TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Chill Out Room
-- Japanese or Chinese? (serious responses please)
Pages (2): [1] 2 »
Japanese or Chinese? (serious responses please)
Ok, so I'm about to complete my foreign language requirement at my university, but I would like to pick up another language. I've had a very strong interest in East Asian culture and history all my life, so I would love to learn Chinese or Japanese. However, I have no clue which to choose. Anyone here who learned/knows either or both languages and could tell me the pros and cons of each? Which is more difficult, which has probably more use later on, etc. etc.?
neither are real easy..
Chinese is much harder (due to the fact that it's tonal and has you memorizing a ton of Chinese characters). Then again, you'll be memorizing those same Chinese characters in Japanese, as well.
However, I find Japanese to be overall more fun. I also think it sounds cooler. 
Muahahhaa.
Thread title reminds me of this one time i was with this one asian chick i just met. She was riding with me and i go so are you Chinese or Japanese. She got really offended and asked me to take her home. 
It turned out she was actually vietnamese. 
/true story
with chinese you have two dialects
cantonese - spoken mainly around hong kong
mandarin - spoken mainly around mainland china
do you have any interest in traveling overseas, i know japan has the exchange teaching programs (JET), so if you had any interest in doing that then obviously the chinese is going to come in handy
but which is easier to learn, chinese or japanese...neither, they both are bitches
japanese is pretty easy because it's straight forward. it sounds how it's written for the most part...
chinese dunno anything about it, but i'd take that just for the fact that china is entering the world economy in a major way in the next decade and so i think knowing chinese would be a great advantage in that respect perhaps in terms of jobs or what not. learning chinese today would be like learning japanese back in the 80's...
haha this thread reminds of the time I bought a toaster & on the box it said "made in China", but the label on the actual toaster said it was "made in Japan". It kept burning my toast so I thought that it was either going through an identity crisis or that it was racist (I put in white bread)!
Confusious Says... Man who run behind car get exhausted.
Thing is, I'm not a business major. In fact I'm pre-med, so the argument for Chinese in that case doesn't help. I guess a lot of it will be determined when I see what times they are offered next year (to avoid scheduling conflicts), but if both are offered at good times I have no idea where I should go. Right now Chinese (they teach Mandarin) seems interesting to me, but how difficult is it?
lol @ foreign Language requirement. What a waste of time. GET A JOB YOU BUM!
jk. seriously though, if you are aiming for a professional career after University & there isnt a need to learn a foreign language in this type of occupation, then what is the point of taking the class? You don't even have clue what language you want to learn, and you are willing to pick up anything that will fit into your schedual!! What does pre-med have anything to do with foreign languages?? Pick a worthwhile subject instead of wasting everyones time!
jk. do Chinese. Chinese is the way to go! 
I'd learn chinese... just because. You should have made this a poll
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Sunsnail I'd learn chinese... just because. You should have made this a poll |
I'm doing a double major in Biochemistry and Japanese (all the while completing premed), if that says anything. I don't seem to have a problem with it.
Im teaching myself Chinese(Mandarin)right now actually. I was debating whether to study Spanish or Japanese first, but seeing as how my brother , his wife, and her whole family speak Mandarin, I figure I go that way at the start. Right now im just teaching myself how to speak then later will probably pick up reading.
I would probably recommend Chinese as it is becoming more and more spoken and will probably be extremely common that most people can speak it along with english the future(more so than Spanish).Personally, ive always loved Chinese culture, so studying a language whose culture you want to learn about as well creates a plus for motivational purposes. I will probably find time to learn basic Japanese sometime in the future too though(alread know some now with all the anime I watch). I figure if I can teach myself Chinese first then everything else will be cake. I believe Chinese and Japanese are the 2nd and 3rd hardest languages to learn, closely behind the infamous English language.
And as someone has already mentioned, Chinese is a tonal language. Meaning that there can be several meanings(4 tones to be exact) to a word that sounds the same at first. It takes ALOT of listening to get the tones down and can be extremely confusing to the untrained ear. The words seem to flow together and sound similar as they aren't as discrete or distinct as in english or spanish. This can be a pain. Id still consider myself a noob even though ive been studying off and on for over a year, but notice that its getting easier to think of what to say in certain situations. And like most languages, just getting more and more vocab seems to be the toughest. I can speak some simple sentences really well, but throw in a word ive never learned before and i'll have no idea what your saying.
I would also recommend, if you choose Chinese, to watch as much Chinese TV as possible, after you've got some vocab under your belt. Yea, you won't understand 99.9% of whats being said, but it helps you get used to the pace. Check out CCTV or if you dont have it, try online at www.cctv.com Its China's only English language station ranging from travel, business, science, and even some dialogue lessons.
Overall, I have found learning Chinese to be pretty fun so far. If you have the patience to learn properly and can stick it out, I think it will be very rewarding. Ive probably got a year or more to go before I can start having coherrent conversations at a decent pace, but every now and again, i'll says some simple phrases to try and impress people.
more people speak chinese, but japanese TV is more fun. I would go with japanese
i want to learn japanese, cus i wanna move to japan, and start DJ Alfis Drifting Club.
I'm Chinese and I speak Mandarin, but not at all well, despite the fact that I leart it for 12 years back in school. The language has 5,000 characters or so, and yes, it's a tonal language, so that makes it far more complicated than the Latin languages. At one point in time, my French was much better than my Mandarin was.
I also have friends who have learnt Japanese because of its similarities to the Chinese language, and they said that while there is some overlap (we can read some Japanese characters because Japanese written language evolved from the Chinese, if I recall correctly), the difficulties lie with the different kinds of Japanese that one needs to learn.
I would say Chinese would most likely be more useful later on in life just because there're more ethnic Chinese, and we're more widely dispersed.
And yes, there are several different Chinese dialects - Mandarin (the main one), Cantonese (spoken in Hong Kong, and most Chinatowns across the world), Hokkien/Taiwanese, Shanghainese, etc. - and they can sound pretty different. When I was in Hong Kong recently, I would speak Mandarin to the HKers and they'd reply in Cantonese, but somehow we would both understand.
Hope that helps!
im a british born chinese type and i speak cantonese (well a rather lazy boy style cantonese anyway)
its not all that difficult as its cracked up to be (there was this guy on tv who was caucasian and he spoke perfect cantonese and mandarin with perfect tone as well, i was gobsmacked and jealous at the same time)
japanese would be cool to learn but its too stereotypical for my liking
learn cantonese so u can watch HK action films without reading teh subs ftw!
or learn both?
I've just started to learn Japanese this year - enjoying it so far!
Just out of curiousity, how different is Mandarin to Catonese? I mean, if you speak one and meet someone who speaks the other, is it difficult to understand each other?
Chinese, since it's the language most likely to overtake English at some point in the future.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by _Ocean_Drive_ I've just started to learn Japanese this year - enjoying it so far! Just out of curiousity, how different is Mandarin to Catonese? I mean, if you speak one and meet someone who speaks the other, is difficult to understand each other? |
Japanese sounds cooler, but Chinese is more useful.. I guess it depends on what you wanna do with it. Do you ever wanna live in Japan/China? if you wanna work for a company that does business with China, it would be better to choose Chinese.. especially with the booming Chinese economy. I dont know about Japanese, but Chinese is pretty hard.. I speak Cantonese fluently but I have big trouble with reading Chinese characters and speaking Mandarin.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Kakoroto I believe Chinese and Japanese are the 2nd and 3rd hardest languages to learn, closely behind the infamous English language. atch as much Chinese TV as possible [...] it helps you get used to the pace. Check out CCTV [...] online at www.cctv.com |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Fraises there are several different Chinese dialects [...] they can sound pretty different. I would speak Mandarin to the HKers and they'd reply in Cantonese, but somehow we would both understand. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by KilldaDJ its not all that difficult as its cracked up to be (there was this guy on tv who was caucasian and he spoke perfect cantonese and mandarin with perfect tone as well, i was gobsmacked and jealous at the same time) learn both? |
Chinese will be a lot of work to learn because:
a, you have to memorize a lot of characters
b, you may also have to memorize the "pinyin" (romanization that goes along with these characters
c, there are a lot of tones to remember
however, Chinese wil be more useful since so many more people speak it and, even though this does not apply to you, will be using it in the business world.
ya, japanese sounds cooler. if you just want to dick around and never intend to speak the languages when you leave college, choose whichever. can't go wrong with either.
the way i see it, everyone and their mother takes chinese, so take japanese. or, just do what i did when i was in your situation, take both languages.
take korean because that's what all the cool kids do. 
that and hangul uses an alphabet system, so you don't memorize characters that mean objects (like in japanese), you memorize letters that spell out sounds (like in english)
Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.