Thoughts on Learning Japanese

There was a Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) last Sunday. I took Level 6 (1級) which is the highest level. I have a Level 5 (2級) certificate, but many of the part time jobs or the real jobs I want to apply for require the highest level. The gap between Level 6 and Level 5 was huge. It felt so difficult even though I'd stayed in Japan for almost 3 months and studied hard for a few weeks with a vocabulary book and official sample tests. I was surprised that so many other words besides what I studied came out in the vocabulary part. I had to pick randomly on some questions that I didn`t have a clue about. I guess I was naive to have believed my vocabulary book`s authors claim that I can get any answers right once I study with this book. Well, she was obviously lying. Even though I memorized almost all the words of the book, I got many answers wrong. I should`ve memorized more words from other sources too.

What I find most difficult in Japanese language is that one kanji can be pronounced in so many ways. `生` is an example. This letter basically means `life`, and has at least 12 different ways of saying it. The pronunciation differs according to the words it is in. It's pronounced `se-i` in the word 生命 (Se-i-me-i), which means `life`, while pronounced `Sho-u` in the word 一生懸命 (Iss-sho-u-ken-me-i), which indicates when someone is doing their best. Also, when the word means `live`, it`s pronounced `i-ki-ru`. You have to memorize how it is pronounced in every word. It can happen even for Japanese people that they confuse how to read the kanji correctly. This phenomenon felt strange to me the first time I started learning Japanese, because each letter in the Korean language, my mother tongue, has a certain way of pronouncing it, so anyone who`s a literate cannot read any letters wrong. And all the writing! I wonder if all of the literate Japanese people can write the common kanji correctly. It's so complex to write.

Despite these facts, actually, Japanese is a rather easy language to learn for me, a Korean. It's because Korean and Japanese share the same kanji civilization. There are many same or similar kanji vocabularies, with just the pronunciation a little different. I can infer what the meaning and pronunciation is from the kanji. I did it on this Japanese test, and got the answer right. The question was to pick the pronunciation for the word 人脈 (jin-mya-ku/ a person's relations). I'd never heard of the pronunciation before, but as Korean has the same word pronounced 'in-maek', I could check the right answer easily. Also, there are similar concepts. Japanese often use the concept '気 (ki/ aura that comes out from something or someone)' in their language, and we Koreans do too. For example, someone is so confident and powerful, Koreans say 'His/Her 気 (ki) is strong' and in the opposite situation, 'His/Her 気 (ki) is weak'. So, we can easily understand when Japanese people say ‘気軽い(ki-garu-i)’ which means there's no burden in someone's mind.

 

Therefore I can say studying Japanese requires less time and effort for Koreans compared to other languages. I've been studying English since kindergarten, and I studied really hard in middle and high school. I have watched tons of American dramas and movies in my university years. However, I still have trouble explaining something simple I want to say in English. Compared to that, I've been studying Japanese only for 3 years since the first year of the university. My Japanese is no better than English yet, but I already feel Japanese is more comfortable to use than English. If there's a Japanese and English sentence respectively indicating the same thing, I will find the Japanese one faster to read and clearer to understand. I become a bit sad when I think about all my effort into English through many years, but what can I do? It's natural to be more comfortable in the similar language. I hope to get proficient in both languages one day.