【Podcast】#25 日本語の勉強でむずかしいこと | Struggles with Studying Japanese

Answer these quiz questions if you’ve listened to a new episode of my podcast.

If it was difficult, read the transcript below and try again.

Good morning. Hello. Good afternoon.
I am a Japanese teacher, Emi.

It’s been really humid lately.
It feels sticky and damp.
How is the weather where you live?

Over the weekend, I went to eat lunch with a friend in Tokyo, and it was way too hot.
I was sweating the entire time I was walking.
Since it’s going to get even hotter from now on, please make sure to drink plenty of water.

If you don’t drink water, you might get Necchusyo.
Necchusyo is when your body overheats and you feel unwell.
It’s a type of illness.
In English, it’s called “heat stroke.”

I’ll be careful and drink lots of water too.
Please take care of yourselves.

Alright, now let’s check last week’s question.
Last week, I asked this question:

“What are you working hard on in your Japanese studies?
How do you study?”

That was the question.

When did you all start studying Japanese?
How’s it going?
Is it fun? Easy? Or difficult?

Gogaku—like Japanese, English, or Spanish, the language you speak—is something that involves a lot of memorization.
I think it’s hard.
I’ve been studying English since I was a student, and even now I still find it difficult.

Today, I want to share what some people studying Japanese find difficult,
and also give some advice.

Some of my students told me what they find hard about Japanese.
Today, I’ll talk about three particularly difficult things.

The first one is that Japanese characters are difficult.
Japanese uses three types of writing: hiragana, katakana, and kanji.

There’s also romaji, which is using the alphabet to write Japanese words.
But when speaking Japanese, we don’t use romaji very much.
We mainly use hiragana, katakana, and kanji.

Hiragana—well, most learners try hard to remember them.
They practice writing them a lot.
But katakana and kanji seem to be harder.

My advice is to practice little by little.
Step by step.

Hiragana has 46 characters. Katakana also has 46 characters.
That makes 92 characters in total.
92… That’s a lot.

And there are even more kanji.
To read books and newspapers, you need to know 2,136 kanji.
2,136 characters—that’s a huge number.
It’s tough.

But I’m also not very good at kanji.
I can read most of them, but there are some I can’t write.
So I’m still studying, too.

My advice for remembering characters is “Kurikaeshi“.
Kurikaeshi means repeat (repetition) in Japanese.

Look, write, read, and say it out loud.
Keep doing that over and over.

Try practicing five characters a day.
Slowly but steadily, you’ll be able to remember Japanese characters.

How did you practice when you were learning the characters?
Please share!

The second difficult part of Japanese is verb conjugation.
Doushi (Verbs) like “go,” “eat,” “drink,” and “study”—they’re action words.

And Katsuyou (conjugation) refers to different forms like dictionary form, te-form, nai-form, etc.
There are a lot of forms, right?
Japanese verbs have 11 forms.
It’s very hard to memorize them all.

That’s why I made a cheat sheet for verb forms.

I give it for free to students who take lessons with me.
If you’re not one of my students, you can also buy it from my Buy Me a Coffee page.
Please check the link if you’re interested.

When learning verbs, rules and practice are important.
Try practicing while looking at the cheat sheet.

The third difficult thing is making long sentences.
Long sentences are difficult, I understand.

Even I sometimes freeze when I want to make a long sentence in English.
I stop,
think, and slowly build the sentence bit by bit.

Of course, short sentences are fine.
But when you want to explain something, sentences tend to get longer.
When you have many elements like time, place, people—it’s hard to know which comes first, which is second, and so on.
I think it’s difficult.

Junban… which means “Order.”
Let’s check the word order together.

For example, listen to this sentence:
“On the weekend, I went to Disneyland by train with a friend.”
Do you understand the meaning?

There are a lot of parts in that sentence.
Let’s check the Junban (order):

First, “on the weekend”—this is the time.
Time comes first.

Second, “to Disneyland”—this is the place.
Place comes second.

Third, “by train”—this is the Houhou (method).
How did I go to Disneyland? >>> By train.

Fourth, “with a friend”—this is the person.
Who did I go with? >>> With a friend.

And finally, the verb comes last in Japanese—“I went.”
We say a verb at the end.

The third and fourth—method and person—can be switched.

For example,
“On the weekend, I went to Disneyland with a friend by train.”
That’s okay, too.

Actually, I think this sentence is better.
“Train” isn’t such an important word.
But “friend” is.
When asking questions, you probably don’t want to ask “How did you get there?”
That’s not so interesting.

You probably want to ask, “Who did you go with?”
So it makes sense to mention the friend before the train.

If you remember this word order, it might get a little easier to make sentences.
Let’s check it again:

Time ▶︎ Place ▶︎ Method ▶︎ Person ▶︎ Verb.

Start with short sentences:
“Today, I ate bread.”
It’s short, but that’s fine.

Then try making longer sentences:
“This morning, I ate bread alone at the convenience store.”
Try making your sentences a little longer, step by step.

Studying Japanese is sometimes fun, and sometimes difficult.
But it’s okay.
Everyone is getting better, little by little.
Let’s study one difficult thing at a time.

I’m cheering for all of you who are working hard.
Let’s do our best together!

Now, I have a question for you today, as always.

“How do you stay motivated?”

For example, studying Japanese is difficult.
Even if it’s not Japanese—schoolwork, other languages, work—there are many difficult things.

In those times, how do you keep your motivation up?
Please let me know!

A transcript for today’s podcast is on my website.
The website is en-nihongo.com .

I’d be very happy if you could share your thoughts/impressions or could answer the question I asked in this episode!

I’ll see you in the next episode.
Jaa ne-!