What do you consider to be the biggest stumbling block to improving your Japanese?

Question:

Hello. This is something that I would like to ask any English speakers who has been learning Japanese, or used to learn for that matter.

Given that the sentence structures of Japanese and English are on opposite ends of the linguistic spectrum, the complexity of the Japanese language must have made you feel dizzy from time to time.

Personally, if Japanese weren’t my native tongue, it might be the last language I would seriously consider taking up learning. (I would definitely give up halfway through)

Anyway, getting back on topic, what do you consider to be the biggest stumbling block to improving your Japanese?


"Pronunciation?"

"Assortment of hiragana, katakana & kanji characters?"

"Various particles?"

"Completely different sentence structure than that of English?"

"Each word having different types of meanings?"

Answer:

By far the hardest thing to learning Japanese is the 3 different alphabets. Pronunciation would be second but after living there, being totally immersed and learning from native Japanese speakers, this become less of an issue over time but the inability to read the newspaper still exists.