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GPod - Mastering Japanese

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One of the challenges in living in Japan is mastering the language. With three different alphabets and thousands of kanji to memorize, learning Japanese is not an easy task.

To provide some inspiration for learning Japanese, we are pleased to announce our new language series. Each month we will bring you an interview with a Japanese language expert who will offer their suggestions on the best methods to learn Japanese.

On this show we will be talking to John Fotheringham who is the author of the language guide, "Mastering Japanese the Fun Way."

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Hmmm interesting.

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Awesome !

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Sugoi! ;-)

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With three different alphabets and thousands of kanji to memorize, learning Japanese is not an easy task.

This is the biggest load of often repeated bs ever. There are only 2,136 "regular-use Chinese characters" which if mastered allow you to read newspapers and novels. Manga can be read with the first 1100 Kanji taught at primary school.

And oh, no, isn't that hard, sniffle. No. If you learn English then the first 1000 words do not allow you to read Noddy. For children's books you need about 2-3000, and each 1000 more words you learn will be as difficult as the next 1000, which is why it generally takes native English speakers till their 40s to master their 10,000 word vocabulary.

But, I repeat, if you learn 2000 kanji, you can read pretty much anything in Japanese because the Japanese lexicon has structure. Hence Japanese is easy and English is monstrously difficult. And yet this sniffling carp gets repeated over and over again.

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@timtak.

Look at the younger Japanese generation now who struggle to write kanji correctly on paper due to being reliant on computers. It takes a lot of exposure and practice to be able to read and write kanji correctly.

For foreigners living in Japan, learning to read or write even just 2000 kanji is a monstrously difficult task for those who are working full time.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

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