Icepick87Whoever said Japanese is a difficult language to learn is a liar.
It's not that it's extremely complex as implied. That's not the hard part. The challenge is the intricate details. A lot of information to handle, but eventually, you get used to it once you've learned well enough. Knowledge is key.
I haven't yet begun to actually get to write sentences, else I'd be writing this in Japanese. But I've gotten as far as being able to read just enough to understand words, spellings, and some grammatical concepts. In fact, I've lately gotten into verb conjugations and the like, absolutely eating up the conversions of different forms according to each type of word. Once I figured out the rules, it got wicked easy.
I'm doing all this at no expense. No schooling. No physical textbooks. I've plenty of digital resources that all I'm doing is sorting out the topic, figuring out what they're trying to tell me, and I simplify it in the most direct way.
Because authors tend to throw in so much background about the subject and it's just noise, I just needed to know the principle in action. So this takes time to analyze, study and apply it in practice. Successful, so far.
I can get over this kind of hurdle, but what I actually wish I had, which has to do with my approach, is a problem addressing the disorganization.
A lot of the topics tend to be in different order according to different manuals, and YMMV according to style. In my approach, I'm not following the traditional JLPT format, but I am trying to get the same information either way. Rather, I wanted to do the experience of a Japanese school, as it is more natural to me.
Abd so far, choosing the topic to do in an authentic order is pretty much a losing battle to figure out, as the syllabus for that sort of thing is hard to come by. So, I might be out of order a bit, yet in the end, I hope I'm as informed as my peers.
I can deal with that. Luckily, I'm in no rush. No deadlines. My workload is as light as I want it to be. I just practice as much as I can, and try to retain the knowledge that I'm comfortable with it.
That being said, it can be confusing at first, overwhelming. It's allowed to be a lot of work. But to do it, I haven't found that to be the problem.
In fact, I feel it is as analogous as the language itself. The context can be understood and a lot is said even in just a few simple words. It can be poetic. Complex? This is a lie. Like any language, understanding how it works can get you far.
And why am I putting myself through all this?
It's really to reconnect with myself in the past. There are a couple of points that shaped where I am today.
The first was my childhood.
The second, eventually it related to college as an adult.
In my childhood, without thinking of it much, I learned some Japanese just by taking up karate.
Primarily this was what started my interest now to revisit those memories.
Upon taking up the learning process, I realize now, when I hadn't upon starting my journey, that there would be a connection to my college days.
When I started exposing myself to Japanese media, particularly movies and televised dramas, I happened to have within 5 degrees of separation with several actors through more than one connection. One of those was a roommate I had in college, who had done some acting gigs.
So, I am a little closer to Japan, without ever having been there.
I've seen some really good stuff, and even though I wouldn't even mind meeting those actors some day, I would have even more reason to do so. Fate, I guess.
So, this would just inspire me more to learn the language, even if some of them might know English. I'm not gonna let any language barrier spoil it.
The wonderful part is, despite the daunting amount of things to learn, I'm enjoying the learning process. Better than school. I know more than I did 2 years ago. Yay me.