Topic awaiting preservation: For people who knows how to write words in Japanese. (Page 2 of 2)

Yup, that's the way I remembered katakana. I always found it interesting that Japanese had a separate writing system for foreign loan words. Why do you think that's so?

How many languages have I studied? Well, outside of English, five: Korean, Japanese, Chinese, French and German. I only speak one of those well (Korean), and three I can read fairly well with the help of a dictionary (Japanese, French and German). Chinese is my weak point, as I have only had minimal practice with the spoken language, but learning the written language is important for my field of study.

I need to brush up on my French and German as well, since I'll probably need to read texts in both of those languages when I write my dissertation. I'd like to start picking up Japanese again, but who knows when I'll have the time?

hi, Suho. Good morning. How are you today?
Well, my understanding is that when people see written Japanese it is easy to recognize and read.
If Japanese don't have Katakana for foreign languages, it will be written using Hiragana, right?
But if so, pretty tough on our eyes to read nicely. That is why, I guess.
I am really impressed about you study a lot of languages. Good on ya.
I will study Spanish sooner or later.
Cya.

Hiroki Kozai

I've found some facts between Japanese and Chinese. My encyclopedia says that Japanese is harder to learn than Chinese. And that what was it again...I couldn't remember.

I know some Spanish because I lived in Philippines and pronouncing spanish is easier than ever. I only know what they mean when I hear them, but I don't know how to use them in full sentences.

[This message has been edited by Yannah (edited 06-20-2003).]

The difficulty of any particular language is extremely subjective. I can't believe that you have an encyclopedia that told you Japanese was harder to learn than Chinese...

For example, Japanese is very easy for Koreans to learn because of the grammatical similarities, whereas Chinese may be easier for English speakers to learn for the same reason. Writing systems are another story (Korean is the easiest to learn in that department, but the spoken language can be very difficult).

Please do not make such broad generalizations. They make me want to stab something repeatedly with synax's knife.