I studied during the summer to test out of Japanese level 1 so I could join my friends in level 2. I had taken spanish freshman year at the request of my parents. But it was taught by the most terrible spanish speaker and teacher to ever come from Mexico. I even tried to flunk his class, but i only got as low as an 80...

anyways, level one is the most i've taught myself, but i've learned individual words and a few phrases by watching movies and shows in japanese, listening to music and reading the music in both japanese and their translations. I actually don't find it too difficult. True, it's harder to learn than spanish or french, because english shares so many words with the romance languages (spanish, french, latin) and germanic languages (mostly german words, germanic does not pertain to only german) and you write those languages with english characters, with of course a few differences between the languages. So when you try one of the asian languages, not only are you learning a whole new way of writing, but speaking and reading as well. When you really get into japanese and studied it for a while, you find that you can no longer read romaji (japanese words written with english characters) and with enough kanji practice (kanji are the 'difficult' characters that look so 'fancy' and pretty) sometimes you find yourself looking at a word in hiragana (the 46 character syllabry) and you can't understand what's being said until you see the kanji. learning kanji is important because many words share the exact same character spelling but mean different things. An example is Hana. It means both nose and flower, but the kanji is different for both words. At the same time, a kanji can have as many as up to six pronounciations, depending on the word its used in and context (i've heard the kanji for 'person' being pronounced as both shito and hito"
To add to the complexity, there are formal words when talking to a superior, informal for when talking to friends and family, and extra-modest expressions for when putting down your actions in order to make someone (in most cases a boss, president of the company, upper classmen, teacher) superior to yourself.

nihon o ukagatta degozaimasu - i humbly went to japan/ i went to japan, sir/ma'am

to some it may sound silly, but I find it perfectly reasonable. There are some people I've encountered who make fun of the way the japanese speak or act, and i get angry because there are things we as americans do that people may find weird, or even rude and apalling. When encountering a different culture, in order to better one's reaction to it it helps a lot to try to find a sort of equivilant in one's own culture. It not only helps with culture shock, but also helps to prevent you from doing or saying something to offend others.
An example would be how to place chopsticks on your bowl. Do not, absolutely do NOT (especially in front of a Japanese and possibly Chinese person as well) stick your chopsticks into the bowl
and leave them sticking out. This is only done when someone dies. The family of the deceased is given a gift of a bowl of rice with the chopsticks sticking out as a sign of respect. It's the equivilant in America of wearing funeral attire or handing over a tombstone at the dinner table.

Instead, lay the chopsticks flat on the bowl, or if provided, on the chopstick holder (though chopstick holders probably won't be present unless there is an important guest or during a special ocassion).

I remember we were watching a video of this soo gaijin (foreigner) guy homestaying with a japanese family. He stuck the chopsticks in the bowl just like that, but the collest part was when the entire class (and the japanese family) gasped in unison. We had been studying Japanese and so used to the culture for so long that we just automatically were apalled when he did that.

of course there are parts of japanese culture that one will have to get used to (such as how unanimated their speaking and walking is compared to us (americans)) but the time it takes for the shock to wear off depends on how open and accepting you are as well as how quickly you get over differences.

I have tried so many times but end up giving up. :P
I know I could learn if I try.
I have a book on how to learn and a huge dictionary.
Also, a disk that someone gave me on hoe to learn japanese.
It's fun trying to learn it but im just to lazy! XD
I still want to learn one day! ^_^

Is there a website that translates romaji to english?

I tried to sing asian kung fu generation rewrite in japanese once. I was so drunk or something

weezer

Is there a website that translates romaji to english?

this one is kinda good!

I pick up some words and phrases from watching anime...but i hav nevr seriously studied jap b4...
I plan on doing so in college tho

mlodd

weezer

Is there a website that translates romaji to english?

this one is kinda good!

Actually I was thinking more like pharses but I guess it's almost impossible

I've tried learning, but I'm just a lazy ass. I have a Japanese/English Dictionary, grammer book, vocab book, a kanji book, and all the other tools I need to learn it. But, I'm really lazy, so I stopped after a few weeks. xD

The one who started this thread said that Japanese is a pretty hard language to learn. Can somone please explain to me the factors that make the language hard to learn? It seems pretty simple. I'm learning Spanish right now at school (Japanese wasn't an option), and, compared with Spanish, Japanese doesn't seem very hard. I'm not saying that Spanish is really hard either, but after learning another Language, it seems teaching myself Japanese (or taking a class on it) wouldn't be to difficult. The reason I'm asking, though, is because I might be overlooking something...

Thanks.

I've took it for one year in university..and i've only tried to speak it in class and oral test.
if you are not using it..you'll feel that it is difficult to speak it.
now, i can read a lil japanese and my friends and i only use some japanese in our daily conversation.
If you want me to converse in japanese...well, i can't do it since i don't have enough vocabulary and i can't remember most of the sentence structure in japanese.

Mmm... well, I've studied for a long time but I have only passed the Nouryokushiken 3kyuu... I'm willing to do the 2kyuu but I don't feel confident yet ^^.. maybe next year or the next O.o...

I've tried for 2 years...still worse than a kindergarden kid

Well as a matter of fact I am currently studying Japanese at the University, so I can reply with a clear yes. I already knew a lot of Japanese words and expressions from watching over a hundred anime but now my sentences become much more structured and complex. I have a lot of fun learning the written Japanese as well, the kanji are a B***h sometimes but I would still recommend anyone to go study Japanes too ^^.

I'm styding japanese, it's pretty hard, you have to put in rather much time into it, but it's fun to learn ^^

I downloaded a japanese learning pack with some friends and we only got to the third episode out of a set of 27...we were scared we'd forget what we already learned if we kept goin, so we eventually stopped...we might try and learn some kanji later but that might be a lot harder than it looks :)

Ohh. Japanese, I just tried it, without success. I'll learn it after getting my a-level.^^ That's more important now.
But I will learn japanese after getting my a-level. That's a promise^^