Is learning Japanese harder than German?

Hi, I studied two years of German in high school and was just wondering if learning Japanese harder than German?

Grimmjow45,

Despite what the Japanese will tell you, the Japanese language is simpler than most European languages. It is just the writing system that is more complex and difficult to learn.

Thanks, Dave!

I studied German (mother tongues are French and English), and felt almost fluent after a few years, as well in speaking than writting... Whereas for Japanese, I've been studying it for many years. It was my major in college, I lived in Japan for some time, and now work in a Japanese company in my country, and still, I feel that I'm not fluent... It comes from the fact that the grammar is completely different, and you have to think differently to speak in Japanese... The order of the sentence has nothing to do with what we are used to, and you have to "put your thoughts up side down" (that's how I feel). The other problem is the vocabulary. You have nothing to relate to when learning Japaneses. Wheras between German and English for example many words are similar, which helps to remember them. And that's whithout mentionnenig reading and writting!! But it's a wonderful language opening doors to a wonderful country. And it's worth the effort!!

I agree with dave, this language is easy mode. It depends on your language ability though. Unfortunately though, a lot of people who just studied a language in high school do not understand languages, especially since the grammar of most hs languages are identical to english (at least generally).

Learning any language ultimately demands you memorized hundreds of vocabulary, that is most of what there is to it. Languages are not hard, keep telling yourself that when you are learning it (it helps me at least), and the grammar is just a little different (but really not unique or anything, it is just like arabic/hindi).

The best news of all, is that japanese people use a very small number of words. The adjectives are vague, which will become apparent when you hear the same words over and over. There are different ways to express things (you may be looking for a verb, when it will not exist, but the same message is just expressed differently).

Their writing system is annoying though. While it is nice that they have kanji to shortly express long syllabic words, it is annoying in that any given kanji character has many different pronunciations. I studied chinese before japanese, and i see how nice it was to just have one sound per character.

No, i am not a language student, i am an engineering grad student.

Sorry this message is desultory, but another splendid thing about japanese is that japanese people speak very clearly. Making it very welcoming for the foreigner who is just not so used to conversational japanese (China was intimidating).

Well, Im a native tonguw german, so I guess my answer is a little bit influenced ^-~
But I also think Japanese is easier, if you are good in remembering things. I study Japanese in university, before I studied French, English and Spanish in High School. Compared to them Japanese's grammar is way easier. Its different than european laguages, though, but with a little bit of talent you should master it.

Kanji are also okay if you are good in remembering (see above). I dont habe many problems and am at the top of my class, Im not really a hard woring studend, so with the abilities mentioned above Japanese is easier.

German has a grammar... well, Verbs are hard to conjugate, where to put a comma even many Germans dont know (poor =.=). But, well, if you are good in grammar you also may think German is easier.
It really depends on the talent you own ^^

Damn long this post ~__~

Well, I agree with you if you're talking about basic Japanese. I also agree that the basic grammar is quite easy compared to German. I was also top of my class in college. But if you really want to master Japanese, I think it's much more difficult, as I said in my post above, I've studied both languages for many years, and felt much more at ease in German after a shorter time. There are many subtlties that are really difficult to grasp in Japanese, and very often my friends tell me "grammatically it's correct, but I wouldn't say it this way". Which is really frustrating after so many years. And I'm not even talking about business Japanese and Keigo, which I'm trying to learn and use, but I think are really difficult to really master.

It's a mixed bag. I studied French in Jr. high and Highschool. Got good marks on it.

I've studied Japanese hardcore for 4 years, read books everyday, studying Kanji and new vocabulary for 2 hours a day. Just to give you some background on me.

I do think that Japanese is harder. You have a lot of things going against you (3 'alphabets', kanji, etc) but the big thing is there is no basic commonality like you have with the romance languages. I know English as my mother tongue, there were commonalities between it and French, and I live in NYC where this is a lot of Spanish advertising, and I can figure out most of the words because they are similiar to either English or French.

I think Japanese is easier than say Thai as far as speaking, as Japanese is atonal and constant vowel combinations make for a very flowing easy to pronounce language. On the other hand, until you really get a good grasp of kanji and the multiple readings, it's really hard to figure out vocabulary. It's just a word with no basis to anything you know (unless it something simple like terebi, kouhii, etc.) After you've knocked down a few hundred of the basic kanji it'll make a lot more sense, but until then it's not too easy.

But all that being said, I do feel it's a wonderful language and I don't regret spending all the time I do on it for a second.

Well, as my native language is German too, I am not quite sure if what I said would be right, but I hope so.
I have started Japanese a few weeks ago (I have studied it before alraedy but stopped in order to learn Chinese and now I am starting again) and have to say that, if you really are good in remembering characters (I'm talking about their writing system) you surely will not have too many problems to learn Japanese. It's just that the grammar is totally different from any language I have learnt so far because Japanese think another way. You can already "see" that the way they read their books "from the back to the front" and that's also the way they think AND talk. They just think "the other way round" so I guess if you want to learn Japanese, you just need a lot of time and you have to repeat it in order to not forget what you learnt before.
Maybe it might seem that learning Japanese is easier for the people who have a weakness for languages but I think, the only thing you have to have when you are learning a language (and am now not specific talking about Japanese only!) is interest in the language itsself.
So, to all who thought Japanese is tough to learn: がんばってね！

well, look above :)
I think german is harder to learn because of the many things you have to watch out for.
As mentioned above, japanese has a very easy grammar but if you don't learn the vocabulary (i mean Kanji and the other systems) you won't come very far.
I'm german so sorry if there are faults in my post ;)

Oh, and i think you said 'good luck' on japanese... am i right? (in german it's 'viel Glück')

がんばってね means "try hard", but Japanese people might often say it where we say "good luck".

I can't speak for German, but I majored in other European languages at university as well as learning Japanese.

For me, the basic grammar of Japanese is simpler than most European languages- not many tenses, only one form of each tense, few exceptions etc, unlike Spanish for example with so many tenses and forms to memorise.

However once you get past an early intermediate level of Japanese, it is far more difficult than any European language, as there is no common ground with your own language and Japanese, so many more advanced constructions are impossible to understand unless you have studied them, unlike Spanish and French where once you have the basics things work very much as they do in English and you can figure out the meaning of what you are hearing quite easily.

And that is before I even mention kanji, which requires many years of dedicated study before you are at a newspaper-reading level.

Studies have shown that it requires 3 times the number of study hours to reach a similar level of proficiency in Japanese as you would need for most European languages, so that is probably your answer right there.