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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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 Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 10:40 pm Post subject: Mandarin vs Japanese |
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Okay, all you linguists.
What's your take? What's easier?
Mandarin or Japanese? |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 10:42 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm of the opinion that all natural languages are equally hard to learn. And, yes, I got my degree in Linguistics. |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 10:43 pm Post subject: |
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speaking chinese is easy. it is built for assimilation. tense is a snap. no gender words. ignore the tones and chat away. they have a way of self regulating themselves. it IS the world's most spoken language for a reason.
japanesegrammar is as jacked up as english or korean. with three writing systems.
over 1 billion speak some kinda chinese. japanese? nice local dialect.
for me it was a no brainer. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:02 pm Post subject: |
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Chinese.
The grammar is more like ours (even easier too, they drop a lot of stuff). The pronunciation is hard at first, but once you get it, there are no assimilations or any crap like that, so it's pretty easy.
And since Japanese has the characters anyway (Kanji), it doesn't matter. But the Chinese characters are
1) easier to learn (unless you study in Hong Kong or Taiwan which use the old characters).
2) have only one pronunciation (99% of the time), unlike Kanji (Japanese characters), which usually have 2 or three but can have up to 9 I think.
I've studied both. Japanese grammar is much like Korean. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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| mistermasan wrote: |
speaking chinese is easy. it is built for assimilation. tense is a snap. no gender words. ignore the tones and chat away. they have a way of self regulating themselves. it IS the world's most spoken language for a reason.
japanesegrammar is as jacked up as english or korean. with three writing systems.
over 1 billion speak some kinda chinese. japanese? nice local dialect.
for me it was a no brainer. |
While I agree Chinese is easier, it wasn't built. Nor is Japanese a local dialect? Also, katakana and hiragana aren't exactly that hard to learn. It's just the Kanji, though I dealt with that before. Ignoring the tones can also be wrong. There are times that someone can speak in English, forget the stress and change the entire meaning. One good example off the top of my head is mai(2) and mai(3), sell and buy. It's not that hard, it just takes a bit of time to get the tones.
The language itself means nothing in why it is the most spoken either. |
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pugwall
Joined: 22 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:09 pm Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
| mistermasan wrote: |
speaking chinese is easy. it is built for assimilation. tense is a snap. no gender words. ignore the tones and chat away. they have a way of self regulating themselves. it IS the world's most spoken language for a reason.
japanesegrammar is as jacked up as english or korean. with three writing systems.
over 1 billion speak some kinda chinese. japanese? nice local dialect.
for me it was a no brainer. |
While I agree Chinese is easier, it wasn't built. Nor is Japanese a local dialect? Also, katakana and hiragana aren't exactly that hard to learn. It's just the Kanji, though I dealt with that before. Ignoring the tones can also be wrong. There are times that someone can speak in English, forget the stress and change the entire meaning. One good example off the top of my head is mai(2) and mai(3), sell and buy. It's not that hard, it just takes a bit of time to get the tones.
The language itself means nothing in why it is the most spoken either. |
But the point is still true that its best not to get too stressed about the tones at first. You are not exactly going to a train station and say that you want to sell them a train ticket. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:12 pm Post subject: |
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| pugwall wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
| mistermasan wrote: |
speaking chinese is easy. it is built for assimilation. tense is a snap. no gender words. ignore the tones and chat away. they have a way of self regulating themselves. it IS the world's most spoken language for a reason.
japanesegrammar is as jacked up as english or korean. with three writing systems.
over 1 billion speak some kinda chinese. japanese? nice local dialect.
for me it was a no brainer. |
While I agree Chinese is easier, it wasn't built. Nor is Japanese a local dialect? Also, katakana and hiragana aren't exactly that hard to learn. It's just the Kanji, though I dealt with that before. Ignoring the tones can also be wrong. There are times that someone can speak in English, forget the stress and change the entire meaning. One good example off the top of my head is mai(2) and mai(3), sell and buy. It's not that hard, it just takes a bit of time to get the tones.
The language itself means nothing in why it is the most spoken either. |
But the point is still true that its best not to get too stressed about the tones at first. You are not exactly going to a train station and say that you want to sell them a train ticket. |
At first, absolutely. That goes for any language learning. But do not just ignore them when you start progressing, and then get mad when a Chinese person doesn't understand. I have seen this often. Just think of when a student said something, was sure they were right, but you couldn't understand at all. |
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pugwall
Joined: 22 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:14 pm Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
| pugwall wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
| mistermasan wrote: |
speaking chinese is easy. it is built for assimilation. tense is a snap. no gender words. ignore the tones and chat away. they have a way of self regulating themselves. it IS the world's most spoken language for a reason.
japanesegrammar is as jacked up as english or korean. with three writing systems.
over 1 billion speak some kinda chinese. japanese? nice local dialect.
for me it was a no brainer. |
While I agree Chinese is easier, it wasn't built. Nor is Japanese a local dialect? Also, katakana and hiragana aren't exactly that hard to learn. It's just the Kanji, though I dealt with that before. Ignoring the tones can also be wrong. There are times that someone can speak in English, forget the stress and change the entire meaning. One good example off the top of my head is mai(2) and mai(3), sell and buy. It's not that hard, it just takes a bit of time to get the tones.
The language itself means nothing in why it is the most spoken either. |
But the point is still true that its best not to get too stressed about the tones at first. You are not exactly going to a train station and say that you want to sell them a train ticket. |
At first, absolutely. That goes for any language learning. But do not just ignore them when you start progressing, and then get mad when a Chinese person doesn't understand. I have seen this often. Just think of when a student said something, was sure they were right, but you couldn't understand at all. |
Good point again. |
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Fresh Prince
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: The glorious nation of Korea
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:20 pm Post subject: |
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Out of the the three languages:
Mandarin=
-easiest to speak: Grammar is very similar to English but with less verb conjugations and sounds are easily approximated with English.
-hardest to write
Japanese=
-easier to write than Mandarin: If you can't read kanji then you can at least write the word in hiragana.
-easier to speak than Korean: Sounds are easily approximated with English.
Korean=
-hardest to speak: Very few sounds are easily approximated with English.
-easiest to write. |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 4:51 am Post subject: |
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| don't worry about the tones. they will come over time. most every mandarin teacher over emphasizes tones at first and scares away students. three week | |
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