Is Japanese hard to learn at 24?

I am considering to go to Japan in 2011 to study Japanese for 9 months. I will turn 24 that year & the only thing giving me second thoughts is my future age.

On my recent trip to Japan, I notice my memory is already going downhill. I have trouble remembering new Japanese vocab even after they have been repeated half a dozen times.

I have talked to several friends about this plan. Most of them also feel that 24 is somewhat old to learn a language and some added that preparing for marriage is what I ought to be doing then.

Rubbish, of course you can learn!!! Unless you have some kind of learning disability we don't know about.

Learning any language requires it to have meaning - if you repeat words like a parrot it won't sink in in my opinion - but if you really want to learn of course you can.

Go for it.

as above, rubbish. wait until you get to 30, and you'll think "what on earth was i thinking, that i was too old at 24?!" you could live into your 80s or 90s, are you now going to give up on learning anything new for the next 60 or 70 years?

i didn't get married until i was 31, and most of my friends, japanese and others, were the same age or older. get married when you meet someone that you want to get married to- that can be at any age- although i personally think the early 20s is a bit young, i know way too many people who married at that age and are now divorced.

i'm still learning japanese quite successfully in my mid 30s- perhaps it does get a bit harder, so what? if you stop using your brain now it's going to be an even faster downhill slide.

I'm 40 and learning Japanese so to answer your question, "No."

I'm 27 don't really have any problems learning Japanese. Everyone's memory works slightly differently but in general, if you move to Japan and take a class, you will hear the same words every day. After hearing the same words, sentences and questions over and over they start to stick. You just have to be aware that it does take time. Don't expect to learn something perfectly or 'master' something before moving on. Language learning doesn't work like that. Tbe best way to study is to keep trying to learn new things while reviewing from time to time. You can do it, you just have to keep trying different things until you find what works for you.

My husband started learning Japanese at 40 (his Japanese was 0! at that time), and I can see his Japanese is getting better. (He memorized all Hiragana/Katakana, and can write simple sentences now.)

24 years old??? Very young!

I am just really nervous. The reason is I started learning Chinese at 15, on & off, then went to China to continue studying at 20-21. Even though my reading skills are decent, I speak with a very heavy foreign accent and couldn't discriminate the tones. Chinese is hard to learn properly at 20 in my opinion.

I hope Japanese is different. I did learn (but not seriously at all) Japanese at 13-15 in high school. I still remember hiragana & katakana, have a vocab of a few hundred words. As I didn't take it seriously then, I have a hard time speaking grammatically correct simple sentences. I have a hard time understanding a question that is longer than 4-5 simple words. I am nervous as I probably have to start from scratch again.

i didn't get married until i was 31, and most of my friends, japanese and others, were the same age or older. get married when you meet someone that you want to get married to- that can be at any age- although i personally think the early 20s is a bit young, i know way too many people who married at that age and are now divorced.

i'm still learning japanese quite successfully in my mid 30s- perhaps it does get a bit harder, so what? if you stop using your brain now it's going to be an even faster downhill slide.

I also feel that getting married at 24 is a lil young. 25-26 seems like the avg for women in cities these days?

Hello. I have been reading the posts and it has made me feel a lot more better about my situation. I am having the same difficulties in learning Japanese and I will be 24 by the end of this year. I have been studying Japanese on and off by myself for a year and I am able to grasp some of the Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana; however, my pronunciation is awful. I am currently taking a class which is once a week for an hour and a half and I kind of feel behind the class. Most of the students have Japanese relatives or have previous speaking experiences whereas I have nothing of the sort. My question is, should I take a class that is more than once a week and have tutors? Because, the class I am taking now is a language school which are not built on tests, quizzes, or none of the sort. There are no tutors, and the letter of completion is given if you are in class for 60% of the semester. I would just like to know what is the best approach for this situation. My goal is to become a translator (reading/writing) hopefully by the time I am in my early 30's. Please, any suggestion is better than none. Thank you for reading.

My question is, should I take a class that is more than once a week and have tutors?

Kai-Tea: Yes, certainly. Well, maybe. If your goal is to become a translator in 6 years or so, you should absolutely be studying at least 2-3 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not necessarily in a class or with a tutor, though, since self-study can also be very effective and certainly very economical. Building even a decent fluency takes a lot of time and effort, no matter what your age is.

Similarly, Jenny, I think that your problems with listening and speaking Chinese have more to do with the large difference between Chinese and English, and less with not having started studying it seriously before 20. Studying on and off for 5 years and then 2 years abroad isn't really that much when it comes to languages not in the same language family with your mother tongue.

The research doesn't disagree that there is a golden age of language learning, but that ends already at 3-15 (depending on which study you look at), and that your overall mental skills start to deteriorate at your early twenties. Yet, there are plenty of people who've built excellent language skills at adult age, and even learning your mother tongue as a kid wasn't that easy. Just think about how long it took until you could properly write and speak the refined "adult language"...

Another way to think about it is to ask yourself if you would've just given up on everything if you were born 10% less smart. So why give up now even if you've lost some of your mental resources to age? Just put in a bit more effort. Also, exercising your mind with language learning (or any learning activity) will slow down the aging process so there's a double benefit.

Jenny, Chinese is tonal as you know, Japanese isn't. That makes Japanese infinitely easier to learn - or rather, it is more forgiving of beginner's attempts.

All your comments here tend to indicate your problem is one of confidence and nothing else. You said you were concerned with "grammatically correct simple sentences" - then I would put it to you to just concentrate on COMMUNICATION - getting your point across. Just speak in broken words even - trust me, an adult Japanese will understand you, just as you would understand someone speaking broken English. Make some Japanese friends... In time you will suddenly realise your grammar is getting better and better. I think you're trying to do too much at once. Take it slowly.

Jenny, reading all your posts it is obvious that you over- worry and over- analyze everything, to make sure you do everything perfectly! This is so sweet and endearing but it also rob you of spontaneity.
Once you are in Japan and have no choice but to talk to people who don't speak English or barely, just go for it..without worrying about grammar and stuff. Trust me, learning by immersion works!!.
When you learned your mother tongue as a child, you had no clue about the grammar yet you communicated with others and got better at it everyday... this was learning by immersion...

Sentence structure is important in Japanese but believe it or not, there is a big difference between broken Japanese and broken English. In Japanese you can omit many part of a sentence and still have it sound natural. We can do this a little bit here and there in English but not to the extent that Japanese can.

You can often express yourself quite well with just a few words or phrases. Practice is needed but it can be done. Also, as I'm finding out, even native speakers make mistakes when they speak or write all the time. It's similar to being a bad speller in English.

Pronunciation is much easier than a tonal language like Chinese. I have studied Thai for almost 2 years and while Thai is a fun language, I have to really concentrate to while speaking to get all the tones right. It gets better with time but it�fs still a challenge.

I would try a speaking focused class in the beginning. I did that when I first came to Japan and it worked very well. We used Minna no Nihongo, which is written in all hiragana, katakana and kanji. Don�ft worry about the kanji, they come with the furigana over it so that you can read it. Anyway, the class was 2 hours a day and all in Japanese. We mostly read the examples and practiced recreating the conversations over and over until they stuck. I did that for a year and by the end was very fluent. Now I�fm just trying to learn higher level, academic vocabulary and grammar which is difficult but everyday conversation is easy.

Japanese is hard to learn at any age. Now, having said that; I'm 57 and learning Japanese. Is it hard for me? Yes. I've learned some 450 kanji in about 3 months and can speak enough to get a giggle out of the locals in Japan. Don't worry about it, just do it!

Totally depends on the person though.

I am 24, and personally wouldn't consider studying a foreign language at this age. But a lot of ppl have minimal probs learning a new language well after 24.

I studied Japanese during my first 2yrs in uni. During my 2nd year, I had to study at least 10h/wk to do well. Understanding a comic book is about my level now.

U r making me somewhat nervous on the marriage age! ;) I am 6 months past my 24th b'day, but don't have plans to marry soon. I know my biological clock is ticking. It seems like my b'day comes quicker every year!

As one or maybe more people said,immersion is what works best. Book and Uni learning is successful for some people but ALL people can learn through immersion. It is the way we all learn to use language. I am teaching my husband Japanese and he has an accent but I am sure it will get lesser with time. He is soon to be 24 and has no trouble learning. I think you can surely do it!

Look the problem is not your age at all. Anybody can learn a language you just have to dedicate your time to it. A lot it. I spend 5-7 hours studying it and I think it's weak. Stop doubting yourself and just do it. Learning a language is always hard. Japanese isn't hard just differnt just adject yourself. Also please take my advice for the sake of your sanity. Have fun!!! Never never ever make Japanese boring. The language is cool has lots of video games and a lot of animations to watch. There may be some problems in Japan but as far as I know it's not that bad. Having fun is essential to learning. Don't listen to what anybody tells you. Use common sense but sometimes you have to defy all logic if possible. I watch anime for like 5-7 hours and try to do at 50 kanjis a week. I could do 100 kanjis a day but I choose not to. Also note that 9 months you spend in Japan that's all you need to learn Japanese. Really it is. As long as you listen yes that's an important skill you have to listen to 10,000 hours of Japanese to be fluent. Besides it's always nice to learn about a culture or a language as long as there's a lot of people to talk to with it I believe it is actually worth it.

Jenny,
I'm happy to know that so many foreign people want to learn Japanese language. Don't worry, you can do it with no problem. Please make a lot of Japanese friends who don't speak English and have a fun time with them in Japan.
But I want to tell you one or two things about this language. Well, lots of the Chinese characters used in China differ from Kanji used in Japan. The Chinese people have simplified most of the characters. In Japan we use orthodox Kanji. And the Chinese grammer may be more similar to English. The Japanese structure of the sentences lie in reverse except for the subjects. Please have a good time learning Japanese!!

Hello,

There is no specific age at which a person can no longer learn a language, and 24 is extremely young to think your memory is too bad to learn something new. If your friends repeat words to you many times and you still can't remember then, maybe you are not an auditory learner (someone who learns best by hearing something.) Memorizing vocab is different for everyone else. If you're having trouble with your method, try something else. You could make flashcard with words on both sides or flashcards with a picture on one side and a word on the other. You could make up word games.

The best way to learn another language is to use the language all the time. Make sure that you practice a lot even when you're not in Japan and try to speak, read, and write in Japanese and watched Japanese shows. There are also plenty of resources in the form of books and websites for how to learn Japanese, and if you're having trouble, they may offer you suggestions for an easier method of learning or memorizing.

Don't give up! :D

Yeah, in 10 or 20 years time these 24 year-olds are going to look back and wonder "what on earth was I thinking, that I was too old for anything at 24, much less to learn a language?!"

If they live into their 80s, that would be 60 years of not learning anything new if they decide they are past that at 24. That would be quite sad...

As long as you integrate Japanese into your everyday life you'll be able to learn it reasonably well. I'm 23 and been studying it for 2 years. I'm sure that the joy you can get from learning, speaking, and socializing in Japanese is far greater than marriage. Th eonly reason for a gu to get married is for a child.