Japanese ←→ English

If you have ever wondered why it is so “hard” to learn English (or to learn Japanese if you are an English native speaker), you are not alone. Learning even the basics of the other language is difficult. Mastering the other language seems impossible. A few people succeed in learning the other language, so it can be done. Let’s take a look at the process and what it requires.

Think of language as a mountain, and as shown in A, let’s use Mt. Fuji to represent the mountain called the Japanese language. And let’s use the Rocky Mountains to represent the American version of the English language.

In B, we see J-san, a person whose native language is Japanese, standing on the top of the mountain on the left. E-san, whose native language is English, is on top of the mountain range on the right. Each of them looks at the world from a special perspective, and the two perspectives are quite different. Each grew up speaking one language and seeing everything from one point of view.

In C, J-san and E-san look out on the horizon and see each other. J-san shouts a greeting to E-san, but E-san either can’t hear the greeting or simply can’t understand what it means. He has never heard anyone speak like that before. He has no idea what E-san is trying to communicate.

In D, we notice something about the two mountains they are standing on. The mountains are completely different. They are different in terms of culture, history, social expectations, manners, ways of doing business, and expectations of others. J-san and E-san have grown up in two different worlds. They each take certain things for granted. They assume that everyone in the world thinks the same way they do. It never occurs to them that there are other ways of seeing things.

Look at E for a moment. In each of the language mountains there is also an element of personal experience. Not everyone on the same mountain sees things in the same way. Where they grow up, what their parents were like, what they learned in school, etc. can be very different. So, the mountain is huge. It symbolizes “base knowledge” for everyone who grows up on the mountain. A lot of what they learned is “common knowledge” shared by people on the mountain, but there is also considerable “personal experience,” too.

In F, we see that E-san has given up on trying to understand J-san from such a great distance. E-san has decided to climb down from the high Rocky Mountains of English, travel a great distance to the very base of the Japanese language mountain, and make the effort to start climbing Mt. Fuji. It is an extremely difficult climb, taking a lot of time and energy. Along the way, he considers giving up and returning to his own mountaintop. But with great effort, he reaches the peak, standing right next to J-san. Now he can hear J-san easily and basically understand what J-san is saying.

Something else happens. From there, he looks back on his own Rocky Mountains. They seem far away and he has never seen them from that angle, or from that distance before. He has a completely different perspective on the world. Now he can see things from two different mountaintops. It makes his life a lot more interesting.

In G, we see the native speakers of two completely different languages. E-san is influenced by the arrows of culture, history, and experience coming up the mountain, so when he speaks, he has to “think” in a different way. He learns to “switch” to Japanese mode in order to communicate using the new Japanese language he has learned.

On the right side of the mountain, there is a grey shadow. That is part of Japanese culture and Japanese language that he will probably never understand. He grew up basically understanding his own mountains, but this new world is different, so it will always remain a bit of a mystery.

The moral of the story:

We have used the example of an English speaker (E-san) trying to learn Japanese. It is extremely hard, and only through great effort and only over a long period is he able to learn the target language. It is hard work.

It would be just as hard going the other way. J-san would have to climb down from his mountain, hike a long distance to reach the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and start climbing. That means he has to learn a completely different way of “thinking” in addition to learning new words and how to link them together in sentences. It’s a matter of two things: “language” and “ways of thinking.”

It is a mistake to think that there is a one-to-one, word-for-word translation for every word or phrase in Japanese or English into the other language. It is also a mistake to think that a person can just study a little bit and “get along” in the other language. Admittedly, if you are a tourist visiting the other country, a few phrases are probably enough.

But to really communicate in the other language, you have to do a lot of hard work, consistently, over a long period of time. Not just an hour here and an hour there. No one runs up the actual Mt. Fuji or the Rocky Mountains on a weekend without practice and a full backpack of supplies for emergencies. It takes training, preparation, and a strong desire. Without such effort, you might as well stay on your own mountain and look at other mountains in the distance.

P.S. If you think English is “hard,” I assure you, Japanese is “just as hard.” The gap between the two languages is the same length—regardless of which mountain you start from!