I want something to say when my other language-learning friends talk about how hard/easy XYZ language is.
For example, for easy parts:
- No genders
- Easy vowels/consonants
For difficulties:
- Kanji
- Formality
Please help? Thanks!
Edit: summary of comments for my future reference:
Easier:
- no genders
- resource rich for learning
- simpler tenses
Easy and hard:
- pronunciation (consistent, but accent hard to eliminate)
- grammar (consistent but different)
Harder:
- Kanji (like icons)
- formality
The only step of learning Japanese that I consider hard is memorizing Kanji. Using them later becomes easy but what can make the learning complicated is that for example: Let’s say that I don’t know any kanji and I want to learn by reading: "Oh I found this, how do I pronounce it ‘何’ ??? … ): " Learning kanji requires to read the dictionary or taking the info from some source.
Back when I learned English I could learn a word by reading it and understanding the context. “W O R D” was what I say, letters so I could pronounce it. But kanji is different, It requires more "active " study to memorize.
Sometimes I think that kanji is in someway similar to the icons of the Apps on my phone. For example the Icon of WhatsApp, when I see it I know it’s WhatsApp,but that only because I have previously learned that.
Learning kanji is somehow hard but more than difficult it just requires time. Actually I like learning kanjis, the feeling of "strange symbols " becoming words to ny brain is one of the best sensations that I could have experienced in my whole life.