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Actually Japanese know it is hard, and focus on it like madmen. A top Nintendo DS game for adults in Japan is a Kanji re-training game. In any case, Kanji is s
by brianobush 17y ago
Actually Japanese know it is hard, and focus on it like madmen. A top Nintendo DS game for adults in Japan is a Kanji re-training game.
In any case, Kanji is so visual - until I learned it many words didn't make sense to me. Knowing how to say it, but not understanding the real-underlying meaning is not fun.
As far as intonation, Japanese is one of the easiest languages with regards to that. Once you get the basics it is simple, but still you must talk with others (Japanese club, co-workers, neighbors, skype, etc) and listen to real Japanese (anime, news, etc.)
- rgrieselhuber 17y agoI don't meet many Westerners that think Japanese intonation is easy. :-) It's probably the most critical aspect of sounding natural when stacked up against all other factors and can make or break the tone of the conversation.
- gommm 17y agoI think Japanese intonation is very hard for native english speakers but it's not hard at all for someone speaking romance languages (the sonorities are rather similar to spanish I find...)
- dkarl 17y agothe sonorities are rather similar to spanish I find... This is very true. I grew up in an area where lots of Spanish is spoken, and I learned a tiny bit myself. For me, Japanese pronunciation was trivial. My teachers were praising me right off the bat. The only difficulty I have is with my current tutor, who is bent on teaching me to pronounce the Japanese r/l the way a Japanese would. (AFAIK it's not necessary at all for understandability, just a pet peeve of hers.) I had a very different experience with French and German, so I know I'm not especially gifted at phonetics. I think the early exposure to Spanish was the key.