Job Discussion Forums

[Tiger Beer]

Japanese vs Mandarin

Which is easier? Why?

[fluffyhamster]

For English speakers, I'd say Mandarin. Yes, the tones can be a bit tricky, but the usually single pronunciation per character means that reading skills won't be lagging too far behind spoken, and the similar word order to English, a single form for verbs (not that verbs in Chinese don't enter into constructions) and relatively simple grammar generally, makes for faster progress; I also think that the larger inventory of sounds (over 400 syllables, as opposed to 50 mora in Japanese) makes words easier to pick out (Japanese is more "agglutinating", Chinese more "isolating"?). One thing that I prefer about Japanese, however, is that there is a separate script (katakana) for rendering foreign names and terms, which helps make them stand out in a text (it can take a while sometimes to realize that some unusual characters equate to a western name, in a continuous unbroken block of Chinese script).

[ghost]

Wo juede shuo zhongwen bu nan, keshi xie zhongwen hen nan!

Woshi zai Taiwan bage yue le, ingwen/fawende laoshi. Bage yue yihou le, woshi shuo zhongwen dien dien. Ni jidao, bu jidao ma?

Ghost in Korea

Mandarin much easier to speak, but Japanese easier to pronounce and easier to learn to read and write, if you use Hiragana and Katakana initially.

[Miyazaki]

Tonal languages are beitch for native English speakers to learn.

My vote goes for Japanese, which is much easier to pronounce. Still, whether it's Chinese or Japanese, in order to reach some fluency, you need to get comfy with kanji or Chinese characters. Not easy. But for speaking and listening, I'd have to say Japanese, IMO.

[gaijinalways]

Personally I found Chinese easier to learn, as Japanese grammar still makes my head swim. Often I get sentences that I can directly translate from Chinese to English. Japanese pronunciation is easier, though I find both Chinese speakers and Japanese speakers have a narrow range for acceptable pronunciation.

[Wintermute]

I studied both at the same time from a beginner level (I gave up on Chinese after 6 months to concentrate on Japanese). Initially I felt I was improving quicker in Mandarin than Japanese but pronouncing the separate sounds correctly was near impossible for me. Also you have to contend with hantzu and pinyin, both of which are confusing when trying to learn them together. Once I mastered the basic Japanese word order and grammar patterns it became a breeze to learn. The fact that Japanese has both katakana and hiragana and is much easier to pronounce makes it my pick for easiest language to learn.

[Tiger Beer]

I started studying Japanese through Pimsleur. It's much easier to remember the words when you can pronounce them.

In Korean, there are a few words that are more aspirated than others, and more difficult to reprounce. Japanese feels easier because of that alone!

While I havent studied Mandarin, I'd think the tonal part of the language would be REAL unnatural when it came to making sentences (much like making an effort to make those more aspirated sounds in Korean when needed) Seems to me like you'd just want to relax a bit and speak a few syllables monotone once in awhile, and it would be real hard to keep from doing that.

[jotham]

Chinese reading is difficult, but speaking is the most easy. The tones are hard to master at first, but once they are, they're easily applied. I find I know the words in Japanese but get stuck on grammar and syntax. I also notice that there are greater proportions of Chinese speakers who can speak English naturally enough and don't have much trouble expressing themselves grammatically. I notice relatively fewer Japanese people who know English; and those that do, show definite frustration wrestling with English grammar, matched only by my own with Japanese grammar.