Hey guys! I felt like writing a post and sharing my thoughts on learning Japanese. If you have any comments or responses please feel free to share them with me and I would love to hear from other learners of this great language.

Learning Japanese is very difficult. Not because of the grammar structure or the 漢字 or ひらがな or カタカナand certainly not because of the difficulty in the language. I believe every language has its own difficulties and students of that language just need to overcome it. 

But learning Japanese is hard because every where go, you find resources and ways to learn Japanese (outside and even sometimes inside of Japan), that have a tendency to over simplify things.

A lot of material aimed at learners of Japanese never go past using romaji or teaching basic everyday phrases like おはよう ございます and こんにちは. The material constantly seems aimed at teaching only travel phrases or very simple phrases. And sometimes a serious learner can feel a sense of disappointment over constantly being treated like they are not good enough for full native materials. 

Don't get me wrong, I love reading my manga with furigana. But I would like to see more materials out there that treat Japanese like the wonderful language that it can be and not just some super complicated thing that is really difficult to learn.

I think most of the reason why everyone ranks Japanese to be so hard to learn (at least for native English speakers) is due to a negative mentality. Everywhere you look, people are constantly saying how hard or impossible it is to learn it fluently, yet the reason it is hard is because people are constantly figthing against demotivating opinions and low level resources.

Even some great programs and books that aim to teach you Japanese. Present information in a slow and very simple way that leaves one with a great foundation to say sentences like,

こんにちは、私 は スミス です。大学生 です。そして、二十歳 です。どうぞ よろしく。

But never completely explains how to sound like a person in Japanese. Like saying;

え、じゃあ、何が好きなの?映画?スポーツ?

Which gives you the feel of how a real person would probably actually speak Japanese. I know a lot of other factors come into play as well such as the polite speech versus causual speech and how most material teaches learners polite speech before they go causual. But the problem with most material is they aim to make you sound like a simple robot and when you encounter real Japanese that is not simple or robotic then people just assume it is a super hard language rather than blaming the teaching methods.

Some people probably turn to dramas and anime to improve their Japanese skills because of this very sense of simplicity that accompanies learning materials. These are the people that go on to actually learn the language while others scoff at using anime to learn Japanese. 

I would love to hear the opinion and thoughts of others on this subject. Have any of you ever encountered material you thought was too simple for a learner to use? What are your thoughts and opinions about your own Japanese language learning journey? Have you encountered any material aimed at learners that you liked or did any of you just decide to start using native material aimed at children instead of relying on material for learners? 

Please share your thoughts on this subject. I look forward to hearing from you guys.