posted by carolgreen986 on August 16, 2012 | 6 comments
Does anyone here speak Japanese & Chinese?? Which one should I start to learn?? Which one is easier?? I don't know which one to pick?? Please help. Thanks!
If you want to get a basic grasp of the language quickly, I'd say Japanese is best. If you learn the 50 basic Hiragana, you can write anything and be understood, and read basic things, and that can be done in under a week.There's also no tones in Japanese, and vowels are always pronounced the same, so if you get the 50 sounds correct, you're 90% of the way there. But I think Chinese is easier once you get over the initial hurdle, the grammar is a bit simpler. If you aren't in an environment where you can practice with native speakers, go for Japanese, otherwise you'll never know if you're getting the tones right!And anything imported from overseas to Japan since about the '50s is pronounced phonetically, so you can get an instant 500+ words of really easy vocab by guessing things like:su-ni-ka = sneakersma-ri ku-ri-su-ma-su = merry xmasetcBut give the podcasts here a try, and some Japanese ones, see which you prefer, and good luck either way. But don't try learning both at once, they get lumped together as one language!
Follow your long-term interest, I say; both are tough sledding for native speakers of Romance languages, so you'll need a few good overarching reasons to want to communicate. For a useful comparison of the respective learning processes, check out John Pasden's Sinosplice:http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/06/25/learning-curves-chinese-vs-japaneseFor what it's worth, my girlfriend learned Japanese and Chinese as second languages and is fonder of Japanese, but she's been at Chinese longer so burnout could be a factor.
murrayjames on August 16, 2012 | reply
Hi carolgreen986,
Are you interested in Chinese/Japanese culture? Do you like Chinese movies, or literature, history? Japanese TV, or manga, philosophy? Do you have any Chinese friends? Japanese friends? Do you have career prospects in one of these two countries?
Culture is expressed through language, and learning a country's language means learning its culture. If you're interested in (or impressed by, or curious about) the culture you're studying, it will make your language study much smoother. If, two months in, you decide that this culture is not for you, your language studies will suffer.
7 years ago I was studying music in college. My good friend was a pianist from Shanghai. I had a Chinese girlfriend. At that time I knew next to nothing about China, but started learning anyway. I became interested in the language, the history, the people. Then I started learning Chinese. Eventually I moved here. Now I have a job, a wife, a band, friends and co-workers in China -- most of these people are Chinese.
Learning a language is a huge investment of time. This is true of all languages, but especially English-remote languages like Chinese and Japanese. But don't worry about language difficulty yet. Think culture. Do you like China? If yes, then learn Mandarin. Do you like Japan more? Maybe Japanese is for you.
hans.castorp.tahiti on August 16, 2012 | reply
I totally agree with murrayjames!Currently trying to learn mandarin :) Whatever you choose, good luck!
@carolgreen986,Pick Japanese! Go with Japanese! Make it Japanese!It's just that simple. I say that having studied both and ulitimately picked Chinese. The reason I say this is because Japanese culture and society are much more attractive to foreigners. Japan is clean, high-tech, modern and westernized, yet has the mistique of the orient and a connection to ancient Chinese culture to give it a twinge of ancient highly hierarchical structure and old-world feel to keep you motivated in your study.Besides that, the fact that there are no tones in Japanese to condend with and you can be completely literate with only 2,500 Kanji characters under your belt, (as opposed to 5,000+ Hanzi necessary for Chinese) and with the Hirigana and Katakana phonetic characters as well as grammar that's similar to western languages (prefixes, suffixes, tenses, conjugations, and the like), you don't need as deep a commitment of time as you need with Chinese.John Pasden mentioned in his blog that, the pronunciation of Chinese is difficult at first, but grammar is much easier and Chinese gets easier with time, whereas Japanese is simpler at first but because of grammar it gets more complicated over the long-haul. However I don't agree with this notion.Chinese has been plenty difficult over the long-haul. And never seems to get easier. (Idioms, Written vs. Spoken language, Casual vs. Formal language, Writing, Tones, Tone Sandhi, Characters with multiple readings, sheer amount of vocab necessary for fluency, etc.)Japanese grammar has so many parallels to English that it's much easier to wrap your head around than the lack of grammar in Chinese. In Chinese grammar, so much is inferred and implied that it often leaves too many questions in the western mind for ust to understand completely. That compounded with the fact that Characters can be absolutely beastly especially when combined to create new words, it just takes a monumental commitment of time and energy to master it all.Japanese has a coolness factor that Chinese doesn't have.Again, Chinese is the language that I picked because it's right for me, but for any beginner who's just looking to try their hand at learning an Asian language I have to say, go with Japanese, you'll be better off.
@Carolgreen986,I just wanted to explain why I gravitated to Chinese. One factor was the people are, by and large extremely warm and caring people.The other was the sheer awesomeness of Chinese. Chinese is, while not romantic, it is awesome! The history of it, the gravity of it, the magesty of it, the mystery of it, the intricacy of it, the poetry of it, the depth and bredth of it is, as far as I'm concerned, unparalleled by any other living language.Be that as it may, I still recommend Japanese for those looking to dip their toe in the Asian language water.