Introduction:
Japanese seems to exist in a language family of its own, although some linguists believe it may be related to Korean and Turkish. It is spoken as a mother-tongue by the 130 million people in Japan and by expatriates across the world.
Learning Japanese is mostly about smart study habits, regularly challenging yourself, and keeping a good routine.
Japanese borrows many loanwords from English, so once you get into the language you’ll be surprised at how many words are already available to you.
Realistically speaking, the average English speaker will take about 2-3 years with full-time study to become ‘fluent in Japanese. It all depends on how much time you devote to studying on a daily basis.
It takes quite a bit of time compared to, say, French or German, which can be picked up by an English speaker quite well within 6-8 months of dedicated study.
That said, the reason Japanese fluency takes a bit longer is simply that there’s a lot to learn.
It’s important to remember that it’s not necessarily HARD to learn.
Once you get past the initial hurdles, you’ll realize that actually learning Japanese is quite fun and not all that difficult. It’s just that there is a massive amount of information to learn and this, naturally, takes time!
This is why regular and efficient study habits are especially important for Japanese: you need to always be making a little bit of progress every day—because there’s a lot of progress to make!
Try to stay focused and make sure your study is carefully directed so you don’t end up losing motivation.
Additionally, you’ll find that while learning Japanese presents different challenges than most Western languages do, Japanese also has some points that are easier than Western languages, for example:
- There are only two verb tenses
- There is no word genders to learn
- It has simple pronunciation rules
- There are very few irregular verbs
Let me tell you about the difference between Japanese and English Language so that you can decide as you know English,still, it is easy or hard to learn Japanese.
Important things to keep in mind
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Alphabet
The Japanese writing system is complex. It uses three main scripts: Kanji (characters of Japanese origin), Hiragana (a syllabary*) and Katakana (a syllabary). Modern Japanese also uses the Latin script in advertising, or for company names and neologisms such as DVD.
Traditionally, Japanese is written and printed in columns from top to bottom and from right to left. Books start ‘at the back’. Modern Japanese is written or printed in the same order of words on the page as English.
Despite these differences, Japanese learners of English rarely have particular difficulties with English writing. Latin script (and English in particular) is encountered by most Japanese in their everyday life from an early age. It is also commonly used in romaji (the representation of the entire Japanese writing system in Latin script, used for example for computer keyboard input or to help non-native speakers learn the language).
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Phonology
Japanese has 5, pure vowel sounds that may be short or long. The syllable structure is simple, generally with the vowel sound preceded by one of approximately 15 consonant sounds. There are few complex consonant sound combinations such as in the English words strength or Christmas. As a result of these differences Japanese ESL students find English hard to pronounce, often insert short vowels between the consonants (ste-rength. Japanese learners of English may even have difficulty in correctly perceiving what they hear.
Specific problems with English vowel sounds include the failure to accurately render the diphthong in words such as caught/coat or bought/boat or the different vowel sound in minimal pairs such as hat/hut. The most noticeable problem rendering English consonants is seen in the inability of many learners to differentiate between the /l/ and the /r/ sounds. Words such as lot/rot or glimmer/glimmer are impossible for some of them to pronounce correctly. Unsurprisingly, Japanese learners also struggle with the (/θ/ /ð/) sounds, such as in the words month, thirteenth, and clothes. The /v/ sound is also difficult for some, who say berry instead of very or ban instead of a van.
The intonation patterns of Japanese and English do not have many features in common. Some of the meaning that the English native speaker conveys by stress and/or a change of pitch is differently expressed in Japanese (for example, by adverbials). Learners often benefit from explicit instruction and practice in these areas. In general, however, those learners who have had significant exposure to English and have become competent in it often acquire much more natural English prosody than, for example, Spanish or French with comparable levels of English proficiency.
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Grammar
Verb/Tense: Japanese tense and voice are conveyed through changes in the verb form, as in English. What is different is that Japanese has no auxiliary verbs, so, predictably, the formation of the progressive/perfect tenses and questions or negation in the simple tenses cause problems for learners. Japanese verbs do not change for person or number, the most common consequence of which is the omission of the -s in the present simple 3rd person: she go .. / my father work …
Like most learners of English Japanese ESL students struggle to choose the correct tense to convey the intended meaning. As a brief example: Japanese learners may be tempted to use the present simple to convey future events because this is how it is done in their own language (e.g., I help you after school.)
Differences in the circumstances in which English and Japanese use the passive and in the ways that it is constructed may result in sentences such as He was cut his hair or When did you come to Germany?
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Grammar – Other
Japanese has a Subject-Object-Verb word order; ‘prepositions’ follow the noun and subordinating conjunctions follow their clause; other particles (for example, to express interrogation) follow the sentence. All adjectival phrases, no matter how long, precede the noun they modify. In all these aspects Japanese is different from English. Mistakes in the production of correct English syntax are not surprising, therefore.
The noun system in Japanese has features that can result in negative into English. Articles do not exist in Japanese. The fact that many Japanese nouns can also function as adjectives or adverbs leads to mistakes in the choice of the correct part of speech in English. Nouns can be pluralized in various ways (depending for example on the degree of respect to be conveyed) or not at all if the context is clear. No distinction is made between countability and uncountability, which are extremely significant for the correct use of the article in English. It is little wonder that this aspect of English continues to cause difficulty to even the most proficient Japanese speakers of English.
There are numerous further small variations between Japanese and English that may interfere with the correct production of English. An example is the pronoun system. Relative pronouns do not exist in Japanese, and personal/possessive pronouns are used differently in the two languages. Mistakes such as the following are the result: new in-school teacher (= the teacher who is new to the school) or He took off glasses and brushed hair.
Vocabulary: A large number of English words are used in Japanese. This may help some learners with their acquisition of English vocabulary.
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Miscellaneous
Many of the difficulties that Japanese learners have with English are not due to problems with the language itself but are more the result of cultural differences.
There is a respect for abstraction which is alien to many plain-speaking Westerners. All of this can cause Japanese learners to struggle to find the best way to express themselves and result in the production of English that native speakers may find excessively vague or tentative.

Conclusion
You need not learn Japanese all by yourself
Thanks to the many technological advancements, learning a new skill was never so easy before. There are many efficient, time-saving and cost-effective resources available today that could make your Japanese learning easy. You can find an online class where a tutor can help you learn from the basics. A tutor can also help you with some basic tips and tricks to learn Japanese better. You are bound to learn in a more dedicated and consistent manner when you join a class. Regular interaction with the tutor also helps in using Japanese more frequently as you can have a conversation while practicing some basic lessons.
Agreed, that we learn our first language very easily as we are exposed to it from the very time we are born. However, with an open mind, practice, dedication and perseverance You can definitely learn Japanese.