{"id":3590,"date":"2015-11-24T10:00:29","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T10:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/?p=3590"},"modified":"2015-11-22T18:53:52","modified_gmt":"2015-11-22T18:53:52","slug":"5-reasons-why-japanese-isnt-as-hard-as-they-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/5-reasons-why-japanese-isnt-as-hard-as-they-say\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Reasons Why Japanese Isn\u2019t As Hard As They Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japanese is notorious for being a difficult language to learn, especially for English speakers. While some aspects of Japanese, such as its writing system, are admittedly challenging, there are plenty of other features of the language that are surprisingly simple! In fact, in many ways, Japanese is less grammatically complex than English. Here are some reasons why the Japanese language\u2019s reputation as impossibly difficult is unfounded.<\/p>\n

\"ll_easy_japanese\"<\/a>

Image via Pixabay<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

1. Nouns aren\u2019t inflected<\/b><\/p>\n

First of all, people studying Japanese don\u2019t have to worry correcting assigning gender to inanimate objects: like English, Japanese nouns don\u2019t have any kind of gender inflection. Further, you don\u2019t even have to worry about adding prefixes or suffixes for plural inflections, either (as you do in English). Singular and plural nouns take the same form, and are instead disambiguated by context or the use of numerical quantifiers. For example, in Japanese, \u201cdog\u201d is \u72ac<\/b>. To say \u201cthree dogs\u201d, you simply add the word \u201cthree\u201d (\u4e09<\/b>) without making any changes to \u201cdog\u201d: \u4e09\u72ac<\/b>.<\/p>\n

2. Verbs don\u2019t have to agree with the subject<\/b><\/p>\n

One of the biggest headaches about learning Romance languages is memorizing all of the ways that verbs are conjugated to agree with the person and number status of the subject. Japanese verbs, however, feature none of these pesky conjugations: once you\u2019ve learned how to say \u201cto eat\u201d (\u98df\u3046<\/b>), you\u2019ve also learned how to say \u201cI eat\u201d, \u201che eats\u201d, \u201cthey eat\u201d, etc.<\/p>\n

3. No pesky consonant clusters<\/b><\/p>\n

Slowly pronounce the word \u201cstrengths\u201d: it\u2019s pretty hard, isn\u2019t it? That\u2019s because there are four consonant sounds in a row: \u201cn\u201d, \u201cg\u201d, \u201cth\u201d, and \u201cs\u201d. Japanese phonology is much gentler on the tongue than that of English. Japanese syllables feature virtually no consonant clusters, and thus are generally easy to pronounce.<\/p>\n

How good is your Japanese? Find out by taking our <\/i><\/b>free online Japanese level test<\/i><\/b><\/a>!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

4. Syllables are only pronounced one way<\/b><\/p>\n

In English, the letter \u201cs\u201d can be pronounced in a variety of ways (think of words like \u201csun\u201d, \u201cwash\u201d, \u201cvision\u201d, and \u201cwise\u201d). In contrast, each of the Japanese language\u2019s 45 syllables are always pronounced exactly the same, regardless of context. Therefore, once you learn the alphabet, you\u2019ll be able to correctly pronounce any Japanese word that you see (with the exception of kanji characters \u2014 but that\u2019s an entirely different story).<\/p>\n

5. You know more than you think<\/b><\/p>\n

Given that English and Japanese are very distant languages, you might think that their vocabularies would have very little overlap. However, there are plenty of English loanwords \u2014 called gairaigo <\/i>(\u5916\u6765\u8a9e<\/b>) \u2014 that have snuck their way into the Japanese lexicon. The Japanese words for \u201cinternet\u201d, \u201cice cream\u201d, and \u201ctable\u201d, for instance, have been borrowed from English, and sound very similar to their English-language counterparts.<\/p>\n

So the next time that you find yourself struggling to memorize your kanji, take a deep breath and remember: at least you don\u2019t have to deal with pesky verb conjugations or tricky pronunciations! Of course, learning Japanese isn\u2019t easy, but the right native-speaking Japanese teacher<\/a> can help you learn as quickly and efficiently as possible. Contact us<\/a> to find out how we can best help you reach your Japanese language goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japanese is notorious for being a difficult language to learn, especially for English speakers. While some aspects of Japanese, such as its writing system, are admittedly challenging, there are plenty of other features of the language that are surprisingly simple! In fact, in many ways, Japanese is less grammatically complex than English. Here are some(\u2026)<\/p>\n

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\n\t \t\t\t\tCONTINUE READING »<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":3591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[477,281,282,476,8,473],"class_list":["post-3590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language-learning","tag-classes","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-language-classes","tag-learn","tag-learn-japanese"],"yoast_head":"\n5 Reasons Why Japanese Isn\u2019t As Hard As They Say<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Thinking about learning Japanese? 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