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Japanese or Chinese? (serious responses please) (pg. 2)
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| Yan |
| 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. |
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| Kakoroto |
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.
:rolleyes: |
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| stren |
| more people speak chinese, but japanese TV is more fun. I would go with japanese |
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| dj_alfi |
| i want to learn japanese, cus i wanna move to japan, and start DJ Alfis Drifting Club. |
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| Fraises |
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! |
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| KilldaDJ |
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? |
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| _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 it difficult to understand each other? |
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| Inconspicuous |
| Chinese, since it's the language most likely to overtake English at some point in the future. |
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| Drifter |
| 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? |
generally its easier for people with a cantonese background to understand a person that speaks mandarin than vice versa...but i emphasize generally |
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| Unique2701 |
| 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. |
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| Akridrot |
| 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
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Wait, I thought Arabic was hands-down the hardest contemporary language you could learn?
| 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.
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How closely related are these languages? French and Haitian Creole close? Or English and German close? Suppose I learn one, would it make learning the other one take half as much time?
From what you've posted, it seems like if you learn one, the others would just be like slang.
| 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? |
How well can you understand Mandarin now? How long do you think it'd take for you to learn it?
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I just had to ask all the questions at once. |
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| EriK_V |
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. |
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