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sheeba
Joined: 17 Jun 2004
Posts: 1123
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 Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 10:49 am Post subject: |
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I would say Chinese is pretty easy to learn(compared to my Euro language attempts!). Spoken anyway. Actually the reading isn't too difficult once you master 1500 or more hanzi.
Jzer mentions the time. I agree. Mind you I'd get bored now doing 3 hours Chinese every day. i like to get out now and learn around me. It's great fun in China speaking Chinese. I love it! |
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MELEE
Joined: 22 Jan 2003
Posts: 2583
Location: The Mexican Hinterland
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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| GambateBingBangBOOM wrote: |
| I mean the easiest to SPEAK, not write. That government sheet is going based on reading the language as well. Japanese is easy to speak, hard to read. |
I agree, it's pretty easy to learn to speak functional Japanese. The reading is hard, and getting into the formal language is hard, but if you are not thinking of staying on indefinately, you can learn to say quite a lot and make a lot of basic chit chat in the first couple of months you are there. You can study it using Romanji (Japanese written out phonetically in using the Roman alphabet. No tones, very straight forward intonation patterns and the only sound not in English is tsu. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 3:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Jzer mentions the time. I agree. Mind you I'd get bored now doing 3 hours Chinese every day. i like to get out now and learn around me. It's great fun in China speaking Chinese. I love it! |
Well if one can reach a high enough level they can take university classes in other subjects or read the newspaper. These are the ways to learn a foreign language. Television and movies are also helpful. I have already bought several Korean movies in Taiwan in order to continue working on my Korean. |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2007 2:59 am Post subject: |
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| MELEE wrote: |
| . You can study it using Romanji (Japanese written out phonetically in using the Roman alphabet. No tones, very straight forward intonation patterns and the only sound not in English is tsu. |
pet peave of mine: it's romaji, not romanji ('roman' is a pretty uncommon word- at least around here- which is the same as the French one. It means novel- as in the kind of book). And you're a lot better off studying it in hiragana and katakana if not with simple kanji.
Another thing which isn't in English is AE. As in Kaerou (lets go home). So most English speaking people either say it really slowly, or more commonly, exactly like AI as in Kairou (corridor/hall). Oh, also we don't have 'ryu' (that's why it's so hard to hear the difference between ryu and ru in normal speech) or even the Japanese 'r' at all (other than in the middle of the word 'butter' and things like that).
But Japanese people just hear all these things as accents, normally. |
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sheeba
Joined: 17 Jun 2004
Posts: 1123
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| Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2007 12:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Well if one can reach a high enough level they can take university classes in other subjects |
These are not always easy to take. I have just (craftily) signed up for a French class at the weekends. Of course the way the Chinese teach involves explaining everything in Chinese therefore I'm getting a thorough linguistics listening course in Chinese (and speaking as I ask questions) . I signed up for the course to improve my Chinese. This was my main aim. I might even learn some French! Pretty cheap too.
So 2 languages being learnt AND they cant revert to English in class because I'm learning alongside Chinese students.
Au revoir |
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