Anyone actually learning Japanese?

muyo wrote:But Kanji isn't that hard once you start to get into it. I always looked for ways that the character looked like what it meant and that helped xD

And my aunt, who is from South Korea, told me that Korean might actually be easier than Japanese and Chinese because they have something that's kind of like the English alphabet. They have these characters in their "alphabet" that they put together to make words, kind of like English does.
I don't know any Korean though xD;;

Zeny wrote:

muyo wrote:But Kanji isn't that hard once you start to get into it. I always looked for ways that the character looked like what it meant and that helped xD

And my aunt, who is from South Korea, told me that Korean might actually be easier than Japanese and Chinese because they have something that's kind of like the English alphabet. They have these characters in their "alphabet" that they put together to make words, kind of like English does.
I don't know any Korean though xD;;

Written Korean is by far the easiest Asian language for foreigners to learn. As for spoken Korean, it'll give you some trouble, but if you already speak Chinese or Japanese it'll be a lot easier.

At least, that's what I've picked up from listening to people on the train haha.

Nanashi_Zokune wrote:i would really love to learn a new language but with money restraints and lack of a job i can't afford it. i know some languages i learn probly would be useless to even know, but, one mustn't forget that learning new languages expands the mind and even helps organize it better or atleast that's how i perceive learning..

i would like to one day travel the world so it would help me then i suppose ^^; and i do agree with zeny about the job part. it is a tie breaker. more often where i live if you know spanish you're golden.

vodKata wrote:Honestly I'm not interested in learning Japanese, it isn't a language that is 'endangered'. Also, the kanjis look really complicated (although Japanese pronunciation it's like the easiest thing for a person that has Spanish as it's mother language).
I'm going to take French classes soon because of my heritage...I know French isn't endangered either, but there's less people that speak French than people that speak Japanese.

vodKata wrote:
I know French isn't endangered either, but there's less people that speak French than people that speak Japanese.

The World's Most Widely Spoken Languages




Thus, if you add the secondary speaker populations to the primary speaker populations, you get the following (and I believe more accurate) list:
(number of speakers in parentheses)

Mandarin Chinese (1.12 billion)
English (480 million)
Spanish (320 million)
Russian (285 million)
French (265 million)
Hindi/Urdu (250 million)
Arabic (221 million)
Portuguese (188 million)
Bengali (185 million)
Japanese (133 million)
German (109 million)

Zeny wrote:

vodKata wrote:
I know French isn't endangered either, but there's less people that speak French than people that speak Japanese.

This is false, I'm afraid. Collectively between native speakers and people who pick it up as a second language, the French language has around 256 million speakers in over 50 countries.

http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/francophonie/francophonie.htm

Japanese has around 133 million speakers worldwide and is only predominant in Japan. While it's spoken in some parts of China, Taiwan, Korea and the United States, it's presence isn't as large as French.

http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm

The World's Most Widely Spoken Languages




Thus, if you add the secondary speaker populations to the primary speaker populations, you get the following (and I believe more accurate) list:
(number of speakers in parentheses)

Mandarin Chinese (1.12 billion)
English (480 million)
Spanish (320 million)
Russian (285 million)
French (265 million)
Hindi/Urdu (250 million)
Arabic (221 million)
Portuguese (188 million)
Bengali (185 million)
Japanese (133 million)
German (109 million)

Though, I can understand why you would want to learn French to preserve your roots so to speak. That's always important. At least, I think so.

Oh sorry I didn't knew that info xP...
well, there's many people learning Japanese now...I prefer to preserve my roots of course!

vodKata wrote:
Oh sorry I didn't knew that info xP...
well, there's many people learning Japanese now...I prefer to preserve my roots of course!

Zeny wrote:

The World's Most Widely Spoken Languages




Thus, if you add the secondary speaker populations to the primary speaker populations, you get the following (and I believe more accurate) list:
(number of speakers in parentheses)

Mandarin Chinese (1.12 billion)
English (480 million)
Spanish (320 million)
Russian (285 million)
French (265 million)
Hindi/Urdu (250 million)
Arabic (221 million)
Portuguese (188 million)
Bengali (185 million)
Japanese (133 million)
German (109 million)

Aline wrote:
Should I feel sad that most Portuguese speakers are actually Brazilians (and that very few people want to learn)? D:

xLei wrote:Spanish is my mother language :'D

I want to learn Latin SO GOD DAMN BAD.

But supposedly no one knows how to properly pronounce it because it's so ancient and not many speak it...

vodKata wrote:

xLei wrote:Spanish is my mother language :'D

I want to learn Latin SO GOD DAMN BAD.

But supposedly no one knows how to properly pronounce it because it's so ancient and not many speak it...

My friend is an exchange student in Germany now, and she told me that in school she's learning Latin :D she says that's pretty hard XD and the most weird thing is that Spanish actually comes from Latin XD lol
Anyways, looks like an awesome language :>

Oh btw, I would like to learn Russian too :D and maybe Portuguese for talking with Aline XD lol

xLei wrote:

vodKata wrote:

xLei wrote:Spanish is my mother language :'D

I want to learn Latin SO GOD DAMN BAD.

But supposedly no one knows how to properly pronounce it because it's so ancient and not many speak it...

My friend is an exchange student in Germany now, and she told me that in school she's learning Latin :D she says that's pretty hard XD and the most weird thing is that Spanish actually comes from Latin XD lol
Anyways, looks like an awesome language :>

Oh btw, I would like to learn Russian too :D and maybe Portuguese for talking with Aline XD lol

OMFG RUSSIAN <333

I find Russian accents VERY sexy hurhur

xLei wrote:I actually want to learn GERMAN before Japanese

muyo wrote:Oh God, there are so many languages that I wanna learn too xD I also love learning new languages.
I want to learn Japanese, yes, but I also wanna finish learning Chinese and I want to learn Korean, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. Maybe some others xDD