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Japanese language is one of the most difficult languages to master especially as a second language.
It will be hard to learn in few years and depends on factors such as individual ability, environment, motivation and the material used.
In the same time where you will try to achieve the language is also an important factor for learning, in or outside the country.
The image built about this language is made by the minimum two types of willing learners; one the visitors and “manga”(漫画 comic) lovers and a second one the” insiders”, or people who really need to use daily the language in different environments.
Even for the second category it will be hard to master Japanese language.
Why? Let’s explain below in a concise format.
One of the hardest things to learn is the writing. Japanese language has a three writing system: hiragana, katakana and kanji.
The kanji are characters imported from the Chinese writing with reading adapted to the Japanese thinking with will make them difficult to learn. The characters has to kind of reading onyomi(音読みーおんよみ) the Chinese reading and kunyomi(訓読みーくんよみ) the Japanese reading of kanji. To learn the characters separate won’t help you to read if you will not learn them in components, or if you will not study the special reading or their homophones.
To understand them depend on the context and beside this, some of kanji are specially used for names of people or prefectures (cities).
This is an example of the easier kanji:
“一”いち、いつ、ひと、ひと（つ）
(訓読み-Japanese reading)
Used in names like: kazu, hi, hajime, makoto, susumu
Meaning in English: one, unity, first, become one, make one, one time
Compounds:一月(いちがつーichigatsu) January
一人(ひとりーhitori) one person;only(child, son or daughter)
Special readings:一日(ついたちーtsuitachi) 1st of the months
Homophones:独り(ひとりーhitori) alone, Germany
As you can realize for be able to read the kanji you will need to learn the other two system of writing hiragana and katakana.(カタカナ).
The Roman characters or better the Romanji are used only by foreign learners to help them to understand the pronunciation of the characters, the alphabetization of Japanese language.
The other two system of writing are relatively easier, hiragana being used by children in the learning process of characters and katakana also for kanji reading but mainly used for loan words and foreign names.
The main point of this article is that the Japanese language writing system is a challenging one and the language itself will remain one of the difficult languages to master in a short time.
But don’t lose confidence and try to enjoy the kanji.
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References: The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary
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