Today, two of my ex-students, Wafa and Syafiqah from SCSB section of NetComm class last semester, came to see me for advice. They have to take a foreign language subject this semester, and they are torn between French and Japanese.
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One is a favourite movie of mine, another is a famous actor/singer in my favorite J-Dorama. This is what I told them.
If you want to learn a language and be good at it, you need to practice. How? By reading and listening and talking in that language. And how to do that? You should be able to spell. There lies the problem with Japanese. You have to memorize Kanji! Kanji are pictorial which have meanings themselves. You can learn to spell with Hiragana and Katakana but unfortunately, most Japanese words are written in Kanji. So, you are at disadvantage if you are only learning it in one semester.
So French is easier in that respect because they used roman alphabets. But French is difficult to pronounce. Japanese is easier. Japanese pronunciation are very much like Malay language.
So, in the end, French or Japanese? I’ve tried Japanese for 3.5 years and not very good at it. Maybe French, then?