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[Deleted member 17706]

Wat could be more objective than averaging out the amount of time it takes for students to learn each language?

But you're certainly right that motivation is a huge factor. I struggled through three years of high school French because who cares about French? But learning Japanese so I can play Phantasy Star IV and Lunar 2? (This is back when games took years to get localized, if at all) Yeah, suddenly I'm majoring in Language Studies.

The thing is, the only people who will ever become truly fluent in a language other than their native one are few and far between. They are, by definition, above average. Not only that, but there's really no way to accurately gauge "time spent studying" in my opinion--especially when it's self reported.

This may seem like I'm stating the obvious, but I think motivation and immersion are the biggest factors in learning a language. No amount of apparent difficulty will stand in the way of someone who is motivated and has the resources to practice. When I first started studying Japanese, I became quite obsessed with it and was lucky enough to have lots of opportunities to use it and consume media/literature in the language. I took and passed the JLPT1 without issue after less than three years since beginning my studies. Others have done the same even more quickly. I imagine most Americans would struggle with Spanish or some other relatively "easy" language if they spent the same amount of time just studying from textbooks and high school or college classes and weren't particularly in love with the language.

How on earth can you possibly measure objectively how difficult a language is to learn? There are so many factors at play, including individual factors that will vary wildly between people. Not everybody learns the same way, and this is one of the things I deal with all the time in language instruction. Some people take to Japanese very naturally and pick up everything rapidly, some people struggle a bit more, and some people just need different techniques than others to grasp concepts.

Also, every time I read one of those lists that ranks languages by difficulty, the only thing they ever say about Japanese is that it's hard because you have to learn thousands of characters. I don't think I've ever seen anything else mentioned, which strikes me as really strange.

You teach Japanese, right? How long have you been doing that?

Personally, I look at learning a language as learning a new way to think--a new way to view the world. It took me a couple of months after initially studying to realize this, though, but I imagine that it's a necessary conclusion everyone must reach to ever truly call a language your own. After all, it's incredibly inefficient (and ultimately unnatural) to always be translating back and forth in your mind from your native language to another. Most of my Japanese friends can never seem to get past this "translation" stage when it comes to learning English.

What is true, is that Japanese (and Chinese, etc) has a much higher barrier to entry because you have to learn new writing systems.

Is it, though? Honestly, from my very limited studies of French, the fact that it used the same Roman alphabet as English is one of the biggest factors that confounded me. You have to completely re-learn the rules for a writing system you thought you already know, which was extremely confusing for me (especially when you think of the English words that originated in French but happen to be pronounced completely differently than their French versions). At least with Japanese, I didn't have any preconceptions in regards to how the writing system should be read and pronounced.

Studying kanji takes time, but it's not difficult to do rote memorization: it's just boring as hell.

Really? It was the complete opposite for me. I tackled Kanji with an avarice I hadn't known before.

It felt like a real-life progress bar that unlocked new rewards the more I worked. The feeling of progress was immensely satisfying when you could breeze through a book or game or manga that you previously struggled with or could barely read at all only months earlier.

 

[Raw64life]

Main thing that has always kept me from learning Japanese is finding enough practical uses for it to keep me from forgetting what I'm learning.

 

[Jijidasu]

Bravely Default is not the game with which to learn Japanese. Abandon all hope ye who enter!

For reference, the first game I cleared in Japanese was Majora's Mask, Kanji dictionary open in my lap.

Couldn't agree more. BD is absolutely not the kind of game you want to be learning Japanese for. Outside of games that use the type of vocabulary that is pushed in Bravely Default it is highly impractical, given the setting.

I've got nearly a decade of Japanese and half a dozen qualifications in the language and it even pushed me at times to read some of the Kanji that showed up.

If your interest in the language is purely to play games it won't hurt but you'll sure as hell be playing with your dictionary more than the game (although I originally got interested in Japanese because of FFXI, I will say that having an interest outside of games will help you along. Not to mention where the language can take you!)

 

[Stuart444]

What about Japanese Dramas? Do they speak more normal Japanese in them? Lately I've been getting into them a lot.

Depends on the drama but I'd say so.

Some of my fave dramas for reference is Hana Yori Dango, Gokusen and Kimi Wa Petto

 

[mantidor]

How on earth can you possibly measure objectively how difficult a language is to learn? There are so many factors at play, including individual factors that will vary wildly between people. Not everybody learns the same way, and this is one of the things I deal with all the time in language instruction. Some people take to Japanese very naturally and pick up everything rapidly, some people struggle a bit more, and some people just need different techniques than others to grasp concepts.

Also, every time I read one of those lists that ranks languages by difficulty, the only thing they ever say about Japanese is that it's hard because you have to learn thousands of characters. I don't think I've ever seen anything else mentioned, which strikes me as really strange.

I'm kind of a poliglot by now, besides my native spanish, I know english obviously and portuguese, and although my japanese is really rusty I think I could defend myself in Tokyo. My conclusion is that all languages are pretty much the same regarding difficulty, if they are simple in one area they are going to be really difficult in other. Languages are what we use to describe the world, the world is pretty much the same everywhere, it really would make no sense for one language to be more complex than other.

What is true is that no language is easy, you need to put lots of time and effort into it, I hate how we lose the ability of language learning at such early age, the daughter of a friend has been living here in Brasil for just a year and she speaks better portuguese than any of us foreigners.

 

[Killer Yakuza B]

I do not know if videogames are the way of learning japanese, my teacher always said that manga and anime were really terrible teachers, so I guess she'd say the same for games. The language has indeed very simple grammar, but what it lacks in complexity in that area it makes up in spades in others, like politeness levels, the previously mentioned written system, and little nuances in the way people talk. I really wouldn't like to end up sounding like a teenage girl which seems like what would happen if I were to learn from anime.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any sense to me. I taught myself English by playing Zelda, watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons and trying to read what few magazines I could get my hands on, yet I don't go around saying "Dude, eastmost peninsula is the secret, cowabunga!" In fact, if I can be a bit arrogant, I'd say my English is better than some of the native speakers in this forum, judging by the insane amount of "would of" and "your/you're" I see posted everyday. Sure, Japanese is very different from English, but motivation is key to learning anything and whatever does it for you is good. I wanted to understand Michelangelo so I learned English.

Also, there are way worse things you could sound like than teenage girls.