More like (for Japanese): we have three different writing systems, two of which are alphasyllabaries and which both use the same sounds, but different characters for the exact same sounds (hiragana and katakana) and one of which is pictographic and which has many characters which could stand for multiple different words, so context is just as important as memorizing the thousands of characters (kanji). We will use all three of these systems at the same time; hiragana for native words, katakana for foreign loanwords, and throw kanji willy-nilly into the mix in no apparent order and for no apparent reason.
Speaking Japanese isn't horrendously difficult (although the honorific system and the tonal side of things are tricky). But learning to read and write it is an absolute nightmare.
Don't forget their counting system, which changes dependings on what you're counting, if I remember correctly, based roughly on the shape of the item you're counting.
Whereas in English, if you have two rocks and two crayons, you have two rocks and two crayons. In Japanese, they have completely separate words for the two used to count the rocks and the two used to the count the crayons.
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u/RueUchiha IDAHO 🥔⛰️ 2d ago
If Japaneese was the international buisness language, I am sure we all would know Japaneese too.