Why is Japanese so Hard: Simplifying Context

Anyone who says, “Japanese is easy”, has not spent very long studying Japanese. Japanese does have simple rules and a few exceptions. The verb comes at the end of the sentence, particles come after nouns, and Adjectives before Nouns. These simple rules are not why Japanese Grammar is hard though. So, Why is Japanese so hard? The reason is context.

What is Context in Japanese

Context means you can say some words or phrases in some situations while not in others. The word to sum it all up is nuance. Japanese has many words with subtle differences or nuances between them. The word nuance itself is much more commonly used in Japanese than English. The reason is that the Japanese language is much more nuanced than English.

https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/

If you really, really want to figure out all these subtle differences between Japanese grammar and words there is one resource I recommend. That is A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar Series. It is expense though which is probably the only turn off for most people. I have not seen anywhere else explain Japanese grammar as well as these books. But, I intend to continue writing about the subject in the near future. Anyway, as a starting point to figure out context in Japanese, I have broken the subject up. The three main categories of Japanese where context matters are:

Conversational Context
Social Context
Emotional Context

Conversational Context : Deletion

A basic rule of Japanese is to not say the obvious. Meaning, leave out what is understood from the context. The context is what you are already talking about or what is physically around you.

Not everything is left out though. Most of the time you will leave out things such as words for this or that, or I and you.

Also, the topic is often left out also. the topic is basically what is being talked about and is marked with the Japanese particle は.

Ambiguities in Japanese

It becomes second nature pretty quickly to drop out words when speaking Japanese. This in itself is not difficult. What can get tricky is getting into a bad habit of leaving too much out. It is important if you learn Japanese to listen well to the person you are speaking with.

Japanese has a concept called, Aizuchi(相槌) in Japanese. This is where the listener will nod, or give little responses to show they are listening. It is just as important to master using aizuchi correctly in Japanese as it is to learn to speak. It helps people know you are listening but it also forces you to actually listen. By being able to actually listen is how you can learn properly to leave in the right words and leave out the others.

Social Context : Politeness

Japanese has 3 types of Polite Language. One is for showing respect, the second is for sounding humble, and the last for general situations.

Each type of language has unique words or word forms to express the level of politeness. Just picking the right way to say something can be confusing. But on top of that, it can be hard to know sometimes which type of polite language you should use. For example, if you are talking to your boss’s boss about your own boss, or even if you are speaking with in-laws.  These are mostly social issues more than linguistic ones. But when speaking with people in Japanese you need to think about the relationship between you, the person who you are speaking to, and who you are speaking about.

There is no one good trick to mastering the polite language. You will just need to learn it. The best way to avoid any odd social situations is to try always to speak at least in the basic polite language known as Teinei-go (丁寧語). That is, use ~ます and です. I personally consider this the basic form of Japanese since you use it more than what is considered informal Japanese.

Pronouns

Depending on how you look at it Japanese has many pronouns or none. When you want to say I or you the context will determine what word you choose. The relationship between the speaker and the listener will determine what is chosen.

That is if one is even used. A lot of the time people won’t use I and will use someone’s name or title in place of you. To simplify things avoid calling people you all together. Call them by their name and add さん. Or if they are a superior call them by their title, like Sensei (先生) for teachers

Emotional Context: Who does What

Finally, emotional context is a bit more complex. It can refer to the person who is expressing how they feel about the situation. It can also refer to who is experiencing something. Two ways Japanese does this is with sentence final particles and by modifying words with そう.

Sentence Final Particles

Sentence Final Particles like よ and ね give extra emotional value to a sentence.

If you watch Japanese Anime or some Japanese Dramas people will often use random particles at the end of the sentence. Or, they seem random. They pick specific styles of speaking to show a character’s personality. This gives the impression that these particles don’t really mean anything important. Nothing is farther from the truth.

In real life, Japanese people don’t have that level of freedom to just pick whatever particle they want. Those sentence particles have meaning to them and if used the wrong way can convey the wrong message. Here, there is not a simple trick. よ and ね are the most common endings. Learn to use these well and avoid other exotic-sounding particles you may hear in Anime unless you understand what they mean.

Direct and Indirect Experience

Japanese has ways to distinguish between personal or second-hand experiences. In English, you use the same adjectives when talking about yourself or others. In Japanese however, there is a difference when talking about yourself or others. If you are talking about something that you are experiencing directly you could say おいしい. This means tasty and could be used if you ate a cake. If you are watching someone eat, you would say おいしそう which means something close to, looks tasty. There are other ways to talk about other people’s feelings, experiences, and so forth.