Is Japanese Easy?

Japanese teacher

「へ～、そうですね。日本語は難しいですね」

My young Canadian english

"...whaat, crazy, Japanese sure is difficult eh?"

Common english

"wow, yea. Japanese sure is difficult isn't it?"

On average this has been said to me at least once a day for the last 8months.

...But I just realized..

We say japanese is difficult, the Japanese also say japanese is difficult; but, we're saying two different things. In this context, Japanese's 'difficult' says that it's impossible; our 'difficult' says that it takes time and effort. The distinction here is that we think learning japanese is totally doable and very possible to become fluent ( very proficient), whereas many Japanese believe we are fighting a long and difficult, if not impossible, journey. We aren't!
I kept on getting told by, bless their souls, sympathizing Japanese that japanese is so "difficult"

 

...and I started to believe it...

 

Because I believed it I found that I had given up on identifying patterns, I no longer looked forward to speaking, I stopped drilling vocab, and I stopped practicing kanji. Before long I was asking myself why I ever moved to Japan to study japanese for a year when I'm an economics major (which is totally a wrong question, another post about that later). The truth is that it all started with believing that I was fighting an impossible fight, that learning japanese is realistically impossible.
 

...The good news is... 

 

that this is plainly flat out wrong.1 year ago I didn't know a lick of japanese, and just the other day I was talking about the recent national election in Japan and about the political and legislation levels of Canada .... in JAPANESE. No I wasn't sitting with my legs crossed, sipping wine, eating cheese and staring up into the starry milky way with a distant gaze... I was in a family restaurant where hot-dogs and meatloaf (hamburger patties) are served as a sort of delicacy. I probably had meatloaf sauce smeared over my face as I sat there making slow and steady conversation about politics trying every possible angle of explanation I could think of - often you'll venture down a road of explanation and find that the grammar you've chosen.doesn't.work. I want you to know that

  

...THE POINT ISN'T THE MEATLOAF SAUCE...

 


it's that learning Japanese is not impossible (not even improbable!). It is very possible and very realistic to learn japanese in a condensed and rapid way. I'm not even venturing to say that you must jump off the deep end and only speak japanese 24/7 no, I'm in Japan and haven't for one day "only spoken japanese" and I'm able to get to this level and keep on.

Bless the Japanese souls, they sympathize with us so nicely saying that japanese is 'just oh so difficult'; learning japanese is difficult, but only by our meaning of the word.

Difficult is 1)that it takes time and effort and 2) it will be accomplished soon

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What do you think? Am I right? Am I wrong? Have you found yourself in this situation while learning Japanese in Japan? 

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Next>>>Returning Home

Have you read about our first days in Japan yet?Day 1 (Travel from the Airport)

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Ben and Kailey lived in Japan not too long ago and also visit Kyoto every year.

Ben is developing a Japanese Practice site. It's current main functions are:
1. a Flash Card system that features a leveling system where you must answer correctly and "level up"to gain new cards, receive money and buy new decks - anime decks included!
2. Fill in the Blank system where you can choose to focus on particle practice or verb practice etc.

Japanese Practice Blog is here. Check out the Japanese Practice site here