I try to keep far away from most forums, but this one seems kind, so I felt like sharing my thoughts.
Why is there such a defeatist attitude around learning japanese? I noticed this in my college classes, everyone keeps complaining about how hard it is, how non-sensical the grammar is and how nothing makes sense (to be fair, the average textbook doesn’t explain things in japanese terms and makes it more complicated than it has to be)
Then you go to other forums, people asking innocent questions, only to be berated by people who judge from their high horse claiming that the other person WILL NEVER reach the fluency they strife for in that specific amount of time, when they couldn’t possibly know how much time the other person can invest. People act like they have to suffer to study japanese, and at that point I ask myself, why do they even do it? Nothing wrong with challenge and being a bit frustrated at making mistakes, but making mistakes is what makes you become better at it.
I have never seen any such negativity in any other skill or language circle. Not in chinese, not in korean, not in english, not in any other language. Not when people learn to play an instrument, not when people learn to cook, not when people learn to programm.
I’m not sure if it’s just a mindless meme that people have come to accept, that if you don’t think Japanese is the most difficult and arduous journey you can take, something is wrong with you, you will never make it and you might as well give up.