Is it difficult to learn Japanese?

It's difficult to answer this question. Japanese people usually think that Japanese is very difficult for foreigners to learn. But, in fact, it's no more difficult than many other languages. Each language has its own special problems for learners. And Japanese has some features that take time to master. But many foreigners have learned Japanese very well.


It's probably hardest to master the different levels of speech. The kind of language Japanese use differs according to the relationship between the speakers. It's not very easy to get a feel for this.

Reading and writing is the other difficult part of Japanese. In order to read and write, you have to learn quite a few characters. There are about a hundred phonetic characters, called kana, and at least 2,000 different Chinese characters, or kanji, to learn.