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.