One of my biggest concerns/frustrations with the japanese language is not having a feeling for certain words. Even though I understand the meaning, there's always a cultural barrier, a literary understanding barrier that surpasses me. It also happens with the english language.

Like when you have many words with the same meaning, but with nuances in the meaning.

For example

朦朧とした意識のまま家路に着く。

In this case, let's look at the word 朦朧.
I understand the sense of this sentence perfectly, but since I have no kanji background since I was a kid I just see the word with the meaning, I'd like the deeper feeling too. I don't see the deeper meaning nor can truly feel the word because I don't have the kanji nor the cultural database in my head.

So, what makes you feel frustrated?

The lack of sounds. Especially different grammatic terms feel so similar (and in many cases are similar), as there's so much overlap and no kanji to distinguish between them. The heavy context-dependance doesn't help, since at the stage I am now I don't know what meaning goes with which context.

Also the indirectness makes it very hard for me to grasp the underlying meanings sometimes, since the grammar can get pretty complicated. Something like ageru/kureru/morau is alright by itself, but when you start using causative+honorific giving/receiving it's easy for me to get lost in the sentences. However they are very commonly used which definitely helps in the long run.

Well, probably that Japanese people I don't know are cautious about speaking Japanese to me because I'm white.

My tendency of remembering the syllables the wrong way around is a royal pain with language like Japanese. For example: わかる (分かる) vs かわる (変わる) and じじょう (事情) vs じょうじ (常時). If I read the words I have no problem whatsoever, but in spoken Japanese this is a major problem...If I can't recall the kanji, I don't remember the correct sounds >_<

Betelgeuzah Wrote:Something like ageru/kureru/morau is alright by itself, but when you start using causative+honorific giving/receiving it's easy for me to get lost in the sentences. However they are very commonly used which definitely helps in the long run.

You mean things like:
自己紹介させていただきます… (I will humbly) receive your permission to introduce myself...
Why don't you ask yudantaiteki, he's very good at explaining such things. He will give you many more natural examples, I'm sure.



The Japanese don't make any audiobooks (novels). I will have to ask Aiko-sama to bully his grandfather into ordering his people to make them at once.
What a nation!

I thought there were tons of audio books available.

My biggest frustration is the writing system. It annoys me that I've been studying for over 15 years now and still have to deal with kanji and words I can't read. I especially hate academic articles that use obscure kanji for no good reason (i.e. using 俟つ instead of 待つ). I also wish that there was a general practice of putting furigana on a name at its first appearance. I guess they assume every specialist researcher reading their article already knows how to read all the names, but that's certainly not the case.

Proper names are annoying no end.
MacArthur is to blame, should have written an article in their constitution banning all kanji in names, beginning with their God, Hirohito, for their treacherous misconduct during WWII.

buonaparte Wrote:

Betelgeuzah Wrote:Something like ageru/kureru/morau is alright by itself, but when you start using causative+honorific giving/receiving it's easy for me to get lost in the sentences. However they are very commonly used which definitely helps in the long run.

You mean things like:
自己紹介させていただきます… (I will humbly) receive your permission to introduce myself...
Why don't you ask yudantaiteki, he's very good at explaining such things. He will give you many more natural examples, I'm sure.

Yep. A source with many examples would definitely help, but I don't want to be a burden. I feel like when I get used to that construction I come across a sentence with -temorau pattern, with a different meaning entirely of who gives/receives and what..

Also the double/triple(?) negations that, once again, relate to indirectness and do not make the language any easier to decode. Of course English has them too, but I feel like they are not so commonly used. If they were more often used I probably would have had much more trouble learning English back in the day. It's a real struggle at this point in my learning process.

Betelgeulzah Wrote:Something like ageru/kureru/morau is alright by itself, but when you start using causative+honorific giving/receiving it's easy for me to get lost in the sentences.

Probably too basic for you, but the clearest explanation of this I've seen is this video by the Kanji-Link guy.

His other videos are good too, and he even provides French versions if that's your thing.

anotherjohn Wrote:

Betelgeulzah Wrote:Something like ageru/kureru/morau is alright by itself, but when you start using causative+honorific giving/receiving it's easy for me to get lost in the sentences.

Probably too basic for you, but the clearest explanation of this I've seen is this video by the Kanji-Link guy.

His other videos are good too, and he even provides French versions if that's your thing.

The videos are fantastic, thank you. The other videos explaining more on giving/receiving really clear things up, even though I've "known" this stuff for some time now.