Well, I thought about starting a new topic here ^.^ I hope it's ok.

So, can anyone of you speak Japanese already?
Or are you learning it at the moment?

It would interest me what you think about it and if you find it difficult/easy to learn.

Hi Honey_Haru! I've only taken up to level 4 in Japanese, but my Japanese is wretched D: I rarely use it and I don't speak it everyday. I think learning Japanese is easy and fun. What I find difficult about it was the sentence structures and having to know which particles to use and stuff. I somehow always have problems with that :\ Also, learning all the kanji is , but it's cool :D Overall, it's not bad. I wish I was more proficient in it though.

Have you taken any courses or currently learning it?

Hey, it's cool that you can already speak it!! How long are you learning it?
I've heard that learning the language itself isn't very difficult, but I have like you problems to get used to the sentence structure. It's so different from the German or English one, but I'm confident. The kanjis are nevertheless really mean -.- Some are easy to remember but a lot are so complicated. Do you know already many kanjis?

I will (hopefully) take a course in October, just to learn the basics. But I will study Japanese at university after school, that's for sure ^o^

I don't know if I will be continuing on learning it in school, but I do try to make an effort to learn once in a while when I have free time at home. I thought about taking Japanese 5 this fall semester, but I didn't feel confident enough and it felt too intimidating since another instructor was teaching it. Yeah, the language itself is very easy to learn and understand. There are an insane amount of kanji characters to know! Yeah, some are easy to remember, thank goodness. I've learned quite a good amount of kanji characters, but sometimes I forget what it means. I can recognize and roughly make out translations, but that's about it ;_; It sucks that you can't really depend on just knowing hiragana and katakana :x

I hope you do take a course in October! It's a great learning experiment ^^; Do tell me how that goes!

my spoken japanese is better than my written japanese because I'm really bad with kanji.
mostly I'm learning it by myself but when I was still living in NZ I also took classes.
=)

@carshrimp: Really? You didn't want to take Japanese 5 this semester? Thats's a pity. But is the other instructor so bad that you didn't want to take it?
I read several time now that you must know about 2000 kanjis to read a Japanese newspaper properly. I think that's soooo crazy >.< Japanese people are learning kanjis since kindergarten I belive, each year more kanjis. For foreigners like us it's really hard to learn it in a short time. Can you also write kanjis well? For me it's so much easier to just recognize them but not writing them. I often said it would be so great if there were no kanjis, but just hiragana and katakana ^^°
Of course I can tell you then how it goes. If school doesn't end too late for me to take part in the lessons, this should be alright ^^

@kira: You're also speaking Japanese ^-^ How long are you learning it already?

I had thought about it, but I thought I should finish up my required courses first, then maybe take up on it again. With my schedule right now, I don't think I would have time to study it and it would cost too much. I never met the instructor before, but my friend who took a course with her said he didn't like the way she taught the class. Maybe I'm biased too.. >_> I know! Children learning a lot of kanji right in the beginning is crazy; ~2000 kanji for a newspaper is mindblowing @_@ Oh no, I can't write kanji well. I tend to forget the stroke orders or just how to start off. Yeah, I recognize the characters more than I know how to write, haha. Sometimes I wish I woke up magically knowing all kanji and being able to speak Japanese

So you have much stress at the moment? What other courses are you taking?
Well, your firend said that he didn't like the methods of the instructor and often others will see it the same way ^^ But it's very important who is gonna teach the course. If I don't like the teacher I don't like the subject.
It's not easy for Japanese children, they must learn a lot and are under pressure ... I believe that someday I will speak Japanese well but can't write much because of the kanjis -.- If I could have a memory so large so I can remember all Japanese words and kanjis, that would be great *lol*
When you are learning it for yourself, how do you do it? Is there any method which makes it easy for you to learn?

Yeah, stress. I'm taking an art class, a Chinese Civilization class, which I have no freaking clue what's going on, Chinese religion class, and a Cultural Geography class. These are just required courses, but it's difficult for me to follow/understand. I don't know how I would be if I were to take Japanese 5 right now on top of these. Same here, if I don't like the teacher, then I wouldn't like the subject :x

I feel bad for the Japanese children. So much to go through ;_; I'm happy to hear that you have a lot of confidence in yourself. I'm sure you will speak and write really well :D I'm still having issues with English even though I was born in the U.S. Sometimes I get my grammar all wrong and I question myself too much on it. Learning it for myself? I guess hitting the grammar books helps me understand it. Watching Japanese videos would help too. I don't think I've come across an easy method when learning... @_@

i'm bad at japanese >___<
it's easier to speak it than to write it for me..