[Nathan]

Age: 24
Years as a student: Approximately 3
- 2 years Japan residence
- 1 year self study
Kind of learning center :
- Living in Japan, self study

Why do you study Japanese?

My roommates in college were addicted to anime, and I developed an interest in what those "crazy voices" were saying. Now I've come to like the language itself, and have subsequently developed a minor interest in languages on the whole.

Do you think it is a difficult language to learn?

Learning a new language is never easy. Maybe if you only learned oral Japanese it wouldn't be as hard, but being literate as well is definitely challenging.

What are the main difficulties you face when learning Japanese? Why?

Kanji and colloquials. Different dialects. For example, after having it drilled into me by textbooks and online sources that men don't add "wa" at the end of their sentences, but women do, and then hearing native Osaka males do it often caused me some confusion.

What is the easiest thing to learn? What did you learn first?

Hiragana and katakana. They're the building blocks to Japanese. That, and self introduction language.

How long does it take to get used to the Japanese alphabet?

It took me about 3 weeks of constant practice and study. I just wrote them over and over until I had them memorized. I wrote them in the Japanese chart style, reorganized it to be an English style chart (a,e,i,o,u, ka ke ki ko ku rather than a i u e o, ka ki ku ke ko). Lots of repetition.

What was the first thing you were taught?

I'll assume you mean taught by another person, not from self-study:
[okawari!]

If not, then the first thing was the S-O-V style of Japanese grammar.

What are the most common mistakes?

Homonyms and other similar sounding words. You could write a book on them (in fact, several have been!)
Similar Word Example: kowai / kawaii, suwaru / sawaru, ninjin / ningen, kirei / kirai
* Nothing is more humbling than realising you just called a baby scary and not cute, or having said you dislike something rather than sayings its pretty.

Homonyms: kaeru (to return) kaeru (a frog), iru (to need) iru (to exist)
Context is very important in Japanese.

What will your knowledge of the language be useful for in the future?

I do hope to eventually need a job using Japanese, but realistically its just a hobby at the moment.