The Japanese language is extremely difficult. It routinely makes the list of "Top 5 Most Difficult Languages to Learn". Sometimes people ask us why it's so challenging.
Usually it's helpful to illustrate the difference between Japanese and other languages using a statistic I came across once upon a time.
If you want to learn a foreign language, and be relatively fluent, you should be able to understand at least 80% of everyday conversation. The number of words required to get to 80% varies, depending on the language.
In Spanish: ~1,000 words are required
In English: ~3,000 words are required
In Japanese: ~10,000 words are required
But that's only scratching the surface of the difficulty. Recently, Peter came across a few videos that explain some of the other issues with learning the Japanese language. We find it fascinating to see how people from different cultures approach language, so we thought we'd share these videos with you today. Maybe you'll be interested in hearing more too!
Each video is 5-7 minutes long, so feel free to watch one and see whether you find it worthwhile to continue to the next...
Video #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcdYKxHT8kY
Video #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF3MRMBjd20
Video #3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD7Lc4QBh5w
