Thanks to Bernie Stolar, I'm taking up Japanese in College!!

[Original_Name]

http://www.sega-saturn.com/rpg.htm

So many incredible games that I never knew existed until just 15 seconds ago!

I really mean it about taking Japanese classes in college, too! This will be my main inspiration! Thank you, Bernie Stolar!

Also: I'd never heard of this site before, oddly enough. Tons of reviews and screenies and such. I'm off exploring now!

[hashiriya1]

It's a long, hard road. You'd have to be pretty damn fluent if you want to understand RPGs. Think of how well you spoke English at age 8. That is how well your Japanese would have to be to understand a Pokemon-level RPG.

It took me years of living here, talking to people, watching Japanese movies with no subtitles, reading novels, newspapers and manga everyday to become my level of fluency. It is a 24/7 committment. After I passed Level one of the JLPT, I got cocky and stopped studying. While I never have problems anymore, it does help to know more so i can understand old texts and other dialects.

I am not trying to discourage you, just letting you know that it is not easy. There are people casually taking Japanese classes, but they never get past basic sentence structure. Good luck.


Something to inspire you:
http://pepper.idge.net/japanese/

[Anayo]

For example, if you combine the Kanji for "small", and "woman", you get the word "carbeurator".

That made me laugh out loud. XD

[andymol21]

That article cannot possibly be true! Seems a bit like snobby scaremongering to me!

[hashiriya1]

That article cannot possibly be true! Seems a bit like snobby scaremongering to me!

Could be, but I agree with most of it.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Japanese and English are both category 4 languages meaning that they are of high complexity and require quite some time to learn.

Where this differs though is that in English small mistakes are easily noticed and corrected as the English language takes time to describe every little detail, where in Japanese these mistakes can be misconstrued very badly as it is a very specific language.

For a crude example:

English; I am going to the store to get food.

Japanese; I go to store for food.

English is one of only a few languages that tries to describe every facet, while most foreign ones (French, Chinese etc...) only give you just what you need without any hints.

[Raziel]

Or Russian. Seriously, it makes Japanese look like a child's play. It has so many irregular verbs and various forms that it's not even funny.

[jfrost]

I'm intending to learn Japanese as well. While the spoken language doesn't seem to be a big problem, reading and writing is supposed to be a nightmare.

Well, I'm gonna try anyway. I asked a friend for help... The dude is Brazilian and went to the U.S. to study Japanese for one year, then he moved to Japan to teach English. Having lived for two years in Japan, he's claims to speak it fluently. I'm gonna take his word, since he's the cheapest option :)

[RCBH928]

English is complex? English is like the simplest language ever...

Although languages interest me, I have to say I can't care for Japanese. I would like to because its a totally different culture , but here is what,
I do not interact with the japanese non-what so ever, no one outside Japan speaks Japanese(French spread, Indians are spread, u get the idea) ,
the language seems to have 4 alphabets , complex writing system , not to mention the chinese characters are to be remembered not read!!!
Plus being bilingual already I think it will only add to the confusion .

I do not know about other languages, but the arabic sentence changes probably 70% of it depending if you are talking about 1, 2 , 3 or more and then it matters wether they are feminine or masculine then it depends where the words are in the sentence because they end differently. So it is different to say : John greeted Tony than Tony greeted John. That is if you want to get things perfect. Then there are about 8 letters that are non existing in the english alphabet !

But as for Chinese, I have to look a at a shape and remember how it sounds!? So if I forget the shape I forget how to write!? That basically means you can't read their writing system. Add to that there are 2 languages Cantonese and Mandarine? Even more to make it complex , how many dialects are there between a billion+ people?? GOOD LORD!

[jfrost]

English is one of only a few languages that tries to describe every facet, while most foreign ones (French, Chinese etc...) only give you just what you need without any hints.

I don't really get what you meant here.

General consensus is that English is not a very difficult language to learn at all. The complex part is pronunciation, since there seems to be no rule about what is the correct way to say a word -- that is, either you know the word or you don't, and the only way to learn it is listening to other people talk.

But sentence structure, verbs, pronouns, etc, are relatively easy.