The ability to learn language is just like any skill like being able to sing or play sports. Most are so so, but a few have exceptional ability. I for one am probably even worse than so so. I have traveled all over the world, but can't speak any other language.
The best I can do is with Japanese and that is because I have lived there and worked on Japanese fishing boats. My wife is also Japanese, but she doesn't try to teach me anything so that hasn't helped. I learned most from watching TV and just listening to conversations. This has really helped with pronunciation and I can often fool Japanese into thinking I know the language well because I say a few key phrases without much accent at all. From doing research on the fishing boats I also know a lot of animal names, many that your average Japanese doesn't even know. For example, even most of the fisherman knew only the generic words for whale or dolphin so I ended up teaching them the Japanese name for each individual species when we saw them. The problem with the Japanese I learned from the fishermen was that they spoke in a dialect from northern Japan that most other Japanese can't even understand and as you might imagine many words used by these guys wouldn't exactly be proper in polite conversation
The basics of Japanese grammar is actually pretty simple. No articles at all so no need to worry about gender and only two tenses. Where it gets complicated is that there are varying levels of politeness with verbs conveying this. Speaking the proper level of politeness is very important when speaking to someone Japanese so to be safe most instruction starts out with a very polite form. On the fishing boats they would laugh their fool heads off when I spoke this polite Japanese because it was so inappropriate. Another problem is that many words are different depending on wether spoken by a man or woman. This is another reason I don't learn Japanese from my wife!
I only meant verbs really. But I couldn't describe the intricacies of Japanese verb usage in under 10,000 words, so I just lumped it under "incredibly difficult grammar".
But yes, the hard part is all really in the verbs. You can filter a lot out that you most like won't ever need and there is a lot of redundancy and even a fair amount of consistency, so it's not impossible. But the fact that it often is the subject of entire books is daunting.
Comments
The best I can do is with Japanese and that is because I have lived there and worked on Japanese fishing boats. My wife is also Japanese, but she doesn't try to teach me anything so that hasn't helped. I learned most from watching TV and just listening to conversations. This has really helped with pronunciation and I can often fool Japanese into thinking I know the language well because I say a few key phrases without much accent at all. From doing research on the fishing boats I also know a lot of animal names, many that your average Japanese doesn't even know. For example, even most of the fisherman knew only the generic words for whale or dolphin so I ended up teaching them the Japanese name for each individual species when we saw them. The problem with the Japanese I learned from the fishermen was that they spoke in a dialect from northern Japan that most other Japanese can't even understand and as you might imagine many words used by these guys wouldn't exactly be proper in polite conversation
The basics of Japanese grammar is actually pretty simple. No articles at all so no need to worry about gender and only two tenses. Where it gets complicated is that there are varying levels of politeness with verbs conveying this. Speaking the proper level of politeness is very important when speaking to someone Japanese so to be safe most instruction starts out with a very polite form. On the fishing boats they would laugh their fool heads off when I spoke this polite Japanese because it was so inappropriate. Another problem is that many words are different depending on wether spoken by a man or woman. This is another reason I don't learn Japanese from my wife!
But yes, the hard part is all really in the verbs. You can filter a lot out that you most like won't ever need and there is a lot of redundancy and even a fair amount of consistency, so it's not impossible. But the fact that it often is the subject of entire books is daunting.