Learn Japanese!

People from the Western side of the world who have never been to Japan or aren’t really familiar with the language or the culture of the Japanese people may easily get disheartened in trying to understand their language. With just one look at the seemingly complicated Japanese language characters, non-locales would probably get all confused.
Contrary to what a lot of people may think about the Japanese language, it is actually not that hard to learn, while it is quite a challenge to learn this language – you have to learn three new systems of writing; all you really need to have is the patience and willingness to learn.

The first Japanese system of writing is called the Kanji. This writing system is used for writing down names and what words mean. The Hiragana is somewhat of a communication tool, which is used to link together the words written under the Kanji system. Lastly, the Katakana is the one that the Japanese people use to write about foreign words and foreign names.

The Chinese people has a certain advantage when trying to learn the Japanese language since the Chinese also use a Kanji-based system of writing, there are still a lot of things that are different from their writing systems and are often different in their pronunciation as well. As for the Hiragana and Katakana systems of writing under the Japanese language, expect to learn at least 46 characters because they are the basic ones that are being used although more and more new character combinations are being made. Those who are really intent on learning the Japanese language should not worry because it is not difficult to learn all these once you get the hang of it.

Learning the Kanji system of writing is unfortunately, a whole different ballgame – there are around 2,000 Kanji characters that are needed just for everyday use and it is a must for someone who is trying to learn the Japanese language to know all of them in order to be able to keep up in daily conversations especially if you’re going to study in a Japanese university. Expect that the Kanji characters can have various kinds of readings, also expect that these Kanji characters also have their own order of strokes.

Remember, those that were mentioned above are just how the way that the Japanese write in their native language, before a person to be able to speak in Japanese fluently, he or she must also be able to learn about the correct grammar as well as the pronunciation of the Japanese words that they have encountered. It is quite confusing to try to learn about the correct grammar and pronunciation of the Japanese language, so if you’re just starting out, you may want to try to learn to speak Hyojungo first because this is the standard Japanese dialect that is being used by majority of the people in Japan.