Japanese words that confuse you?

Why are Japanese words so confusing?

I had trouble learning Japanese names when I first got into anime. But words like nee chan or nii san throw me for a loop.

I always used to get confused between things like sonotori (that bird) and sonotoori (that's right) , O (chord) and Ou (king) because the difference is quite small when their pronounced , well it was when I first started but I'm getting better at hearing the difference.

These words weren't confusing, but I did mispronounce the word I'm about to mention.

Kendama/Kintama.

Kendama is that ball and cup like toy. Anyway, I liked it. I said, "I like kendama", in Japanese but i said kintama. Look it up. I mean yeah, I do like both...but it sounded wrong. lol

I don't speak Japanese so I guess you could say all the words do~ There a few things I have managed to pick up on though.

I have a question but i didn`t know where to post it

so i`m hoping this is the right place

i have been having this problem for quite a while now and it has been bugging me for some time.

kanji is not my strongest suit so when i try reading manga there would be some kanji nouns which will come near each other without any hiragana in between and when i want to read them i don`t know how i should distinguish between them. for example: 食堂担任. at first sight i didn`t know how to separate them. i tried pronouncing them differently but it was futile. it was after finishing the sentence twice that i figured it was 食堂(shokudou) plus 担任(tannin). i searched but couldn`t find anything

is there any method or approach to pair kanjis which are near each other

or should i just practice my way through it?

To this day, i still mix up Scary and Cute. Kawaii and Kowai.

is there any method or approach to pair kanjis which are near each other

If there's no hiragana between two kanji (i.e. for your grammar and topic markers) then I think it just comes down to having to learn the kanji in your vocabulary. But don't quote me on that, I'm still a big kanji newbie.

@ssjup81 and @Yuuki_Radosian may have some pointers.

To this day, i still mix up Scary and Cute. Kawaii and Kowai.

Haha yes I can see the similarities there. Kawaii will have a longer ending with the two いい for emphasis.

If there's no hiragana between two kanji (i.e. for your grammar and topic markers) then I think it just comes down to having to learn the kanji in your vocabulary. But don't quote me on that, I'm still a big kanji newbie.

thanks

i searched it on some sites and apparently there really isn`t any other way around it. just have to widen the kanji range

Haha yes I can see the similarities there. Kawaii will have a longer ending with the two いい for emphasis.

I have not yet invested any time into learning Japanese due to me currently writing Matric. In due time however I intend to start attending classes. I have always found it enjoyable to learn new languages.