Quote:
Originally Posted by Ebilkittyprincess28
I know a little Japanese. Not enough to carry on a conversation though.
yay for Japanese anime.
Downside is I know some of the words, I just can't read kanji/hiragana/katakana
I'm trying to self-teach myself using Rosetta Stone but I hate how the only way I can get an idea of what I'm saying is by looking at the pictures provided. There's no translation. Just romanization.
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Ebi, look up Micheal Thomas' teaching method, it is much more effective for self-learning than Rosetta Stone. Rosetta works as a reinforcement of outside learning, but it is too cumbersome to used on its own.
Quote:
Originally Posted by l3o2828
Well, for us westerns, Anything that isn't based or has roots in Latin will probably make us cry in frustration.
Case in point, Japanese.
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I am sorry,but I would have to completely disagree; as one who has studied Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese, I can assure you that not one of these languages holds anywhere near the level of complexity of the European based languages. It should be noted that these are considered the most complex languages in East Asia.
Now, were my view mere anecdote, then it could easily be demised, but most linguists would agree with me. In fact, despite popular belief, Mandarin (the language often mistakenly referred to as Chinese) is a completely manufactured language, which was designed to be so simple any peasant could be taught it with the least possible amount of fuss. Now, actual Chinese (which refers to the written, not spoken, language,) is annoying to write by hand, but is it actually that complex? The answer? No.
Though its grammar is a little bit more complex than Mandarin's, it is still very simple. Next, until about 150 years ago the Chinese did not use punctuation in their writing, that was brought in by western influences; this means, even now, the punctuation required when writing in Chinese is barely worth noting. You use commas (not full-stops) to break up sentences, and use full-stops once you have 'fully' concluded your whole point. That about sums it up. Fully, writing itself, well, yes writing an 'a' is probably much easier than writing the two characters required for 'a' in Chinese, but I would still assert that learning a million different spellings by using most of the mind-destroying phonical systems that we Europeans created is a lot harder than learning characters. Why is this? I hear you cry. Fared, surely to write using English one just needs to learn 26 letters, how hard is that? You ask. Well, when those 26 letters have over a possible 52,000 sound combinations (without even looking at reflective vowels and silent letters), I would say quite hard. Considering that max number of Chinese characters you would ever learn unless you were looking at ancient history is 20,000, give characters every time. Furthermore, we need consider another issue, how our minds work when we read. Reading a phonic script is always more difficult and less natural to us than reading a pictorial one. This is because when reading phonical script one has to go through this process.
Lets take the word Horse.
English:
I see the letters H-o-r-s-e, my minds does not see those 'letters' as a concept to represent a meaning, they see them as a sound which represents a meaning; this means when I read horse, I see letters-my mind draws those letters into a set of sounds, which it then turns into 1 sound that makes a word and once it finally has the word, it associates the word (sound) with the meaning.
Chinese on the other hand, when I see the character for horse, I do not even need to know the sound to know it means horse because my mind is associating an image with a concept.
English
letter - Sounds - Sound - Word - Concept (5 steps)
Chinese
Image - Concept (2 steps)
Thus, reading Chinese characters is very easy. There is a reason the Chinese do not have a problem with dyslexia.
Now, Japanese is more complicated than Mandarin, but its grammar is very consistent, unlike English and certain other European languages, and its pronunciation is very easy to grasp.
With Kanji, well that is just a simplified script of Chinese which, despite having never learnt a single Japanese character, I can read to an acceptable level already due to knowing Chinese.
Japanese phonics, well learning them is a little difficult in a classroom setting because there is two scripts, both with a good number of characters, but once one learns them, they can phonically read Japanese because they are not limited to just 26 letters, so the sounds are a lot less likely to be reflective.
IE T is just T, not CCh, not Ter, not Tee, not...etc, unlike in English.
The aim issue one may find with Japanese is that they do not split their words meaning that it can take a learned eye to start drawing out the individual words, but apart from that, it is not complex.
So, yes, I would asset that these languages, while different to our own, are not more difficult.
Actually, the best advice I could give native English-speaker wishing to learn them is, learn English grammar, then learn how their grammar works; because once you have had to tackle English grammar, you suddenly realise how basic the grammar in other languages is. IE
English
I want to go to the Market
Sub + aux verb + particle for the infinitive + verb + preposition + article + object. (I feel tired)
Japanese
(Watashi wa) shijo ni iki-tai desu
Sub + particle + Object + particle + verb-aux verb
No need for an infinitive or an article. The preposition merely shows motion, not direction, so it never changes from ni, and the aux verb is built into the main verb, so you mean change the ending. Finally, you should in most cases actually drop the subject and its particle altogether, yet further simplifying the sentence.
Mandarin
Wo yao qu yeshi
sub aux verb obj
It sort of speaks for itself, really. I mean the verb 'to go' in Mandarin has the particle and preposition built into it. You could not get anymore simple.