Why is kanji difficult

Of course, it's not easy to say that one language is objectively easier to learn than another. Language learning, generally, is a very subjective experience. Don't get me wrong — Japanese can definitely be a struggle for new learners. Different people learn differently, there's no two ways about it. But learning Japanese might not be as insurmountable a task as you think. Give it a shot — you may even find that Japanese is a breeze for you. Tofugu Japanese current View All Japanese.

View All Japan. Let's look at the nay-sayers and why they're wrong. Sounds For one, Japanese phonology the sounds that make up the language is really simple. Source: Marc Wathieu Another nice thing about Japanese is that it isn't a tonal language. In a bunch of different languages, like Mandarin or Vietnamese, your meaning varies depending on your tone In Japanese, the pitch of your voice does matter a bit, but it's not nearly as pronounced as in tonal languages.

Grammar Anybody who has tried to learn a Romance language knows that subjunctive tense will make you want to rip your hair out. Don't fear the kanji! Coto Academy. Japanese Study April 11, The most difficult kanji. Related Articles. Japanese Study Life in Japan November 9, Only men could learn kanji. There are lots of questions why Japanese have two alphabets among foreigners.

They don't think katakana is necessary. It takes forever to learn how it is used. Highly-rated answerer. The one learning a language! It looks like a curvy line. If you fail to follow this rule, the meaning can completely change. Kanji characters are categorized into four patterns. Reading kanji is the most challenging part. This is where your memorization skill is tested and harnessed. Kanji has two basic kinds of reading, onyomi and konyomi. From the word itself, this reading is derived from the Chinese reading, although many of my Chinese friends say that they read kanji completely different from Japanese way of reading.

But, it is not always the case. It is commonly used for reading a word with one kanji alone or kanji and hiragana combined. It can be read as the following:. Since kanji are pictograph, each kanji represents a particular meaning. Can you tell why the following basic kanji carries each meaning? Some even has stories about how they come up to such meaning. But, wait! Not all kanji can be explained by how it looks like.

Most kanji are irrelevant to their meaning, that even Japanese cannot explain and the only thing you can do is memorize them. Look at the following examples and see if you can explain why such kanji carries the following meaning:.

These are only a few. There are thousands of kanji that you have to learn. We only need to learn a few like three thousand to survive Japan. Write them down. You have to learn the strokes.