Thanks for valuable input in this thread. I was trying to write something similar, but couldn’t express it as clearly.
Instead, I have chose to provide this illustration of counting in a foreign language as comic relief:
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What I had to learn is that there isn’t necessarily a way to know what a word means based on the kanji that’s in it. Take, for example, the word ending -ceive in English. It doesn’t mean anything by itself, but it’s in a lot of words that have a common thread: receive, perceive, conceive. You can know this ending, how to pronounce it, how to spell it, but if I gave you a new word–let’s say, “preceive”–you don’t know exactly what it means. But maybe you can make a guess. (For what it’s worth, these words are compounds based on the Latin word capere, which means to take. Other forms include the -cept in intercept, accept)
In a way, these are kind of like onyomi compounds, because they’re highly modified pronunciations of words from a dead language that was held in high regard. Even our word capere has multiple “onyomi”-- -ceive and -cept!
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力 <— —> 九つ
See the difference?
EDIT: I see that LucasDesu has pointed that out already.
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I actually laughed out loud at this.
And yes, language requires at least some memorization. It seems the goal with wanikani is to minimalize that, but you cannot erase it all.
This is very relevant to how i was feeling with Japanese for some time.
For me, when I started WK i was memorizing the different sounds that kanji made, realized this wasn’t reallllly making sense to me, I did some research on on’yomi and kun’yomi and what up with all that and it helped it click a little more in my brain.
As i went on, as I started learning more than two readings with each kanji the on and kun stopped making as much sense (those are TWO things!! why does this kanji have FOUR SOUNDS?!?) so I had to dive a little deeper and gave myself a history lesson as to why that is (different rulers in china, different sounds so on so on) and wow it just made so much sense to me! things started to click in my brain a way they didn’t before. Amazingly tofugu just put out an amazing podcast on this exact subject i wish i heard YEARS ago.
I think that i’m trying to say is, its important to look inward a little and recognize what helps you learn best, not just memorize. For me, that was diving into Japanese kanji history. That may not be it for you, but it sounds like its time for you to do a little ~ reflection ~ and figure it out. best of luck!
Reminds me of this video:
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As far as I know, it basically boils down to on’yomi vs kun’yomi reading. When you’re just counting numbers (ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, ku/kuu, juu) you’re using the on’yomi readings. If you look at actual chinese pronunciation of these numbers, you can see how they are derived. These are (yi (pronounced ee), er, san (the same san), si, wu, liu, qi (pronounced chee), ba, jiu (pronounced jee-you), shi (pronounced kind of like the shi in “shirt”).
When you use those numbers as counters, however, with ”つ”, then they take on the kun’yomi readings. And these are hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu, yottsu, itsutsu and so on.
In some Japanese animes, where the characters are meant to be from a part of Japan where they speak an odd dialect, sometimes they count “one two three” as “hito, futa, mi” which always struck me as strange until I realised it was simply the kun’yomi readings.
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As a matter of fact, when you remember Kun readings, I recommend you to try to remember the actual vocab for everything. For example ここの.つ
On readings might be able to remember as a standalone, sometimes.
Or am I only dreaming?
Is this burning an eternal flame?
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English is one of the simplest languages to learn and that’s why it’s an international language - not only in my opinion, but in million’s!
English written literature covers all the science, philosophy and whatnot!
Yes, there are some quirks in any language, but g, I like English and I still have a passion and simple need to know it, so it’s very well going and simple language, for me at least!
Japanese is cool for the aesthetics, I so far don’t see myself thinking in Japanese, seems to alien to be able to think in all those characters and so on, wheres I can imagine myself thinking in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese in less than a year if I’d need to!
But yet again, everyone is different so each their own!
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Not sure if English is really a simple language, this mainly applies when you are coming from the same language family. It’s easy to say something, but mastering it is a completely different matter. There are lots of tenses, the pronunciation is not really obvious, irregular verbs, etc.
The reason it’s an international language are the UK, the US, and because it is a common denominator for Europe. I can see that Chinese will get more importance, and that’s because the Chinese will be less inclined to learn English and just stick with Chinese, not because Chinese is super easy (at least the reading aspect of it).
Of course, it’s bullshit, as far as linguists are concerned, no one language is more difficult than others. You’re entirely right, English become what it is because of Sociopolitical features. Not because someone analyzed all 6,000 or so living languages and decided English was the best one.
But a recurring theme you’ll see if you delve into the world of bad linguistics is people regularly thinking their Native language is either really easy, or really hard. In other words, something that makes it special.
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English became widespread because a country with very big guns invaded other lands and colonised them. The people, who were invaded, were not shopping around for a new language.
One of my managers said that Chinese mandarin can’t be that hard to learn: a billion Chinese kids can already speak it. 
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I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through.
Well don’t! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard but sounds like bird.
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead,
For goodness sake don’t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth as in mother
Nor both as in bother, nor broth as in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear, for bear and pear.
And then there’s dose and rose and lose–
Just look them up–and goose and choose
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
And do and go, then thwart and cart,
Come, come! I’ve hardly made a start.
A dreadful Language? Why man alive!
I learned to talk it when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn’t learned it at fifty-five.
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With so many inconsistencies with the English language and growing up with it as your main or first language we never really ask questions. This is something we accept growing up with the language. When learning another language pretty much any language in general we ask all these questions not really understanding why and the people who are the native speakers pretty much just except it because they’ve never asked as to why it’s like that eventually you just need to accept it and then move on.
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From the time you are born till roughly 15 or 16 years old your brain is able to absorb significantly more knowledge than the rest of your life so growing up in China at that age it’s significantly easier to learn
It’s a well-known fact that English is not one of the easiest languages to learn, in fact you misspelled millions. It should not have an apostrophe, it is not possessive.
Who wrote that?
A few posts back.
In fact your correction is incorrect. It is indeed possessive, because @GeorgeFeb is referring to millions of people’s opinions … but since “millions” itself is plural, it should actually be s-apostrophe and not apostrophe-s.
Of course others are welcome to correct me here, Muphry’s Law and all that. 
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