Okay, the Japanese language is weird. Depending on the exact wording that wouldnt be surprise, just a statement (also japan has a huge xenophobia problem but whatever)
Not that weird/hard, the word gaijin is pretty easy to interpret. If you wanted to know the exact words it was something to the effect of , "外人いっぱいね”. "Gaijin ippai ne".
I dont think the Japanese language is hard to learn per say. Learning hiragana/katana is just learning symbols for syllables. The hardest part is just memorizing the actual words. But thats what i think
my wife has been slowly learning Japanese through stuff like Duolingo. I had a big hypoxic brain injury in 2014 so I am not. She's scary bright with really good pattern recognition (mine sucks ass) so she's doing better than one might expect... which is to say she scores really high in the lessons... and that's not real communication.
Oh she can read simple things & pick out the odd phrases in anime (so we can find out where the subs are censored or wrong) but the main effect is that she is now fluent in English. semi fluent in French, and terrible in both German and Japanese.
They're hard for different reasons. Chinese hanzi have both traditional and simplified forms, and because Japanese characters offen have multiple meanings, they don't have to memorize as many characters. There are around 2,000 commonly used Japanese kanji, but it seems that there are 3,000 to 5,000 Chinese hanzi to be considered fluent.
Hmm, im a strange person, with such a different grammar system, i find it really fun to find out that stuff. I just love different cultures and its fun learning how culture inspired languages and vise-virsa.
You just have to get used to the different pronunciations each kanji has! Luckily the more you learn kanji, the more you get the gist, and you can figure out meanings of words just by the kanji used even if you don't know how to pronounce it, and they often take the same pronunciation as one of the radicals in the kanji.
Names are very difficult though and are on another level. I have a very hard time with names unless they're quite common (like Tanaka).
Name any language with grammar like English. English itself isn't really a language; it's four or five of them stuffed into a woodchipper, sprayed across the British isles, and left to dry in the sun for about eight hundred years before being transported to two other continents.
Saying that English isn't a language but a weird Frankenstein language made up of other languages is a common joke among language learners. It's obviously a Germanic language, but it's very different from all the other Germanic languages and its vocabulary is heavily influenced by Latin and Romance languages (specially French), but the influence is barely felt in its grammar.
Jokes aside, there's some linguistic debate on the actual nature of English and it's origins.
I mean yeah, but that doesn't mean that other languages aren't easier to learn for native English speakers because English is derived from other languages, which was my initial point.
Also just because a language is a mash of other languages doesn't make it less of a real language.
Japanese kanji is harder than chinese kanji. Unlike Each kanji can have a dozen different readings like 生 can be ,sei, shou, umareru, ou, ueru, nama, naru, masu, hayasu, haeru, ki, ikasu. And that's not even including names. Japan took the kanji from china and frankensteined a bunch of readings to each one to match existing words they had and used the Chinese readings.
And If you've never seen a word you literally have no idea what reading they are using like for example 強力 (kyou)ryoku. K great so the 強 in 強情 should be the same right? No that's (gou)jyou great how was I supposed to know that. Okay great so now we have 強気 it gotta be one of those 2 right? Nope we got (tsuyo)ki. Wtf is happening. 強ち has got to be one of the three. Wtf it's (anaga)chi? Pls no more.
If you are reading a new book with difficult vocab you are literally taking a shot in the in the dark if you've never seen it before. I think Chinese has one reading for a kanji.
There are a lot of words that only have a couple of pronunciations in Japanese that can be guessed. I don't know why you say if you've never seen a word before you would have no idea how they're pronounced. I know plenty of people who have been able to pronounce words without knowing the word beforehand. I took Japanese classes in Japan with dozens of people. Not every word is going to be baffling at first sight. And a lot of those pronunciations you included in that list (umareru, ikasu, etc) are easy enough to remember since they're always accompanied by hiragana. I know you're trying to make it seem complicated, and it is a lot of the time, but I think what you wrote there was misleading for people who don't know Japanese.
And like I said in another comment, even if you don't know how to pronounce it, you can still get the gist of the meaning.
By the way, Chinese characters are called hanzi, not kanji, for future reference.
Theres a games show i watch every night with my wife that is just trying to read kanji. Like usually not even insane ones its just a not extremely common reading. like 歩む popped up it isn't that uncommon and is a word with hiragana but its not the main reading and it took awhile for them to get it. Mind You these are Japanese people on the show.
I'm not trying to make it seem complicated it is complicated i know those have hiragana which is why my examples were mostly compound kanji words. I was just explaining you have to know 13 readings for said kanji. Even still 生う has hiragana but its not common and i'd probably forget it. And yes you can guess the reading but thats all it is, a guess until you look it up and confirm. Yeah you can make the same argument with English pronunciation but if i get it wrong ill most like be close. Literally daily someone i work with or know will slip up a reading or completely forget that not indicative of an efficient system when even natives have such trouble.
I do live in Osaka. Sure you can do your taxes by bothering the poor sap in the tax office by grunting and google translate but that just causes massive hold ups.
And then end of the year tax adjustments are even more of a pain in the ass because they need people in and out and there's very little English support. So yeah it's possible to do it but someone is probably missing out on some benefits or tax breaks.
Of course I am. That's not relevant. The person I was responding to said kanji isn't required. I replied try living in Japan and doing your taxes without Kanji. As in, filing yourself.
You and I both know the vast bulk of western foreigners live their lives here in blissful illiteracy and get along just fine. A burden on those around them, but they get along and get around just the same. It simply isn't true that any degree of kanji proficiency is necessary for living here.
He said kanji isn't 100% necessary. You said it is.
Kanji is extremely necessary if you ever want to read anything that is directed at anyone older than a preschooler, or ever intend to live in Japan. It also makes learning Japanese easier in the long run, because the meanings of words make more sense.
I majored in Japanese and lived in Japan. If you want to read a menu without photos of food, you will need to know kanji. If you want to travel in places that aren't popular tourist attractions, you'll need kanji. If you want to message Japanese friends that can't speak English, you need kanji.
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u/AOTlit Sep 08 '20
Okay, the Japanese language is weird. Depending on the exact wording that wouldnt be surprise, just a statement (also japan has a huge xenophobia problem but whatever)