐげご is present in English: ŋ. It’s right there in the name of the language. It’s never syllable-initial, but we have it and use it a lot. The sounds in Japanese that English speakers don’t use are the uvular nasal (ん in certain contexts, like the end of 日本), the voiceless bilabial fricative (ふ), and the vowel う. ち is similar to the in “watch” but certainly not the same sound. あ, え, and お are all similar to English vowels but none match up exactly. い is a solid match, but it’s the only one. Just because Japanese phonology looks pretty simple doesn’t mean it is, just saying.
And by “simple” I mean “transparent and easy to master.”
This also depends on the regional dialect of the English speaker.
With the vowels, yes, but the consonants I listed are not found in native English speakers.
this post is rather inspiring
I hope so! It’s supposed to counter-attack the abundance of “Japanese is so hard” posts on the internet. But, like I said – It’s only hard if you have little confidence in your ability to accomplish. I don’t mean to give the impression that you can speak Japanese in a month and a half, but that with a little effort it shouldn’t be a battle, and it should actually be a fun process!
I’m inclined to agree with this post. Especially with the whole having a different mindset about kanji. However, lets not kid ourselves. While Japanese is definitely much easier than English in every aspect that you have listed, the amount of kanji make written Japanese hundreds of times harder than written English.
Although, I do remember reading somewhere that linguists agree that language is primarily speech. Many languages don’t even have a written form, which is why experts came to that conclusion, I guess. This doesn’t change the fact (at least, in my opinion!) that Japanese, as a language, is much easier than English despite having 2000+ kanji to memorize.
Also, and I think this is worth mentioning, there is some dispute about the Heisig method. I haven’t delved to deep into the issue, but I do remember reading something about not learning the proper meanings and whatnot. Personally, I’m more of a flash-card/rote/connect-the-meanings kind of guy
Anyways, excellent post.
“…the amount of kanji make written Japanese hundreds of times harder than written English.”
I used to think that way as well. But I learned to process them differently, and now, like I said – They’re like cheat sheets in themselves. Even if I don’t know the pronunciation of a kanji compound, I know the meaning of the kanji themselves, so I “cheated my way into” the same class as Chinese students who learn Japanese who have the luxury of not having to really worry about kanji. The pronunciation is simple enough to remember afterward.
I used to be a huge Heisig skeptic, but having gone through the process myself (not only in Japanese, but also in Chinese from the beginning) I can attest to the utility of the method.
Great post. I agree — it was not _that_ hard to learn Japanese, just took a lot of time and effort. Learning to love kanji for the useful chunk of meaning that it is, learning how to break down sentences into mathematical-style equations until I was comfortable with them, was surprisingly rewarding from day one.
I just stumbled across your website today! It’s a great read, I’ll definitely be coming back for more!!
I used to shit myself worrying about how to memorise the Kanji characters (they’r slightly different from the Chinese ones I’m used to). But now that I have relaxed and just ‘gone with the flow’, I find memorizing them more natural and simple.
I understand that Kanji is a great tool in learning Japanese, for me, as I’m a Chinese, Kanji isn’t hard for me (except that Kanji is in traditional Chinese and I am only familiar with reading/writing modern Chinese) – reading, that is; writing without referring is a different matter altogether – except for the onyoumi/kunyoumi readings.
How on earth am I supposed to memorise them, I do not know. And, how would I know which reading to use, for example 男子 can be either ‘dango’ or ‘danshi’. Umm, do you have any tips please Alex-san?
Doumo arigatou gozaimashita.
Glad to have you around yuki no phantom.
As for onyomi/kunyomi distinctions, I suggest just reading a lot. There’s really nothing else you can do. 男子 is really only ‘danshi’. The only time it’s pronounced ‘dango’ is as a joke for the title of 花より男子.
Mostly, compound kanji pronunciations stay the same, except for a few which you have to digest in context. For example, 今日は. It could be pronounced ‘こんにちは’ but is usually ‘きょうは’. And 明日. When you hear somewhere like the news it’ll usually be ‘あす’.
The key is exposure!
I’ve subscribed to your feed and read a number of your posts but the one thing that gets me is where exactly to begin. AJATT suggests beginning with the kanji, somewhere else says the hiragana since there are so few of them; I’ve listened to a little Pimsleur (before I was told to avoid it) and picked up a few phrases, but with all the suggestions and warnings I feel more than itimidated. I took french in high school and hated it but that was eons ago (I’m in my 30’s now) and I only became really interested in learning Japanese around this time last year. I feel lost, really. The Heisig method doesn’t really work for me. I can’t imagine the character/story link. I did find one place that works like a SRS, manythings.org/japanese, and I have to say the few kanji I’ve studied there have pretty much stuck in my head (surprise). But I this a good thing? Will I really be able to recognize more complicated kanji as I progress? Some of those characters have crazy stroke counts. I’m trying to do this everyday but have to admit I can be lazy about studying, especially after being on the phone for 8 hours at work. I do the immersion trick to an extent whereas I love japanese dramas (featuring Arashi members) as well as the variety shows. Am I starting in the right place? HELP! BTW, where are you located? Stateside?
Hey mswashu, thanks for stopping by. I hope this reply will help alleviate your conundrum.
You can start off wherever you feel most comfortable. Even if you’re studying inefficiently in the beginning, you’ll soon find your groove and make corrections.
I recommend starting off with the Genki 1 textbook. Although I’m not a fan of the textbook format myself, I do see a certain utility in the textbook structure. The way I suggest studying it is to “mine” the sentences. Just worry about recognition at first, to get the ball rolling. Don’t focus on interpreting grammar, just try to pick out some of the rules yourself as you go through full, complete sentences. Don’t study the terms in isolation.
While you’re at it, pick up the Genki 1 CDs too. Shadow the Japanese conversations on the CDs, and adjust your pitch and accent to the audio. Work on shadowing for 30 minutes at a time. You can shadow several times a day. When you’re not shadowing, work on reading and internalizing the sentences. Practice writing out the sentences in the book by hand while you say aloud each word you write. Skip almost all of the repetitive exercises and just focus on the complete sentences (conversations, reading passages, and grammar examples).
That will give you a great foundation. You can probably finish off the book pretty fast (a couple of months). If Heisig doesn’t work for you, don’t force it on yourself. You might be able to come back to it a little later when Japanese looks a little bit more familiar to you.
P.S. I’m originally from San Diego, but I haven’t been back to the States for a while. This is my 4th year in Japan, and I also lived in Korea for a couple of years. I’m moving back to Korea next year.
Thanks for the quick reply, Alex (my son’s middle name is Alex). I saw the Genki mentioned elsewhere but wasn’t sure; I’ll definitely give it a go. It’s difficult to fall for something you can’t grasp as quickly as you would like. I check my feeds daily, so I hope to read you again soon, and as for your location….I’m SO jealous, having two kids, Japan is only a dream for me. Keep writing; I’ll check in again soon. Oyasuminasai!
I totally agree that Japanese is easy to learn, even though I’m still a beginner. As a matter of fact, I’m learning it quicker than I’m learning Spanish, which is quite unbelievable only because Spanish is considered to the “easiest” language to learn for an English speaker. So my brother and I are learning Japanese like crazy.
This is my first time visiting this blog and I like what I see. I add you on my list.
Thanks Nomadic. I’m glad you’re finding Japanese a smooth ride. Keep on top of it and you’ll be proficient in no time. (Just don’t underestimate it and take a long break from it, or you’ll find you’ve regressed a little bit!)
Hope to see you back around again soon!
You mention chinese and korean materials….do you have any awesome chinese material recommendations? it seems like there’s tons of video available in *cantonese*, but not mandarin and i’m looking for mandarin. thanks for the tips
mysoju.com has a bunch of Taiwanese dramas, but you might end up with a Taiwanese dialect of Mandarin as a result. I don’t know where to get mainland Mandarin stuff except if you buy it from sites like yesasia.com. A lot of times Chinese movies come with both Mandarin and Cantonese audio tracks.
Alex, great article. While I won’t say that learning Japanese is easy (since people generally tend to confuse that with spending very little time learning), it most certainly can be fun and is very rewarding. I think it is also important to be careful with sounds. While they are very limited, many of them require different movements than the English language.
Just the inspiration I needed tonight. Kanji as a cheat sheet…absolutely brilliant statement there. It’s true!
I agree. Japanese isn’t as hard as it is made out to be. Japanese can be easy if you learn about cultural and social conditioning. This greatly helped me – I lived in Japan for 10 years. To speak the language well you need to become Japanese to a degree.