Shenmue Dojo

Zoltor wrote:Japanese is possibly the hardest language in the world to learn

Depends of which aspect you're talking about. Write and read fluently the Japanese looks very complicated but understand orally is known to be pretty affordable for any motivated person. But maybe it's different for people who speak a native language with some accent.

Anyway, they have Lord Tess so it's not an excuse, they just don't take the social networks seriously, sadly.

Yeah the only real difficult part about Japanese I would say is the Kanji. The words aren't too complicated and the kana is fairly simple although I guess there are quite a bit more to learn than letters in the latin alphabet.

People who have learned Japanese have told me that minus the kanji it's fairly simple as far as Asian languages go and from what I've learned myself I agree so far. Also luckily they have a lot of stuff that have kana options or kana written besides the kanji so you can wait until you have pretty decent verbal skills before fully learning the Kanji.

This can only be a good thing. Someone with his talent & knowledge of the Shenmue world will be a welcome addition I would think.

Zoltor wrote:
To make matters worse, Japanese is possibly the hardest language in the world to learn

No it's not. English is harder. You can learn kana in a week. If pressed, 2,000 kanji in six months. The grammar is flexible and simple, and words are easy to pronounce because they're consistent.

I wrote a guide on how to learn Japanese without taking a single class. You can read it here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oVD ... M8iNc/edit

the Japanese language was never designed to allow complex interactions with people

What the hell are you talking about?

Japanese is highly practical. Far more practical than English for example. Everything within it fits and works. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Zoltor seems to have a habit of just saying his personal (uninformed) opinions as undisputable fact.

Himuro wrote:

Zoltor wrote:
To make matters worse, Japanese is possibly the hardest language in the world to learn

No it's not. English is harder. You can learn kana in a week. If pressed, 2,000 kanji in six months. The grammar is flexible and simple, and words are easy to pronounce because they're consistent.

the Japanese language was never designed to allow complex interactions with people

What the hell are you talking about?

Japanese is highly practical. Far more practical than Spanish for example. Everything within it fits and works.

Maybe in a bland general sense, but words have a half dozen meaning in Japanese, and the only thing that dictates what word It's suppose to be treated as, is It's placement in a sentence+the supporting words around it.

Japanese is not a precise language though. For some dumb reason they created a suffix system for names, that are more or less filled with suffixes that "basically" mean the same thing/atleast used in the same way, yet there's no situational words in the Japanese language, and I'm pretty sure that technically there are no plurals in the Japanese language either(not 100% sure about the last part, but considering that It's so common to see plural errors when translated, seems to be the case).

Then ofcourse as if a language being sloppy wasn't enough of a issue, lets throw in the fact you need to read right to left, as icing on the cake.

It scares me to think about people reading Japanese novels lol, there is no doubt a lot of filling in the blanks with that I'm sure

On the internet, reading from right to left isn't a thing. Japanese websites, you read left to right.

Reading right to left in a manga or book isn't a big deal.

Honestly, at this point, I think you're a huge troll and I think you should just stop.

Himuro wrote: On the internet, reading from right to left isn't a thing. Japanese websites, you read left to right.

Reading right to left in a manga or book isn't a big deal.

Honestly, at this point, I think you're a huge troll and I think you should just stop.

If it was so easy, everyone would learn Japanese, and if their language weren't so primitive, they wouldn't be trying to make the move to English(because we all know, It's sure as hell not to translate anime, and such to English or whatnot, because they virtually never do, yet English is required learning in Japanese schools now).

Hell the Japanese language can't even properly translate Chinese(a country only what, 500 miles from Japan). We see it all the damn time, even when the author them selves know the real words, and names of things, they end up changing the words for the Japanese audience, since such words can't be translated to Japanese.

They wouldn't be trying to make the move to English

Lol wtf? Japan has one of the lowest English proficiencies in the developed world and that's despite being a highly global economy.

Also you know that almost every country in the world has mandatory English lessons due to it being the global language, right?

south carmain wrote:

They wouldn't be trying to make the move to English

Lol wtf? Japan has one of the lowest English proficiencies in the developed world and that's despite being a highly global economy.

Well I never said they were good at English lol, just they're trying to really push it now. I imagine it will take atleast another 20 years before English starts becoming the dominant language/atleast becomes as commonly spoken, as the Japanese language.

Refer to my post edit.

Countries making learning the lingua franca mandatory in their schools has nothing to do with replacing their own language. It's merely to become more connected with the rest of the world.

Japanese is "hard" to learn because it's not widely spoken as much as languages like French or Spanish or English. It's used on one archipelago. This means that, for the most part, to be around Japanese, you mostly have to be in Japan. Japan isn't the only language with this problem, so stop playing.

Another issue is Japan's education system. In post-war Japan, they ratified ways to learn kanji. They opted for a slower method that stretched kanji over the course of 12 school years. They learn it by doing it over and over. And that method is fine...for children. This method makes it harder to learn when one is an adult, though, because that's not how adults learn. Our brains are literally wired to think and learn differently. English is another language like that because we have specific sounds and movements that aren't used in other languages, which makes it harder for non-native speakers to use. In any case, this doesn't mean learning Japanese is the hardest language as an adult. It just means that the method of TEACHING and LEARNING Japanese ought to change when learning as an adult. But Japanese people teach non-Japanese speakers how THEY learned how to learn the language. Which makes it harder on non-natives by default, because again, they're adults. However, alternative methods have shown to teach Japanese at a highly fast rate to the point of gaining intermediate level mastery within a year.

You literally don't know what you're talking about. Japanese grammar is easy. Kana is easy.

http://www.fluentin3months.com/easy-japanese/

As for your English comment, you're wrong about that completely. There are also numerous Chinese who are opting to learn Japanese, and vice versa. Never mind the fact that English is the current international language standard and MOST nations opt to learn English, so this isn't even unique to the Japanese.

If there's a language you speak it would definitely be Opinionated Yet Uninformed-ese.

Also, your ignorance of the vast historical cultural exchange between China and Japan is simply worthy.

Such a beautiful thread derailing.

south carmain wrote: Refer to my post edit.

Countries making learning the lingua franca mandatory in their schools has nothing to do with replacing their own language. It's merely to become more connected with the rest of the world.

Perhaps, and knowing how the Japanese society works, I'm sure that might have been their intention, but if the Japanese were any more disconnected from a global point, they might as well rebuild the walls around their nation, and never interact with the outside world at all anymore.

Seriously how many companies or even Japanese people in general, have any real connection with the outside world at all, not many I assure you(people like Yu, are exceedingly rare exception), and to this day, they don't even include subs on their DvD based products, which is insane, because it would cost them next to nothing, and they know people Import their DvDs

Almost every product that gets released outside of Japan in general, is localized by some 3rd party NA/EU company, so all they're using that English for, is oddly enough proper nouns, that's it.