What Makes Japanese So Hard to Learn?

Japanese can be very hard to learn from the perspective of an English native speaker. Why is that? Some people even label Japanese as the most difficult language to learn. In this video, I'll be going into some of the reasons why Japanese is so hard to learn. From the grammar to the syntax, and the writing system!

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[shinkirou]

Ever consider becoming a teacher? You're so good at explaining things simply and making things super interesting. So inspiring!

[rippenthecatadventures]

i think you are so talented in languages, keep it up.

[eddyng]

With chinese culture background to learn Japanese is much more easier to pick up. As some pronunciations are similar and saving a lot of time to practice writing Chinese characters.

[TheMakoyou]

"Orange wo kutta" - almost slang.
"Orange wo tabeta - a slightly rough way of saying.
"Orange wo tabe masita" - a polite way of saying.
"Orange wo itadaki masita" - More polite way of saying.
All of English translation is "I ate an orange”
Moreover, the Japanese language often omits the subject. We can be talking to someone for an hour and only use the equivalent of the word "I" (Watashi or Ore) once or twice. (Sometimes not even once.)
One more thing to add.
"Orange wo tabemasita ka?" ←The normal way to say it.
"Orange wo mesiagari masita ka?" ←This is the most polite way to ask someone.
The English translation of both is "Did you eat the orange?”
And of course, there is no subject in either Japanese. In fact, adding a subject would make the Japanese language look unnatural. Basically, we don't add "you" to someone who is talking in front of you. It's mostly added when talking about someone who is not there, like he or she.

But when I was in junior high school, I despaired at the wide range of meanings of "take" and "get" and gave up on learning them because there were too many idioms for both. English is also difficult.

[ADHARA]

For some Chinese characters, they do have different pronunciation and different meaning which called 多音多意字. It is kinda similar to Japanese, where you have to memorize how to pronounce it when it pairs with a different set of other characters to form a word.

[Inamichan]

I’d love to watch anime without English subtitles and read manga without waiting for it to come out in English but now I’m terrified 😂😭
I only know English and sometimes I can barely speak that. I’m so jealous of your ability to learn languages.

[hinaet]

You are a genius!!! I'm a fan now!!

[uwanttono]

Grace, I just love your infectious nature and curiosity when it comes to learning languages! I wish I had your ability!! You are awesome girl!!!!

[hex__xx]

It's ironic that the three languages I love the most have different structures:
My mother tongue: Arabic VSO
My college major: English SVO
What I'm learning: Japanese SOV
But I'm still gonna go for that 日本語 anyway. Thank you Grace!

[nicoleyoshihara]

Japanese is so difficult haha. The grammar, politeness levels and different alphabets combined. You can do it! I'm learning it to. It's difficult but so rewarding once you learn ^_^❤ Also I'm interested in Chinese too ❤

[kisa]

Your so intelligent! I’m sure you work super hard and it’s so encouraging for me to learn a language!

[nguyenvandangkhoa]

Hello from Vietnam, currently there are alot of Canto Mando and Japanese speakers live in my city, so I'm trying to learn those language, your videos are so useful and helpful

[daweitao]

Great video, really clear and packed with information. I heard some of the Japanese pronunciations for the Chinese characters can also be similar to the Cantonese pronunciation instead of the Mandarin so I wondered if knowing Cantonese might help at times too. With Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese you are going to know a LOT of ways to say/read one character :)

[jassy-sq]

I have to say this video peeked my interest into Japanese even more. I like challenges in life and Japanese seems like a huge challenge. Thank you for the enjoyable video.

[proudasiangirl]

You are a very intelligent person. I understood everything you talked about since I've also studied Japanese. I found it to be fairly easy transitioning from Cantonese and Mandarin. The hardest part for me was the kanji. Also, I was confused as to when to use "shi" or "yon" for #4 and "shiji" or "nana" or #7.

[terencesim]

I fully agree with you. I'm learning Japanese now, and face the same struggles. The Kanji part is easy enough, since I know Chinese; it's the grammar that kills me, esp when the sentence gets longer with adjectival phrases, multiple verbs with past tense and negative forms. Ouch!

[rub]

aww you are rly smart!! love from hong kong!

[madmax]

Here before your channel blows up too
1 Million subscribers. Best of luck to you and your channel keep working hard you have really good charisma keep posting 🙏.

[checkzombie]

Japanese grammar reminds me of ancient Chinese grammar, ancient Chinese grammar feel like a complete different language, that I have or forced to learn when I was in middle school.

[noidea]

It may be a good language learning consequence from English, Chinese and then Japanese 🤣
In my opinion, after learning Japanese, Chinese and English is so similar except for the writing system. Both English and Chinese tell things by putting words together in sequence. After knowing Kanji in Chinese, it will be much easier to learn those in Japanese, so now you can focus on the other parts of the language. 🤣 The particles you mentioned are like prepositions in English to me, both can alter the meaning. Also, Japanese can alter meaning by changing or appending characters to the words, not only to express the happening sequence like tenses in English, but also a lot more other meanings, and the changing forms of the words are more regular than English (other than tenses, consider words like “real”, “realise”, “realisation” although this morphing of word does not exist in Japanese but the concept is similar). Actually, I quite treat Japanese a language in between Chinese and English, but of course there is a lot more in Japanese which is another story🤣

Anyway, keep it up with your language learning!
頑張って！
加油加油！