Is Japanese really difficult to learn?

Quite commonly, Japanese is said to be one of the most hardest languages to learn.

Is this true?

I believe there are 4 reasons why Japanese seems complicated:

1. Kanji Characters
2. Keigo (Honorifics)
3. Bunpo (Grammar)
4. Abbreviations

1. Kanji Characters

Japaneses has 3 types of characters: hiragana, katakana, and kanji

Hiragana and Katakana are similar to each other and have a one-to-one relationship with each other, so they aren’t too difficult. They only have 1 type of pronunciation, unlike, for example, the English vowels – easy!

Hiragana and Katakana have 46 characters each. If you add the voiced sounds and semi-voiced sounds, and perhaps the small characters and the -, there is an addition of 60, totaling to 106 characters.

Now for Kanji, which is difficult to even the native Japanese speakers, there are countless characters and even more, multiple readings (on-yomi and kun-yomi) for each.

By the way, the above character reads “byan” which has the world’s most stroke count of 58. I’ve only seen it used in Biangbiang noodles, a popular cuisine from China’s Shaanxi Province.

2. Keigo (Honorifics)

There are three types of Keigo: honorifics, humble words, and polite words.

Yes, this is quite complicated – devastating, perhaps. Even Japanese natives nowadays aren’t able to use these properly either.

Hierarchical relationships are also difficult. You may have heard of the terms “senpai” “dohai” “kohai”, which roughly mean “senior colleague” “contemporary” “junior colleague”, respectively.
The Japanese also tend to consider the number of years you’ve affiliated to a society more than your actual age for this.

That means, two people of the same age can be senpai and kohai in different groups such as your workplace and school. Or, you could have a kohai using honorifics, calling you –san, which is a lot older than you.

3. Bunpo (Grammar)

Bunpo is also complicated.

First, the order of everything is rather different from the English nature; names (last to first name), word order variations (subject and object and verbs can be mixed up).

Verbally, rather important particles may be abbreviated, making one sentence having the possibility to be interpreted in many ways.

For example, a student may raise their hand and say「先生、おしっこ」, which could mean:
・「先生はおしっこ」
　This means the teacher = urine. Which in many cases is false.
・「先生、おしっこに行きたいです」
　This is most likely what the student is trying to say. He/she has to go pee.
・「先生、おしっこに行きますか？」
The student is recommending the teacher to use the bathroom. Which is unlikely to be his/her intention.

4. Abbreviation

Japanese tend to abbreviate or contract words more than other languages, as far as I know.

The vast variety of these abbreviations are quite tricky.

For example: 「ゲームセンター」or Game center is commonly referred as 「ゲーセン」or Gacen (Gah-sen).
This is nearly impossible to guess right on the first try.
Don’t worry, most elder citizens in Japan can’t guess these right either.

Abbreviations tend to change in area as well. McDonald’s is abbreviated as 「マック」or Makku in the Kanto region, compared to 「マクド」 or Makudo in the Kansai region.