Is Japanese really that hard?

“Wow, are you really learning Japanese?!”
“Isn’t it too complicated?”
“Why didn't you choose an easier language?...”

These are just some of the questions that people asked me when they heard I was studying Japanese.

For some, learning this language just seemed too hard — an uphill battle impossible to win. Apparently, this is a pretty widespread conception. Perhaps, you, too, are interested in learning Japanese and find yourself wondering: “How hard can it be?”

If that’s the case, don't worry! In this article, we’ll give you a quick overview of what to expect as you embark on your Japanese language learning journey.

We'll cover:

What people think will be hard about Japanese
What is hard about learning Japanese
Some good news — a few things that are easy about Japanese

Without further ado, let’s dive into it!

The Perception of Difficulty in the Japanese Language

The difficulty of the Japanese language has been a topic of discussion among language learners and researchers for quite some time. To be blunt, many consider it to be a challenging language to master. As a learner, though, that's not super important. Every languages presents challenges, and you'll encounter frustrations no matter what language you're learning. As such, we think it's more important to simply acknowledge what you're getting into.

For now, though, here's what it "means" to say that a language is easy or hard.

According to the government

The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is an institution that provides language and cultural training to U.S. diplomats working in foreign affairs. The organization has a ranking system that categorizes languages based on their difficulty and the time it takes for English speakers to learn them to a certain level.

Category I languages are the “easiest to learn”
Category V languages are the “hardest to learn.”

The FSI placed Japanese in Category V (along with Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Arabic), rating it as a “super-hard language to learn .” This means that, on average, it took FSI candidates 2,200 in-class hours to achieve ILR-3 proficiency in speaking and reading — about four times as long as languages like Spanish or French!

While this is a good start, it doesn't necessarily give you the whole picture. Most people aren't going to become a diplomat, so they have different needs and goals with the learning process.

According to learners

The polyglot Steve Kaufmann, for example, says:

"Japanese may take longer to learn than some European languages, but it is not inherently difficult." In fact, I found Japanese to be a forgiving language, where it's harder to make mistakes."

Then, this study conducted in the Faculty of Agriculture of Kagawa University provides valuable insights into what typical learners think about the difficult of Japanese.

Some of the preconceptions that the study found students held were:

Almost all students (90%) believed they could understand spoken Japanese after studying for two years.
About 30% of the students were neutral about the ease of learning hiragana, and some disagreed. There were more negative perceptions about learning katakana.
Participants showed much less confidence in their ability to learn kanji, which were viewed as a mass of indecipherable characters.

And this is kind of interesting! The overwhelming majority of people found that the language wasn't so difficult to speak, but that its writing system was a challenge.

To answer the question of how hard Japanese is, then, it's really important to address these expectations and preconceptions.

Here's what's actually hard about Japanese.

Step up — Photo by Jukan Tateisi / Unsplash

What's hard about Japanese

Here are what are commonly cited as being the “scary” parts of Japanese.

Japanese's writing system

The complexity of the Japanese writing system plays a significant role in the perception of the language's difficulty. Japanese has three writing systems: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Each system has its own characters and rules for usage, so it's understandable why beginners initially have trouble wrapping their head around them.

So, the bad news first: the kanji take time and effort to learn. Why? Because there are thousands of them, and many have multiple pronunciations and even multiple meanings. And, of course, they're unavoidable — to read pretty much anything in Japanese, from a menu to a textbook to a Twitter post, you'll need kanji. Having said that, they’re possible to learn, so don’t be afraid! A byproduct of them being everywhere is that, so long as you're doing something in Japanese, you'll also be practicing the kanji.

The kanas (hiragana and katakana), on the other hand, are relatively easy to tackle. These are phonetic symbols that represent the sounds of the Japanese language. Most students are able to learn both systems within approximately two weeks to a month of total time.

Tip: Learn Kanji in Context. Instead of just memorizing each character and its reading in isolation, study them alongside vocabulary and sentences so you can see how they are used in practical situations. This approach strengthens your understanding of how kanji are used and helps with their retention.

The culture behind the language

There is a close relationship between Japan's language and its culture. In order to truly grasp the language, you need to understand these cultural nuances, the concept of honorifics, and the role social etiquette plays in Japanese communication.

Here are some examples of cultural nuances related to the Japanese language:

Politeness/honorifics: Japanese uses different levels of formality and politeness in speech to reflect the social status and relationship between the speaker and listener. This is called keigo (敬語).
High-Context Culture: In high-context cultures like Japan, a lot of important information in communication goes unsaid, so you'll have to "read the air". If you only pay attention to what osmebody is literally saying, you'll miss a lot.
Social scripts: Virtually every interaction we have is somehow shaped by the culture we come from. For example, slurping noodles is not only considered not rude, but actually polite! As such, you can't run on autopilot: you need to pay attention to your new cultural context to decide how to behave and what to communicate. Not doing so may cause social friction.

(We actually have entire posts devoted to a few of these topics! Check out our posts on the how to use Japanese honorifics and the influence of Japanese culture on the Japanese language.)

What's easy about Japanese

Despite its perceved difficulty, there's actually quite a lot of things about Japanese that will be pleasantly easy for learners. A few examples include:

Verb conjugation

Unlike many other languages, Japanese has a relatively straightforward verb conjugation system: verbs don’t conjugate based on number or person.

Whereas learners of Spanish need to know six different sets of conjugations for each of three types of verbs (-ar, -er, and -ir verbs) just to use the present tense, Japanese learners only need to know one. Not one set... just one conjugation! This simplicity enables Japanese learners to begin expressing simple ideas from quite early on.

Example:

私はアイスクリームを食べます。
わたしはあいすくりーむをたべます。
Watashi wa aisukurīmu o tabemasu.
I eat ice cream.
彼女はアイスクリームを食べます。
かのじょはあいすくりーむをたべます。
Kanojo wa aisukurīmu wo tabemasu.
She eats ice cream.

What we want you to notice here is the word eat. Notice how in the first example we say I eat, but in the second example, we say she eats... but in Japanese, the verb remains as 食べます (tabemasu) both times?

This same sort of thing happens with not just the present tense but with every verb tense and verb form. Whereas you'll need to learn nearly 100 forms of each verb to speak Spanish perfectly, you only need to know about a dozen in Japanese.

No genders or plural forms

Languages like German and French have grammatical gender, meaning that (a) nouns fall into multiple categories and (b) their category determines things how they interact with articles (a/an/the) and adjectives. In French, nouns can be masculine or feminine; in German, they can be masculine, feminine, or neuter.

For example, table is feminine in French, meaning that you have to remember to use it with the words une (a) or la (the) — not un (masculine a) or le (masculine the).

Fortunately, this doesn't exist in Japanese! A noun is a noun. This makes it easier to learn vocabulary, as the only thing you have to remember is what the word means — not which type of article it can be used with.

The same goes for plurals. Japanese nouns have just one form, and this form is used whether there is one of the nouns or a hundred of them. This, again, makes life easier: you can just learn the root noun without worrying about a bunch of additional forms of the noun.

Example:

テーブルの上に本があります。
てーぶるのうえにほんがあります。
Teburu no ue ni hon ga arimasu.
There is a book on the table.
テーブルの上には5冊の本があります。
てーぶるのうえには５さつのほんがあります。
Tēburu no ue ni wa 5-satsu no hon ga arimasu.
There are five books on the table.

Similar to the above section on verb conjugation, what we want you to notice here is how one book is in English, but multiple books are. When we talk about multiple objects, we add an “s” to the end of the object. Luckily, we don't have to do this in Japanese! The same form あります (arimasu) is used in both sentences, whether we're talking about one book or five.

One size fits all? | Photo by Robby McCullough / Unsplash

Phonetics

Learning a new language means learning new sounds, and that can be complex: our guide to rolling your R's is nearly 5,000 words long.

Thankfully, Japanese pronunciation is consistent and it has a relatively small sound inventory. There aren’t any complex consonant combinations to learn that make you do mouth gymnastics, and there aren’t a bunch of new vowels that you’ll struggle to hear, let alone make.

There are some niche complex details that will make it challenging to perfect your pronunciation, but native speakers will be able to understand you just fine, even if you never make any particular effort to learn about Japanese pronunciation.

Great availability of Japanese learning resources

Japanese's popularity as a foreign language has led to the creation of an abundance of Japanese learning resources. From textbooks and online courses to language exchange programs and immersive apps, learners can access a wide range of materials and tools to support their language journey.

To name just a few:

Imabi is an online resource that provides in-depth explanations of everything to do about Japanese, from pronunciation to grammar points
Marugoto and Tae Kim are free online textbooks
WaniKani specializes in helping learners master the kanji, painlessly
Satori Reader and Tadoku provide high-quality reading resources for learners; Crystal Hunters is a adventure manga/textbook crossover
Bunpro and Lingodeer provide bitesize/app grammar lessons
Yomitan is a browser-based tool that brings up dictionary definitions when you mouseover a Japanese word

And this is just the beginning! Whatever sort of learner you are, and whatever source of resource you’re looking for, there’s a good chance that it exists.

Closing Words

For years, students have been intimidated by the difficulties of the Japanese language… and it's fair to say that some of those worries are understandable.

However, if you want to succeed in learning this language, don’t trip yourself up before you even get started: be open-minded and approach the challenges with a positive mindset. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, either. They're part of the learning process! Set achievable goals for yourself and stay focused to achieve them.

As language learners, we need to understand that the road to proficiency is rarely smooth, but the rewards are worth it. So, let’s not be discouraged by the hurdles but motivated by what awaits us.

If you are ready to start, check our beginners’ guide to the Japanese language, which will guide you through the first steps of your learning journey.

読んでくれてありがとうございます！

(Thanks for reading!)

またね！