I currently have to use Subtitles, kinda annoying. And I despise dubs since the voice acting is so bad, I mean like the emotions in the voice, its so emotionless in English.

I am a English speaker with some fluency in Cantonese and Mandarin.

How difficult is Japanese? Am I gonna waste a lot of time?

Also what’s the best resource to learn?

  • Eq0@literature.cafe
    4·
    12 天前

    The last point resonates with me! 😭 all other European languages are actually write-as-you-speak. Why, English, why???

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
      1·
      12 天前

      The Great Vowel Shift. English writing was sensible in the early 14th century around the time of Chaucer, but then shit got out of whack speaking-wise and the writing system was never adjusted to reconcile the difference. So you can blame the Black Death I guess.

      • Eq0@literature.cafe
        2·
        12 天前

        It’s not only vowels, but consonants disappearing or just having a different flavor of sounds in each word. Like word, sword, swan…

    • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteEnglish
      0·
      12 天前

      Danish has entered the chat. They don’t pronounce anything the way it’s written either. And French consists of 80 percent silent letters or thereabouts. It’s not just English in Europe.

      • Eq0@literature.cafe
        1·
        11 天前

        I don’t know Danish, but French is at least consistent in what is pronounced and what is not. So seeing a word will tell you how to pronounce it even if it’s the first time you encounter it.

        Edit: I was proven wrong about French.

                  • Eq0@literature.cafe
                    2·
                    11 天前

                    I have been mulling it over since the previous post. I got taught that French was read-as-written and repeated it. But now, I realize there is more.

                    Mangent is like rangent but not like gent - because mangent is a verb and is pronounced practically without the -nt. On the other hand intelligent is like gent, because it’s not a verb. The question is also obfuscated by nge being a different sound than ge and that intelligent and gent have the accent on the last syllable, while mangent and rangent have the accent on the one-to-last syllable.

                    For a better example of the difference in pronunciation between verb and noun, mangent and tangent would be better and there is indeed a difference.

                    Furthermore, (I think) tangent needs to have the accent on the last syllable because gent is a long sound here. While in mangent the last syllable is not long, therefore the accent recesses.

                    My teachers lied to me and I blindly believed them. Sorry