Embark on Your Journey to Learn Japanese

The hardest part about learning Japanese is widely considered to be the complex writing system, especially mastering kanji characters. Kanji involves thousands of characters with multiple meanings and pronunciations, making it time-consuming and challenging to memorize. Additionally, the Japanese language features three writing systems (hiragana, katakana, and kanji) used together, adding to the difficulty. ^{1, 2, 3}

Other significant challenges include:

• Politeness levels expressed grammatically through numerous honorifics, requiring learners to know which to use in different social contexts. ¹
• The pro-drop nature of Japanese, where pronouns are often omitted, making context essential to understanding. ¹
• The use of many particles (about 188) that indicate grammatical relations, which takes time to learn. ¹
• The fast pace of spoken Japanese, which can be difficult for learners to follow. ¹
• Difficulties with grammar, especially as learners reach the intermediate level where distinctions between similar grammar points and politeness forms become important. ^{2, 4, 5}

Among these, kanji learning is frequently cited as the most daunting due to its complexity and necessity for reading and writing fluency. ^{6, 2}

In summary, the hardest parts of learning Japanese generally center on its writing system (kanji), complex grammar involving politeness, and the listening challenges due to fast speech and context-dependent language use.

References

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