Japanese language - hard or what

[Simon Ford-Powell]

I knew it was a difficult language, but this little story sums it up!
i have a japanese friend, whose parents have just visited the UK. They brought some presents with them including some items with Kanji. I asked my friend to translate the two characters and he had a real struggle, finally pronouncing that the two together symbolised "war" (he thought)

(get this)

"the problem", he said "is that they are very well written!"

[Tripitaka of AA]

Quite so Simon. An example
‹É?^‰ï =Kyokushinkai.
It can be written with various scripts, like this;
http://www.masutatsuoyama.com/img/kyokushinkai.gif

or written in a single stylised flow, for a logo, like this.
http://www.masutatsuoyama.com/img/kyokusign.gif

... or this.
http://www.masutatsuoyama.com/img/kyokushinkai-kanji.gif

[PwarYuex]

In my experience, when you first start learning, you will be learning slowly. This is due to learning of their writing.

Once you get all the writing done, spend 6 months in Japan, or even Tokyo-Town (if you have one) and all will be good.

[Washi]

Originally posted by PwarYuex
In my experience, when you first start learning, you will be learning slowly. This is due to learning of their writing.

Once you get all the writing done, spend 6 months in Japan, or even Tokyo-Town (if you have one) and all will be good.

6 months?! You must be a gifted linguist indeed!:eek:

[Paul Kerr]

I had a decent stab at learning Japanese when I first went to live there in 1987. I found it relatively straightforward to learn how to speak and listen at a (basic)conversational level. Reading and writing drove me nuts though, partly because I'm not a particularly visual thinker which makes kanji rather difficult to learn!

[Washi]

Originally posted by Paul Kerr
I had a decent stab at learning Japanese when I first went to live there in 1987. I found it relatively straightforward to learn how to speak and listen at a (basic)conversational level. Reading and writing drove me nuts though, partly because I'm not a particularly visual thinker which makes kanji rather difficult to learn!

It's always easy to make what feels like significant progress with a language at first because you are starting from zero. That first plateau is a tough one to get past.

[Tripitaka of AA]

I forgot to add the important point to my earier post. One that matched Simon's story. When Yoriko (my wife) saw the "fancy" version of Kyokushinkai, she couldn't read it!

I guess you could say the same about those highly intricate gothic style monk's calligraphy in the pre-printing era.

[George Kohler]

Moving this to the "Language" forum.

[Michael Bland]

the "fancy" script versus the clear one is not much different thanin English - typed or printed writing vs. Cursive... how many peoples' cursive writing is illegible to you? Even if legible, how much hard do you think that would be for a non-native speaker to read than print?

[Tripitaka of AA]

Quite so.

I cannot read my mother's handwriting... it is worse than a Doctor's scribble.