Hardest Thing about Japanese

just-joe

What is the hardest thing for you about learning Japanese?

I think the hardest thing for me is knowing how to say things. Ok this might sound retarded but... Knowing words and grammar is all well and good but I'm always wondering, is this the way a Japanese person would say it? What is the Japanese way to say such and such a phrase.

For example, for ages I was stuck on trying to say "how are you", for when you meet people. Cos no one says "o genki desu ka?", but then you just get used to the Japanese way of not asking a direct question like that, its more on the weather or something.

So yeah that, and obviously all the kanji!

raz789

I find the Kanji pretty simple, mnemonics are helpful here.
A good method is by James W.Heisig. He wrote Remembering the Kanji.

For me it's the readings of each Kanji and probably getting your head around the grammar. Forgetting how English works and learning how Japanese works. It's best to forget about translating and more about understanding.

Oh and get some native material, if you want to know how to say what.

HugoBradyBrown

The hardest thing about learning Japanese, unless you are only going to talk to your teacher and to other gaijin, is that you will not have any idea of what they really think, and will get into all sorts of tangles as a result.

Leave aside your difficulties with the on and kun readings, the big issue is that the people themselves remain inscrutable, smiling at you, agreeing with everything you say and then, when you imagine you have reached a meeting of minds, they say "chotto", the deadliest word in their vocabulary. And even 'chotto' as a lexical item doesn't really mean what they intend by it, but it means you're sunk, and that everything is impossible and nothing is agreed!

Connotation is all, and the foreigner will never grasp it. It's as if Perry & MacArthur never got there!

just-joe

raz789 wrote: »

I find the Kanji pretty simple, mnemonics are helpful here.
A good method is by James W.Heisig. He wrote Remembering the Kanji.

For me it's the readings of each Kanji and probably getting your head around the grammar. Forgetting how English works and learning how Japanese works. It's best to forget about translating and more about understanding.

Oh and get some native material, if you want to know how to say what.

Bought the book but didn't get past the first few chapters. It doesn't teach readings, and so if you have to learn all the meanings first and then the readings, it will take a long time? How long have/will you spend on remembering the meaning and readings?

just-joe

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

The hardest thing about learning Japanese, unless you are only going to talk to your teacher and to other gaijin, is that you will not have any idea of what they really think, and will get into all sorts of tangles as a result.

I've never had any problems with chotto but I do agree with the general point - it's very hard to know what Japanese people are thinking!

raz789

just-joe wrote: »

Bought the book but didn't get past the first few chapters. It doesn't teach readings, and so if you have to learn all the meanings first and then the readings, it will take a long time? How long have/will you spend on remembering the meaning and readings?

http://forum.koohii.com/
This forum is pretty good, most learners here are using or have used Heisig's method. There is simply no method that's good enough to learn both at the same time. Pure repetition seems to be the only way to learn both simultaneously as even using mnemonics will just lead to confusion as some Kanji share On and Kun readings

Learning the readings in context(having a sentence with the kanji in it) is recommended by a lot of people. And personally I see that as a way to go.

He does mention the book is only for remembering how to write the kanji, and that in itself is pretty outstanding as you simply only have to write the once or twice.
It'll take as long as you want it to take. See if you can remember how to write any of the kanji from the first few chapters.

Also look into something called and SRS or Spaced Repetition System, really helped me so far.
Anki is the most preferred.

FruitLover

Pitch accent. It's the one thing I don't think I'll ever be able to really master.

just-joe wrote: »

Bought the book but didn't get past the first few chapters. It doesn't teach readings, and so if you have to learn all the meanings first and then the readings, it will take a long time? How long have/will you spend on remembering the meaning and readings?

Learning kanji is going to take a long time regardless of method. However, Heisig reckons that it's far more useful to first concentrate on learning the meanings of kanji (and associate the meaning with the visual shape) and I agree. Think about how often you need to be able to read something in Japanese out loud, versus how often you mainly need to know the meaning.


This is a little off-topic, but here's a more detailed explanation of why I agree with Heisig:

Imagine, for the sake of argument, that it would take a dedicated student 2 years to completely learn the Jouyou kanji list (i.e. meanings and readings). If they went about it the usual way (learning meanings and readings together), then after 1 year we could assume they can read roughly half the Jouyou kanji. They'll be able to get the gist of things, read basic signs and parts of menus, but they won't be able to fully comprehend anything substantial (e.g. newspapers or magazines). It will take them almost the full 2 years to be able to comprehend a given newspaper article in its entirety. If the same student concentrates on only the meanings for the first year (deferring the readings to the second year), it's reasonable to assume they'll know the meanings of all Jouyou kanji within a year. This means that, although they wouldn't be able to read a newspaper out loud, they will be able to understand the meaning of any article, which is far more important.

Having said this, what's far more important about Heisig's method is the 'visual memory' method he teaches and, to a lesser but still significant extent, the order in which the kanji are learned. I'll leave off explaining these points as IIRC Heisig tackles them in the intro of his book, but it's worth noting that nothing stops anyone from learning kanji readings at the same time as learning the kanji following Heisig's method, it's just not the way Heisig recommends. Even if you study this way, you still get two primary benefits (visual memory method and kanji order).

raz789

Post above me said it better than I could :P
Well arguments about Heisig's methods have happened a lot on many forums, some agree, some disagree you just gotta find what works for you.
Oh and take Heisig's meanings of each Kanji with a grain of salt, his keywords are sometimes, well just keywords, they don't define all the meanings. But this does not matter as when you learn readings(in context hopefully) you'll be learning the meanings too.
Love how this topic derailed.

Pitch accents are probably impossible without a native speaker.

FruitLover

raz789 wrote: »

Pitch accents are probably impossible without a native speaker.

I'm surrounded by native speakers, but it doesn't help your accent when you live in Tokyo, moved there from Hokkaido, work with a bunch of Okinawans and have a girlfriend from Osaka! :eek:

just-joe

FruitLover, meant to write back ages ago but was a bit busy. The internet definitely doesn't need another "Heisig or not argument", but I'm going to scratch down my thoughts anyways..

Think about how often you need to be able to read something in Japanese out loud, versus how often you mainly need to know the meaning.

Hmm this maybe counts for road signs or similar where the meaning is more important than the reading, and the meaning is quite simple. Apart from that I think being able to read the kanji properly is fairly important. There are so many of them with similar meanings or meanings that change depending on context (as well as compounds). The meanings of kanji as with words are intricate and complicated, so I would say that if you can't read it, then you probably can't understand the meaning.

Out of interest though, can someone who finished Heizig and "knows the meanings" read a book, not an advanced one but junior high school or whatever, and actually understand it? Or the example that you give, read a newspaper?

I also think it would be really hard to learn kanji out of context, and without example sentences.

Ok that was shorter than expected but anyways hope it makes sense.

hibby

just-joe wrote: »

Out of interest though, can someone who finished Heizig and "knows the meanings" read a book, not an advanced one but junior high school or whatever, and actually understand it? Or the example that you give, read a newspaper?

I don't know the answer for sure, but it seems unlikely that learning the "meaning" of individual kanji could allow someone to read. Many (most?) compound words (consisting of more than one kanji) can't really be guessed from the meanings of the individual kanji.

If I'm right (and someone who has used the RTK method can correct me if I'm wrong), Heisig would serve as a foundation, making it easier to learn all the vocabulary you need in order to be able to read a book.

Just Like Heaven

Even if the Heisig method leaves your reading of books and papers to be desired. And in the end, to really be able to read and use Kanji you need to apply the heisig method in conjuection with other kanji study. But surely the speed at which you initally learn the kanji is enough to justify using the heisig method anyway? Especially if your not being immersed in day to day dialogue.

fricatus

fewtinsoffroth wrote: »

But surely the speed at which you initally learn the kanji is enough to justify using the heisig method anyway?

I think this is the key thing. I found that with Heisig, I learned about 20 a day, which is an unbelievable rate under any other method. It also gives you a real feel as to how the bits fit together and indeed morph into slightly different shapes when they are in different positions within a kanji.

I've found that when I learn a new word now, I already know the kanji that make it up, so it takes away the need to deal with a tangle of strokes in addition to the pronunciation and meaning.

thechanger

@FruitLover

Interesting working environment – what line of work are you in?

funky penguin

FruitLover wrote: »

I'm surrounded by native speakers, but it doesn't help your accent when you live in Tokyo, moved there from Hokkaido, work with a bunch of Okinawans and have a girlfriend from Osaka! :eek:

Good lord!!! I find it difficult with people from the North of my prefecture!

I've heard the Okinawan one can be very hard to understand, but I'd imagine it's all relative.

The pitch thing I've found I ignored, believing it was going to be easy. It's come back to bite me in the ass tbh and despite knowing how to say a few words, my pronunciation is obviously causing difficulties for the people I speak to.