Since my kids are now in college and I’m left with a nice, clean empty nest, I thought I would take this opportunity to pursue some interests I’ve left on the back burner for too long. One of these pursuits is to learn enough Japanese to be able to go to Japan to visit with distant relatives. I am half-Japanese, and there was a point where I knew some of the language. This is what I learned as a toddler, but any knowledge from forty-plus years ago escaped my mind soon after I started school. That was coupled with the fact that my mother so embraced her new country, she rarely spoke Japanese at all in the home.
In my quest to learn Japanese, I found that I had a few options. One, get some audio tapes or CDs. These are somewhat helpful, in that many of the phrases are ones commonly used by tourists or visitors. However, the quality of some of the CDs is rather poor, and it is difficult to discern the differences between certain letters, especially between “R” and “L.” Even turning up the volume didn’t help. In addition, there aren’t any written workbooks that go along with many of the language programs I tried, such as the Pimsleur program. I think I need to know enough of the alphabet as well as the language in order to find my way around.
Another option was to sign up for Japanese classes at the local college. Wayne State University offers Japanese, but getting to either the downtown Detroit campus or the Oakland County location is problematic. In essence, I don’t want to drive that far, especially for one class. In addition, my business takes up a lot of time, and I am unable to commit to standard classes that run twice a week.
My son turned me onto a Facebook application called “Kanji Box.” Kanji Box is a quick drill in learning Kanji, but it basically covers only the Kanji characters and there is no application for actually learning the language.
After investigating various do-it-yourself programs, I decided to purchase the Rosetta Stone software for Japanese (this was before Michael Phelps’ commercial claiming that is how he learned Chinese for the Olympics). It’s rather pricey (each level is about $197 but you can purchase Level 1, 2 and 3 for right around $500), but I felt that at least this way I could learn the characters as well as the language, and could do so at my own pace. The complete program comes with three CDs, an installation CD, and a headset.
I should preface this review by stating that Japanese is an extremely difficult language to learn, maybe the hardest on the planet. I’ve taken college French, high school Latin, and even learned some Greek and German when I lived in Europe. I know enough Spanish to be able to figure out what my two Spanish-speaking employees are saying when they talk to each other. Even though I already knew a few words and phrases, nothing could prepare me for diving into the Japanese Rosetta Stone Level 1 head first.
Article comments
1 - Donna
I have found Rosetta Stone to be very helpful in my language learning journey. I have to say that I don't think that I could become fluent using this program but it is a HUGE help. I have been using online sites like babbel, edufire and livemoha for my instruction and Rosetta Stone for practice and repetition.
2 - Purple Tigress
Japanese is not a hard language to learn and it is certainly not the hardest language to learn on earth.
Like many languages it has some English borrowed words (from British, Australian and American English). These are helpful.
However, Japanese is an SOV language while English is, like Chinese, an SVO language. (S stands for subject, O stands for direct object and V stands for verb).
For that reason, it might be easier to learn for someone whose native language is similar in structure.
Japanese also does not require different verb conjugations for first, second and third person--singular or plural, unlike English, French or Spanish.
I have studied French, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese (Mandarin) at university level.
I do have a friend who was considering studying using the Rosetta Stone.
3 - Alisha
Hi there! You can pause the Rosetta Stone screens if you need to write something down, but they will show you all the answers. Just click the little magnifying glass thing in the lower left corner.
Another option, if you don't want it to automatically go to the next screen, is to go to the top right of the screen and click the preferences icon (it's the next one to the right of the ?), and uncheck the box that says "continue to next screen"
4 - YUI
"Japanese is an extremely difficult language to learn, maybe the hardest on the planet." Not really, it was actually very easy to learn in my opinion. I think that Spanish is much harder.
5 - Joe Edwards
I also agree that Japanese is MUCH easier to learn than say, Spanish. I gave up on Spanish years ago and haven't looked back. Japanese is my love and joy, but I don't know if I would recommend Rossetta Stone.
6 - LC
Polls say that Japanese is the #4 most difficult language to learn for English speakers.
7 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
...Japanese is MUCH easier to learn than say, Spanish.
Yea, sure... この言語は非常に学ぶのは難しい。is much easier to say than
"Este lenguaje es muy difícil de aprender."...HA! Bullsh!t!
8 - aaron lemoine
i just got rosetta stone last week and i enjoy it but i wish it would tell me how each character sounds and everything, and japanese is NOT easier than spanish , you have to learn a whole new alphabet.
9 - Mnemosyne
I've been learning Japanese and I did beginning French and I must say Japanese is easier. I guess the difficulty lies in knowing how to read and write in Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji (more so with combining all 3). I'm not using Rosetta but another program and along with that, I've joined a language exchange program lang-8.com where native Japanese speakers check my journal. Slowly, I've been learning.
10 - Leon Lewis
In the settings you can stop the program from automatically advancing after each slide is done
11 - Terry S.
I don't think "Rosetta Stone" is difficult as the author said, but I *do* think you need to know a few (very basic) sentence structures first. A grammar, sentence-pattern, or verb conjugation book is needed. Regardless, I think you can start with RT once you know a little bit of grammar.
Granted, I have a much older version of RT. You can go through the lessons different ways. You could choose romaji (roman alphabet), kana (hiragana + katakana), or kanji. Or you could use just audio-visual. You could even type if you have your computer set up for it. I don't know how the new version compares in that sense.
I should have remembered I had this RT demo CD *way* earlier. My listening & speaking would be much farther along!
If you *do* want to read & write early on, get a good kanji dictionary. But for *learning* to *recognize* the kanji with a meaning (no pronunciation yet, which makes it stick because it's simpler), you *must* get "Remembering the Kanji" by James W. Heisig. You can buy it at Amazon, but you can download the first chapter *FREE* in PDF from the publisher's website. There is also an *awesome* free web-based flashcard application written by an enthusiast of Heisig's method, "Reviewing the Kanji" here where you only need to sign up to track your lessons, so you don't need to spend hours making your own flashcards and boxes according to the "Leitner system" (of spaced repetition).
I have spent a lot of money on books, and while many of them are good, I bought too many things that didn't work well together and slowed me down.
If you're learning with RT, I suggest at minimum a grammar book, verb conjugation book or sentence pattern book, and also a dictionary (for more clarity on similar words). I like "The Handbook of Japanese Verbs" by Taeko Kamiya" or "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns" by Naoko Chino.
Though Barrons' grammar book is great for the ease of looking up particles, pronouns, and numbers and counting.
If you're learning to read and write, also get Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji" to learn kanji. If you're impatient, you can get a kanji dictionary to look up kanji as needed and learn the pronunciation and some compound words, but that might slow down your initial kanji learning.
I don't think you need to be far in learning before you use RT, but I *do* think you should at least get a *few* grammar lessons down because it is different from English. I don't think you need many, once you know a few, it is easy to follow RT. It could help to know Japanese pronunciation. For example "HI-RO-SHI-MA" altogether makes "HIROSHMA", as actually pronounced not as written...the second "I" becomes silenced.
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In summary, if you're going to use Rosetta Stone:
* Do a few chapters of a grammar/verb/sentence book such as "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns", "The Handbook of Japanese Verbs", or "Barron's Japanese Grammar".
* Start RT as soon as you get the basic idea.
* Have a dictionary for looking up other words as you need them, or to clarify similar words in RT.
* A notebook for notes.
And if reading/writing:
* Buy or try "Remembering the Kanji".
* Use the "Reviewing the Kanji" website to practice, review, and test.
* In order to write sentences on your own (now), or (recommended) wait until later -- get a kanji dictionary like "A Guide to Remembering Japanese Charcters" by Kenneth G. Henshall.
* Don't buy *expensive* grid-based kanji drill books. Just go to Wal-Mart and get a kids penmanship practice book. I got one where every page has a blank area on top and seven practice lines below. It works great! You can do seven kanji to a page!
12 - John
Those claiming that Spanish, of all languages, is easier than Japanese for English speakers to learn, must either not be native English speakers, or must not have actually learned Japanese fully.
The US State Department ranks languages from 1-4 in terms of difficulty, 1 being easiest, 4 being hardest. Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic are the only 4's. Spanish is a 1. Due to the enormous lexical difference between Japanese and English and the unique writing system (including need to memorize characters), Japanese will probably take 3 to 4 times longer to attain fluency than a language like Spanish (for an English speaker). I don't understand where these highly subjective statements are coming from. Spanish bears a very strong relation to English, and many times one can guess a word without having any knowledge of it. Spanish pronunciation is also as easy as it gets. 5 vowel sounds; that's it. They never change. French is more difficult than Spanish in that regard, but still a 1 on the state dept. list. It's nothing compared to Japanese.
How someone could argue that a language with the same alphabet and large lexical similarity to English is harder to learn than one with a totally unrelated alphabet, in which almost nothing you know can help you learn it, is totally beyond me. Any language is difficult to learn, but there are degrees of difficulty, and Japanese is pretty darn high up there. Probably not as high as Arabic or Chinese, but pretty high.
13 - Pimsleur languages
Don't forget the Pimsleur method! It takes a different approach, and does not reply on visuals but instead listening skills. You don't learn words individually, but whole phrases at a time. The building blocks of language rely much more on phrases than words, so it may work better for you if you find your Japanese progress slow going. Best of luck!
14 - KScorp
Japanese is hard, when a native English speaker is learning it. But comparing the languages from an unbiased viewpoint (say, one who knows no language yet) then Japanese is clearly easier. There are no conjugations of verbs for first, second, and third person, and only a past conjugation. All words are read as you see them, since each Japanese character stands for a sound, unlike Germanic languages where letters can combine in various ways to make different sounds. (which can vary from word to word as well [Compare the "ee" sound in "three" and "been"]) Japanese only has 110 sounds which define the language while English has over 8000.
So, Japanese IS hard for English speakers as you need to learn the SOV style along with a whole new alphabet (and that's the part that counts) but comparing the languages side by side shows that Japanese is simply simpler.
15 - Ruvy
Good luck learning Japanese, Joanne.
Hebrew also uses a different alphabet - alef-bet, to be precise. Hebrew can be an SOV or VSO language, depending on the situation (yesh li - "there is to me" - is how you express "I have" in Hebrew). Some Biblical Hebrew includes the subject, verb and objrct in one word!
My kids were immersed in the language in school - sans Rosetta Stone - and picked it up in 7 months. I have not been immersed in Hebrew, and stillmake an ass of myself in writing letters in the language.
About this business of "hardness of learning". You get a really different perspective on this in Israel where Ethiopian kids pick up Hebrew in a snap (Amharic is structurally related to Hebrew), Russians learn it with relative ease (but never get rid of the accent) and Americans have qa bitch of a time, and usually never get rid of the American accent with the rounded "r"'s either.
As for me, I worked on getting rid of the American accent, but still cannot get used to reading newspapers and books "backwards" .
16 - Just me
Well I think that a very many good points have been made here to summarize:
1. Japanese is an easier language to learn if it is your first language (which the relevancy of this point can be argued since human beings in their beginning stages can pick up multiple languages naturally and easily no matter what the difficulty)
2. Japanese is harder for native english speakers to learn than spanish, barring interest levels and exposure
3. Rossetta Stone is a good learning tool but it is not the whole tool box
Since you are, I assume, an adult learner it will be more difficult for you to learn a new language and if fluency is your goal I would work on learning enough that you would feel comfortable taking a semi-long term trip to japan I would also suggest taking a beginners college level japanese language course, your instructor will be an expert and can help you target your weaker areas in the language.
Good Luck :)