I talked a couple weeks ago about how the Japanese language lacks definite and indefinite articles like “a” and “the” and how the many nuances of these ostensibly simple words can cause frustration even for Japanese who have studied English for ten years or more. (For example, why do we talk about being able to “play the guitar” if there’s no actual guitar in the room that we’re referring to?) While Japanese certainly is a challenging language to learn, I have to say that there were quite a few areas where the language was actually less complex than English. Right off the bat, the Japanese have only one verb form for simple present and simple future tense, so there’s no need to differentiate between “I study [everyday]” and “I will study [tomorrow]” unless you need to for some reason. One of the banes of ESL students everywhere is the subjunctive mood, like “if I had known that yesterday, I wouldn’t have driven the car,” but happily this grammar doesn’t exist at all in Japanese, so that’s one less thing for gaijin to need to study. Japanese has no plurals for nouns, so there’s no need to study strange phrases like “a pair of jeans” (which looks to Japanese people like a single object), and there are no issues with count/non-count nouns, although the different counters used for thin objects, small objects etc. used in Japanese can be challenging for foreigners to learn. The bottom line is that while kanji represents a big challenge for Westerners, there’s nothing overtly difficult about the language itself. Why not start today?
Today we’re doing a really good update, with tons of new and back-in-stock items for you to check out. The J-List staff is working hard to get everyone’s order out in a timely manner, and we’re ready to fill your order ASAP. We’ve got tons of great snacks, anime figures and toys, 2009 calendars, Studio Ghibli toys and bento boxes, and much more. Browse our product lineup now!
