What's the most difficult thing about Japanese?

[WalterWills]

I was thinking about this recently...

And by "most difficult thing", I mean the one thing that you won't ever learn from a textbook, the type of thing that you'd need to spend years living in Japan and using Japanese all day every day to master.

Any ideas?

As for English, I think the use of prepositions is very difficult for Japanese people, since Japanese doesn't have it (it's also really hard to explain!)

[Psy]

Cultural nuances, "unwritten rules" and compensating for references/knowledge/experiences common to those with an upbringing in Japan. This has less to do with the language than it does with shared experiences.

[Javizy]

For me, it's expressing myself naturally. No matter how much grammar, vocabulary, kanji, or whatever else you know, choosing the right combination at the right time, I can only imagine, takes many years of constant exposure and learning from your mistakes. I'm sure this is the same for most other languages though.

[sodapple]

I think japanese have many difficult things:


- To Learn all the Kanjis
- To Speak informal.
- To Make short senteces and more when is inferred
- To Choose the right word from a Dictionary
- To Choose by yourself when to jump from newbie to beginner and so on...
- To Write some kanjis in a little square.
- To Have someone of your level skill to practice
- To Have someone that have time to answer your doubts.
- To Choose the right answer from a forum where you don't know if they know...
- To Choose the right particle.
- And more...

The easy thing is to speak Japanese if your languaje is very similar like the spanish...

Why don't you ask the easiest thing too?
Demo... Ganbatte kudasai!

[Rod Wadd]

Besides what I think is the most difficult thing in any language, which is learning what words and patterns are used in what context so as to sound natural, I think in some difficult parts of Japanese specifically are the kanji and the various forms of keigo (even Japanese people have to study it), but these are both found in textbooks.