When I was in college, I bought the Standard Japanese textbook, planning to teach myself Japanese. But I gave up after just one lesson.
After I started working, our company had deep and extensive collaborations with Japanese companies like Sony Ericsson and Canon, so we were assigned a Japanese teacher to help us learn the language. However, every time we got to Lesson 4, I just couldn’t keep up — it was quite embarrassing.
Many years have passed, and I’ve completely given up on the idea of learning Japanese.
Nowadays, learning a new language is so much easier than it was 20 years ago — there are countless online resources available. I sincerely wish you success in your self-study of Japanese.
By the way, have you ever considered learning Chinese? Haha.
You know it is really funny that you say that, because I was considering Chinese also, because of Kanji characters.
They are all originally Chinese, right?
Even the Hiragana is simplified Chinese characters!
So I am sincerely surprised how is that difficult for a native Chinese speaker to learn Japanese?!
Japanese is deeply influenced by Chinese, but in essence, it’s completely different from Chinese.
Although Japanese uses a large number of Chinese characters, its overall system is based on kana.
Each Chinese character carries a specific meaning, and when combined, the overall meaning still relates closely to the individual characters. In contrast, individual kana in Japanese have no meaning on their own.
The grammatical structure of Japanese is also entirely different from that of Chinese.
In short, for me, Japanese is just way too difficult — hahaha!
Ok. In that case I have hope for Chinese! Thank you! :)
By the way, I am not trying to learn like a tourist. I am trying to learn like a Japanese kid. Writing and grammar.
Practicing on my phone right now
Keep it up, and wish you success!