What is the main difficulty in learning Japanese for English speakers?
I know English as a second language, and I have been learning Indonesian for 4 years. I have the desire to learn Japanese but I'm afraid I will fail. How much time will it take to start speaking Japanese if to learn it from scratch?
7 answers from our tutors
From my experiences in teaching Japanese, the first challenging thing is characters. The next level of challenging is words which have same pronunciations but different meanings. The time to progress really depends on people. In my class, I will help you to practice and guide you on how you enjoy your learning or practice in your spare time as well.
The nihongo alphabet is different in English alphabet if you write your name in nihongo and i am english person i cannot understant, but if you write nihongo in English alphabet i can read it so that i can understand. ARIGATO GUSAIMAS!
Anecdotally (from personal experience) I taught myself hiragana and katakana in under a month or so. Utilizing technology to aid in improving personal skills and whatnot is an amazing pro of today's age. Learning any basic Japanese phrases and essential terms may take a few months or constant, focused studying. I teach Japanese for beginners, one of the many subjects I teach. Having Japanese-learning experience from Osaka University, Tokyo International Christian University, and UC Davis is a valuable memory to pull from when teaching my students this language of the rising sea.
I believe learning Japanese half a year would be enough to bring you to be able to speak and write basic Japanese. It may take more than a year to be able to speak fluently especially including intermediate level words and letters.
Hello! Well if you are learning from scratch I can assure you that if you put in the effort you can master both kana in one month, that is how much time it took me to understand hiragana and katakana. If you have a strong desire to study and don't get discouraged easily you will succeed in Japanese.
It`s not easy, but possible. The language structure is different compare with English. If you are ready to study, have motivation, you definitely can learn Japanese!
I think it takes a lot of time to perfect your skills to speak Japanese:( but it depends on your motivation! I describe some difficulties that foreign learners face. 1. Grammatical structure is totally different. e.g. I gave him a present. - 私は（I）彼に(him)プレゼントを(a present)あげた(gave) It is difficult to speak grammatically correctly, but we don't care about the order of words, so you can express your thought even in the order of English sentences. 2. Kanji, Katakana, Hiragana We have a large number of letters in the Japanese language. So if you want to speak perfectly, it will be tough to learn all things. However, in terms of conversation, letters have nothing to do. In conclusion, I think it is not difficult to get the skills to speak decent Japanese, but perfect Japanese is too difficult.
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If a person is introvert type, dont get chance to talk with japanese people but have some knowledge on paper, how can he/she improve their conversation skill?
Best answer
CDCem Devrim
Best way to improve Conversation skills is talking but id olyou are intorvert don t wory you can always wacth thing on japanase . Creat words in your head then try to translate in to japanese . The deal is 1. Using the knowlage you get . 2. İs how much you have to dealwhit that language in daily basis . Watxh rhings on japanese whit subtitales it will help .
Best answer
It depends on the student, but I usually use 'Genki' or 'Minna no Nihongo' textbook series. I also use some textbooks printed out in my country, in my native language, to improve my explanations when working with students who have the same native tongue as me (actually, I often work with beginner level students originally from my country). However, I'm very interested in finding some good materials for teaching elementary school children. This is why I will follow this thread closely, hoping to find some inspiration. ^^
