Note taken, thank you kindly.
My point, however, is that only the kanjis imply the different meanings–not the spoken words, which are the same.
Is that what makes Japanese is a highly context-dependent language?
Don’t let the phrase “Japanese is hard” discourage you.
From my experience, learning languages that are too similar to English has been boring because so many things feel too obvious. Japanese is “hard” for a lot of reasons, sure, but it’s correspondingly rewarding for those exact same reasons.
When I was first able to actually read an incredibly simple sentence in Japanese like ジョンさんはアメリカ人です I felt like I had climbed Mount Everest, because understanding that sentence meant learning hiragana, then katakana, then some kanji, and then wrapping my mind around basic Japanese sentence structure. What had been weird scribbles just a few weeks prior was now a real language that I was starting to be able to make sense of. I’m sure pretty much everyone here had a similar experience.
Japanese is hard, sure. But that really just means it’s worth learning.
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Hello Wanikani community,
First-time poster here! I learned Mandarin Chinese and lived in China for six years, before now starting to learn Japanese.
This ‘debate’ over Chinese vs. Japanese been a topic of interest of mine for some time, so I thought I’d share a few resources I’ve come across over the years:
First, a comparison of learning curves for Chinese and Japanese as seen by the inimitable John Pasden, one of the first co-hosts of ChinesePod:
I can vouch for the finding that Chinese pronunciation is a HUGE challenge at first but gets easier with time. On the grammar front, I learned to speak Chinese pretty fluently (working at a Chinese company and in business contexts), but never found the increase in difficulty in terms of grammar described here (I never studied ancient Chinese, so that could be the reason). In Japanese, I’m an absolute beginner so no opinions there yet!
Second, if you experience the challenging aspects of a language as motivational rather than demotivating (people are mixed here), here’s a classic piece on “Why Chinese is so Damn Hard”:
I remember when I had been studying Chinese very hard for about three years, I had an interesting experience. One day I happened to find a Spanish-language newspaper sitting on a seat next to me. I picked it up out of curiosity. “Hmm,” I thought to myself. “I’ve never studied Spanish in my life. I wonder how much of this I can understand.” At random I picked a short article about an airplane crash and started to read. I found I could basically glean, with some guesswork, most of the information from the article. The crash took place near Los Angeles. 186 people were killed. There were no survivors. The plane crashed just one minute after take-off. There was nothing on the flight recorder to indicate a critical situation, and the tower was unaware of any emergency. The plane had just been serviced three days before and no mechanical problems had been found. And so on. After finishing the article I had a sudden discouraging realization: Having never studied a day of Spanish, I could read a Spanish newspaper more easily than I could a Chinese newspaper after more than three years of studying Chinese.
Third, neither Chinese nor Japanese nor Finnish are likely truly the most difficult language to learn. That ‘honor’ probably belongs to one of the many indigenous languages (e.g., Navajo or even smaller isolated groups). A common assumption is that such languages would be ‘primitive’ and simple, but they are in fact incredibly complex and difficult to learn. When a language comes into contact with non-native speakers through immigration, war, etc., those non-native speakers tend to butcher the most difficult parts of the language, which, over time, simplifies the grammar and pronunciation, and reduces irregularities (e.g., I ran → I runned). This process used to happen even faster before a majority of a population was literate as there would be nothing written on paper that would decree that that “I ran” is correct, so people would move to “I runned” even faster. Since the languages of isolated tribes are rarely if ever spoken by non-native speakers, all of those crazy exceptions and tongue-twisting pronunciations remain in place, because the native speakers are all able to master them through early acquisition and exposure.
If this kind of knowledge tickles your fancy, I highly recommend John McWhorter’s audio course on “The Story of Human Language” for an enthralling account of how languages evolved and even an attempt to create a language purely out of musical notes!
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I began to recognize from a very early age (<10) that listening to Japanese made me feel at ease in the same way listening to some other languages makes me on edge. It does something to my brain that I love. Certainly other factors, like a lifetime love of anime and games, have made it a very practical second language choice for me. But I think if I could separate everything else Japanese from the language it still would have been my language of choice to learn.
On a semi-related note, I wish we would see more choices of language in public schools here. I recently learned that my girlfriend actually got to take Japanese in high school, but I’m from a different state where we only had Spanish and French. It wasn’t until I was out of work with a broken foot last year that I found myself with enough spare time to begin learning a language, something I would have been hard pressed to manage at any point in the fifteen years prior.
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Agree! My school taught Spanish, French, and Latin, but apparently other schools near me have offered Chinese as well. On some level, I get it, because Spanish and French are common here. But it’s like, gosh I’d love to have taken an Asian language (I’m interested in Japanese and Korean), or Russian or German or something 
As an answer to the actual topic, I started kind of casually picking it up years ago. Language in general is a HUGE interest of mine, so as I got into anime etc in school, it was a natural step for me. I guess it helps that I have so many friends who are in JET or similar programs!
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I haven’t read this entire thread but doesn’t Japan have one of the highest literacy rates in the world?
The assumed complexity and so-called ‘vagueness’ of the language did not prevent Japan becoming a post-war industrial powerhouse with core competencies in complex technologies and technical engineering.
I would be interested to know if particular languages and/or cultures can actually give countries a competitive advantage economically.
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I started learning Japanese … 36 years ago. My reasons at that time were that I wanted to study two languages in high school, and I knew I didn’t want to learn German.
When we moved to a rural high school, I couldn’t learn Japanese any more.
…and that was that.
Then, about 10 years ago, I was sent to Japan on a work trip for a few days. I expected to hate it and find it insincere and misogynistic and cringe-inducingly cutesy, alternately. And Instead, I really loved it.
And then I dated a Japanese-American guy (who was an idiot, but there ya go), and took a beginner class to be able to say nice things to his Japanese mum and not look like a moron.
And then we broke up.
Anyway, somewhere around 2015, I finally decided it was time to actually try to relearn. Mostly because I’m stubborn and actually want to get somewhere with this language that’s kind of teased itself in and out of my life at various points.
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I don’t really know if Japanese is the “hardest” language in the world, but to be honest, I haven’t felt like it’s that difficult–at least not yet. Just lots of time and commitment and whatnot; like someone else said way up in the thread, it’s like art. You just have to put your nose to the grindstone.
…However, part of the reason I’m not finding it difficult might be because I’ve already suffered and overcome traumatic experiences that have set the bar to an extreme level for me. If Japanese is hard, then it absolutely pales in comparison to what I’ve already been through. Outside of learning the language, I often find myself wanting to up the ante just because I need a steep challenge. Sadly, a lot of societies in the world disallow this or require you to be of a certain position or status to have that privilege.
Ah, well. I can say I’m having fun, at least–and I think I’ve found some people to practice with in person where I live.
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Here’s some really broken up thought and stuff from me:
I have absolutely no experience with learning any other languages. I started about 6 months ago (July 2018, I’ll never forget) with nothing and right now I feel amazing, but still working. At the moment, difficulty is really invisible to me and I can’t tell what is complicated or simple. All I know is that every time someone says Japanese is difficult, I get an enormous confidence boost, which I’m also trying to not let turn into a complex or something stupid.
I have some difficulty pinpointing my original reasons for learning Japanese. I’ve been super into anime for about a year, being aware of it as well as watching some for several years. I became really fond of many things Japan and also became obsessed with the east in general and almost on philosophical levels. One day I decided to do some google searching. “How DO you actually learn Japanese?” I started crazily reading that Tofugu article and everything started from there.
I’m kind of an obsessive person. I become obsessed with certain topics at a very cyclic pace. It’s very difficult for me to stop thinking about an interest. It’s also difficult for me not to talk to other people about it. I shake every time I get an excuse to contribute information to a conversation. Thinking is pretty much the only thing I do, ever. (Apparently these are symptoms of mild autism, which is another thing I found out less than a year ago. Who knew?) Eventually though, my anime minded side kind of toned down and the absorption part of my brain took over.
I realized that learning Japanese was the most stimulating thing I’ve done in my life. Understanding exponentially more content on a daily basis just felt so fun. I realized that I love language learning and I wanted to dedicate it to being a lifelong hobby of mine. However, I’m not sure if learning only Japanese has comforted me into believing that, so I’m not going to actually believe that I’m going to be an polyglot or anything.
… So that’s basically my story up until now.
A different topic:
At the moment, I’ve been learning Kanji very smoothly. Rote memorization has turned into my favorite time waster and my overall ease with Kanji learning is why I want to go straight into Chinese right after getting done with Wanikani. (Japanese learners watch anime, so what do Chinese learners watch?.. Pacific Rim? へへ no, but it’s interesting to be able to know what some of the writing says in that movie.)
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You’ve just articulated exactly how I feel about learning Japanese too. We share similar traits.
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This particular example seems like something that is a helpful element, rather than anything that’s making the language more difficult.
When you’re speaking, you don’t really need to think of them differently at all, but they give extra information when you’re reading that you otherwise wouldn’t get.
I don’t know how correct this is, but I think that they’re actually all the same word, and When The Kanji Came, the Japanese became super-excited and wanted to use all of them, even the ones they had no actual words for.
In other words – the distinction only exists in writing. You have to remember that writing ≠ the language. Writing comes after the language (and then doesn’t change as much or often as the actual language does).
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i actually learning japanese for similar reason at this point, i interested in some industries in japan, including manga among others, and animation.
Though i only learning to draw right now and started not too much long time ago. i also learning it to do modes for something like Fallout 4 etc but it is offtopic.
Before i were learning japenese just to get busy i guess and i thought of benefits of learning languages for health.
… and also because i was impressed with some japan made various stuff as a kid and teenager, because of this admire it and consider it important part of me.
It’s something I started when I was a child, like 13 years old, in “Language Class”, one of my first electives taken. I probably wanted to start because DBZ was new and I felt I needed to learn more about Toriyama’s culture. I still study because I love speaking Japanese. It’s my favourite language. So much so that it’s a requirement for me to date anyone anymore.
Thanks to a friend, I got hooked on reading light novels and eventually web novels. Unfortunately, translations tend to not be very reliable outside of official releases for light novels as far as accuracy and release schedule goes. I thought I could get by even if the quality was that of a machine translation at first but that proved to be too much of a hassle. Whats a few years of learning Japanese anyway for access to countless reading material.
Id also like to reread some of my favortie VNs and maybe manga I read in highschool for nostalgia’s sake.
Oh right. I don’t think its particularily difficult to learn Japanese so far. Pronunciation is very similar to spanish and I’m mostly fluent in that. As far as reading goes, Kanji is purely memorization for me. It kinda helps alot of kanji have the same reading. I took German for four semesters in college and boy, that was quite a rough patch for me. I thought spanish grammar got a bit wacky but German had me at my wits end often.
Because I laugh in the face of difficulty! 
Jokes aside, I started watching anime a year ago and thought
“Man it would be cool to watch this without subs”
and learning a language sounds like a fun goal to work forward to
so here I am learning japanese.
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About two years ago, my friends got me into anime. I immediately fell in love with the language, culture, and pretty much everything else about Japan. My friend and I are planning to move to Japan together when we get older, so we started learning Japanese as early as possible.
While Japanese is a hard language, I don’t think it’s as difficult as most people say. While it’s not easy, I definitely wouldn’t call it one of the most difficult languages in the world.
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Chinese is next 
I’m learning Japanese because I adore Japanese snacks and want to be able to read the labels!
I also love Japanese design and have been to Japan only once. While there, although there were plenty of people who spoke English, I felt compelled to be able to at least read signage, and now I feel very compelled to be able to speak in Japanese. So, I guess it’s been an evolving reason. But, it all started with the snacks.
Not sure if it’s the most difficult language in the world, but it’s been extremely challenging. That just makes me want to learn it more!
Apart from having repeatedly enjoyed James Clavell’s novels, I have no particular reason at all for learning Japanese. I simply love languages, whether natural or programming, and through all my life curiosity often got the better of me and I started learning one just for the fun of it. As a rule that hasn’t been super-successful, particularly before the age of the internet when all I had to play with were books from the public library. But (a) studying a STEM subject rather late in life, which finally taught me effective studying techniques and (b) internet and computer resources like WK and Anki lately really helped me making actual progress and not losing interest rather early. Meanwhile, I know one can (or rather, even I can) actually learn a new language at least to the point of being able to read simple texts and muddle through in everyday conversation.
My mother tongue is German. For a variety of reasons I read, talk, write, think, and at times dream or soliloquy in English. I read French reasonably fluently and usually survive a not too involved conversation without making a complete fool of myself more than once or twice. I get by in Italian, though it’s been a while since I’ve really used it. The World Cup in Russia made me curious about those funny characters, so I started learning Russian, but after a few months my curiosity was satisfied, particularly since those long, consonant-packed words and the complex grammar gave me a hard time.
Compared with that, so far Japanese has really been fun. The grammar is not too involved, even somewhat intuitive. There is very little conjugation, and many words are simply easy-to-guess compounds. I am frequently fascinated by the metaphorical expressiveness of the Kanji writings. I have high hopes that in a year or so, if I keep it up, I will be able to at least read simple texts, and since I most certainly will never live in Japan that will be more than enough for me. 