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So what’s involved if you want to learn Japanese… and is it hard?!

• Japanese pronunciation is not hard: nearly all the sounds occur in English as well.  You just need to acquire the distinctive staccato intonation!
• Contrary to what people imagine, it is not difficult to pick up some basic words, phrases and structures in Japanese.
• Most of the Japanese words you need are quite short and not hard to learn.
• Japanese has borrowed a lot of words from English.  Can you recognise “kompyūta”, “bōifurendo” and “tēpu rekōdā”?  “Sarariman” comes from the English “salaryman”.  (It’s just a pity that “salaryman” doesn’t exist in English!)
• Japanese writing is very complex, but learners normally use a script called “romaji” – basically, our alphabet (as used in the Japanese words above).  Romaji is very straightforward.  Don’t let fear of the writing put you off!  You can learn a lot of useful spoken Japanese without worrying about the writing.
• Even a limited study of Japanese gives you a feel of the way the language works.  You also understand much more about the culture, and the way, for example, that levels of politeness are expressed throughout the language.
• Japanese grammar certainly becomes quite challenging at a higher level.  However, even though it requires a new way of looking at language, it is largely regular and has its own logic.