Difficulty of spoken Japanese imaginary? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Difficulty of spoken Japanese imaginary?
Tags: Difficulty \| Japanese
Share with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

37 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

atama warui
Triglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4705 days ago
594 posts - 985 votes

Speaks: German*, English, Japanese

Message 33 of 37

16 May 2012 at 2:52pm | IP Logged

Does this make the point invalid in any way, Arekkusu?

I'm also pretty sure that other languages casual versions are harder to understand.
But we were talking about Japanese here, so I only mentioned Japanese - especially since I can judge only from my Japanese studies, my 20 years of English, 5 years of Spanish and 1 year of French.
2 persons have voted this message useful

Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5385 days ago
3971 posts - 7747 votes

Speaks: English, French*, German^C1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

Message 34 of 37

16 May 2012 at 3:29pm | IP Logged

atama warui wrote:

If all languages are easier to understand when spoken in a higher voice (making women easier to understand) and if all languages' casual speech is harder to understand, then yes, mentioning that for Japanese fails to bring anything new to the argumentation.

Edited by Arekkusu on 16 May 2012 at 3:37pm
2 persons have voted this message useful

atama warui
Triglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4705 days ago
594 posts - 985 votes

Speaks: German*, English, Japanese

Message 35 of 37

16 May 2012 at 11:15pm | IP Logged

I see. I shall not mention things irrelevant to Arekkusu any further.

Gonna stick to my log in the future.
2 persons have voted this message useful

IronFist
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6441 days ago
663 posts - 941 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

Message 36 of 37

18 May 2012 at 6:46am | IP Logged

Arekkusu wrote:

atama warui wrote:

Males speak less clearly than women in Japanese, and less clearly in casual than formal speech. Basically, a
politely speaking woman is the easiest to understand Japanese case, while a casually speaking guy the
hardest.

This is true in all languages. A higher pitch voice tends to be easier to understand. It's partly why we
instinctively use a higher pitch when talking to babies, which is a distinctive feature of Motherese.

I baby talk dogs in a higher than normal pitched voice, too!

Edited by IronFist on 18 May 2012 at 6:46am
1 person has voted this message useful

baskerville
Trilingual Triglot
Newbie
Singapore
scribeorigins.com
Joined 4250 days ago
39 posts - 43 votes
Speaks: English*, Tagalog*
Studies: German*, Japanese
Studies: Hungarian

Message 37 of 37

15 June 2013 at 5:57am | IP Logged

melkior79 wrote:

I know many foreigners who are non-asian, who speak very comfortably in Japanese. They
are fluent. All the stuff about not being accepted does not bother them too much. They
keep hammering away with a positive mind-set. Eventually they make a circle of friends
who accept them. If they meet people who don't like them , they don't focus on those
people.

Like Lucky Charms' post, these people just pushed on and have had a great time talking
in Japanese. I have much to learn from this and need to pluck more courage myself!

I think speaking Japanese is difficult, I make mistakes all the time. On the other
hand, the OP is right to say that the difficulty is over-rated by some.

I agree with you and Lucky Charms. The right thing to do is to just use the
language and keep on improving at it. While there may be native speakers who look down
on you, you will soon find some who will appreciate your efforts and help you learn
faster. That being said, I wish I can work on my confidence faster :)

1 person has voted this message useful

This discussion contains 37 messages over 5 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register

Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum

This page was generated in 0.2656 seconds.