What is your biggest problem with the Japanese language?

[kyo_9]

I had a hard time understanding kansai dialect since I've been staying in shiga currently..

[manners]

Very interesting replies so far.

Listening to people who speak softly is hard for me.

The construction of difficult sentences and the lack of subjects is hard to overcome. "who, what?"

[CarleyGee]

From what I've learned so far, the only problem I've had was pronouncing "r" XD

[AsianAtHeart]

Originally Posted by SSJup81

I thought "suru" was more like "to do" and "dekiru" meant more so along the lines of "to be able to" or "can do".

That's what I meant. My teacher made a point that the Japanese don't have a potential form for 'shimasu', so they use 'dekimasu' instead.

[chryuop]

I have 2 main problems, but one of those I guess it is because I am not high level yet
1_ This is the main problem and that's translating and understanding phrases. Many times I translate every word of a phrase and understand the conjugation of a verb...nothing left unknown as translation, but when I put it all together I can't get the meaning of it. For example これはジャックが造った家で棲む鼠です is one of those. I am sure had I found it without the translation I would have never gotten to the meaning...meaning that now I see very easily. I am hopeless hee hee.
2_ The presence if certain "particles" that I don't understand why they are there. Phrases that in my head work perfectly with a very basic construct, I find extra です、こと or even particles that I don't know what they are for which in my head shouldn't be there.

[Jaydelart]

I enjoy practicing pronunciation and learning of the structure of the language... But I can't help but feel that vocabulary words are a hassle... Which is simply a stupid attitude to have.

I'm doing my best to get over it.

[TKS]

----------

[Teesama]

Counting. Like seriously. ._.

[CarleyGee]

Originally Posted by Teesama

Counting. Like seriously. ._.

for some reason, I can remember my numbers.. 0_0
and i havent looked over it in months.
you just have to make a song to it.
but don't sing it aloud in public or anything ^_^

[mkfuba07]

I actually love studying kanji, because it speeds up my memorization of vocab that I'm learning at the same time. But the hardest thing for me is all of the conjugations that I was told Japanese didn't have. There's present positive, present negative, past casual negative, etc. I have trouble keeping all of the "-かった"s, "じゃなかった"s, and "だった"s straight. I think I just have to study more, but I can't pull myself away from kanji XD

Of course, this may just be because I started Japanese three months ago, while the rest of my class started 13 months ago... I think it'll take some tome anyways, and I agree with whoever said you really have to live there for a while to fully internalize everything.