Nihongo: listening and reading
Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 8:07 pm
Japanese.
I will do another attempt at japanese.
I started to learn japanese more years ago than I dare to admit. I put down many hours, however I never felt I have gotten past the beginner stage. One problem is that I never took the studies too seriously, but...
Japanese is in some ways very difficult; in other ways not too difficult. The behemoth that is the japanese writing system is of course one huge challenge. If it weren't for that, japanese wouldn't be too bad. It has easy pronunciation and a regular grammar.
Still there are a couple of things that I find difficult with spoken japanese:
1 - many words are really similar and I confuse them.
2 - the japanese talk really fast.
3 - the grammar, if regular, and the word order is very different from european languages.
As a learner trying to use japanese in Japan, I find that people there are not always necessarily easy to speak with. They seem to only think of you as either a) able to speak japanese b) not able to speak japanese (they will assume b) of course). But when I manage to utter some words of japanese and they think a), often the replies will come as a deluge of very fast japanese that completely inundates me. Does anyone else have this experience?
Ok, enough complaining. Japanese is really interesting and Japan has a wonderful culture. I would like to advance from what I feel is still A1, to B1.
I will do another attempt at japanese.
I started to learn japanese more years ago than I dare to admit. I put down many hours, however I never felt I have gotten past the beginner stage. One problem is that I never took the studies too seriously, but...
Japanese is in some ways very difficult; in other ways not too difficult. The behemoth that is the japanese writing system is of course one huge challenge. If it weren't for that, japanese wouldn't be too bad. It has easy pronunciation and a regular grammar.
Still there are a couple of things that I find difficult with spoken japanese:
1 - many words are really similar and I confuse them.
2 - the japanese talk really fast.
3 - the grammar, if regular, and the word order is very different from european languages.
As a learner trying to use japanese in Japan, I find that people there are not always necessarily easy to speak with. They seem to only think of you as either a) able to speak japanese b) not able to speak japanese (they will assume b) of course). But when I manage to utter some words of japanese and they think a), often the replies will come as a deluge of very fast japanese that completely inundates me. Does anyone else have this experience?
Ok, enough complaining. Japanese is really interesting and Japan has a wonderful culture. I would like to advance from what I feel is still A1, to B1.