Japanese language vs. Chinese language

I think Japanese is the hardest language I have ever come across. There are sooo many rules, and soooo much to memorize.

If you have the patience and capability oflearning Japanese... then you are competent in the language learning department... you can probably learn almost any language! My opinion, of course

If you think that Japanese is hard try any of the Romance language like Italian, Spanish, French etc. you have to study a lot of verbs that are either regular and irregular and have so many different endings depending on the way the verb is used (to indicate past, present, future, conditional, etc .etc) and also who is involved: first person singular, first person plural etc. Each word has a gender (masculine or feminine) but there are no rules helping you remember which is which. The gender is indicated by le, la but this changes depending on the word itself for example in French le Chien (male dog) and l' homme (a man) Then there is the accent, the letters within a word or at the end that are pronounced in some case and not in others etc. In "Montreal" the T is not pronounced but the L is while in Montorgeuil the T is pronounced. In "savants" both T and S aren't pronounced. Both un article and l' article refer to a single "article". The plural is marked by a S or a X and you just have to know.

Having come across both Chinese and Japanese languages, I'd say the difficulty is half-half.

Chinese grammar is easier than Japanese, since it is more similar to English. But the kanji you have to learn to be able to read a Chinese text is so many times more than Japanese, unless you prefer to go by han yu pin yin alone, which is improper (just like learning Japanese by romaji alone...)

While the other way is true for Japanese.

I think Japanese is the hardest language I have ever come across. There are sooo many rules, and soooo much to memorize.

Not really. That's what I thought initially, but now, as I look back and compare it with English, I'd realize that English is probably harder than for Japanese to pick up. Imagine the tenses, the prepositions, the phrasal verbs...

i am doin to write and both chinese and japanese. for me, chinese is like no rules language, say it whichever way, people will still understand. only point is the words are difficult to write and read. but japanese has too many grammer rules. but either you master either one will help you to catch up another one since both are inter related through kanji

i think chinese is the better choice.
ive worked both in china and japan before, from my experience, if u r really good in china, u can go far. the chinese r smart people, they know who to use, who to value (for moneys sake of course)
in japan, no matter how good u r, even if they do admit u r good, u will nvr overtake a japanese cos in my opinion they r more egoistic than the chinese.

furthermore, as china grows, the chinese will go global, most of them the new generations in fact wld'nt want to be under communist rule, they wld rather venture out of their country.
in the end, u dont even have to go to china to work, just find a chinese company in your country, speak their language and be an interpretor as well.

Why not do both? Do Chinese first and after you got that down, it'll be a piece of cake to learn Japanese since Kanji are Chinese characters anyway. The languages aren't that different either.

Guest, there is no close linguistic relationship between the Japanese and Chinese languages- the grammar is totally different. Japanese just happens to use kanji for a lot of their vocabulary.

Business business business....just study what you feel like.

I'm already teaching my self Japanese, and in high school you need to learn a language (one that they have). And they don't have Japanese.

But I'm looking at another school. They offer Spanish, Latin, and French. I think I'll take Spanish with learning Japanese on my own.

I'm in college right now and am taking both Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. I have no problem with studying the two languages at once and if you take traditional Chinese, most of the characters will be the same (of course the meanings and the words don't match up exactly). Linguistically, the grammar is totally different except for some things like using measure words (which are different characters for the most part), the number system, and other aspects that the Japanese borrowed from the Chinese. I think it would be very difficult to start both languages at the same time from the beginning, so I would suggest to start one (in my case it was Japanese) and get a decent handle of it before incorporating the other into the mix. Maybe I'm just good at learning languages, but it's totally possible and both languages are really fun!

Yes, it is very possible to learn both Chinese and Japanese. It's also quite easy. I'm a high school freshman, taking Chinese through an on-line class and teaching myself Russian. At the rate I'm going through Russian, by my Junior year I will be teaching myself Arabic while finishing up Chinese. Those are, in my opinion, the three most important languages in the world, rather than Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish. (But then again, I'm American and it could be different in the UK.)

If you do teach yourself two languages at once, you should arrive at your classes with a lot of energy and pay good attention, especially in languages as closely related as Chinese and Japanese. (I only confused Chinese and Russian once.) And if your girlfriend is Chinese, she would be great help when it comes to pronunciation, especially since Chinese is harder to pronounce for English speakers than Japanese. But you two may not be together in the future anyway, so . . .
I also recommend taking Arabic, but that's because of the Iraq war. It's probably not as important in England. There's also a surplus of Spanish translators and I don't think it's as attractive of a language as, per se, Romanian, Italian, Latin, or Chinese. But once again, maybe there's not a surplus of them in the UK. You should research what the best languages to learn in England are (Chinese and Japanese are both bound to be near the top) and make your decision based on that and your personal choice. And unless you stink at languages (like my mom and brother) there's really no reason why you can't take two at once; but you should know that it takes 4-10 years to become fluent in both languages and you can tack a few more years onto that number if you take them both at once with anything less than superior language ability. (You can figure out how good you are at learning language by taking whatever the British version of the DLAM is.) Good luck!

Hey Sira you may be surprised to know that Kanji isnt the only connection between Japanese and Chinese. A lot of vocabulary in Japanese comes from Chinese. For example nouns which are said politely with a ''go'' in front are of chinese origin for example ''gohan'' meaning food or rice. Also all ''na'' adjectives are mostly from Chinese words and some other languages.

Japanese isn't that hard to learn if you are in Japan. I dont believe it is inherently more difficult than other languages. The main problem for English speakers is Japanese is very different from English. But Japanese people are faced with the same problem when learning English and they do Ok.

Japanese has a simple grammar and pronunciation. Mechanically it's easier than any European language. However, to use Japanese well one has to know the social conventions that govern its use among Japanese native speakers.

For instance, the verb oboeru (to remember) can be either be oboeru in an informal situation or oboemasu in a formal situation. What is formal and informal? Formal refers to situations where the listener is of a higher social rank than the speaker, or the listener does not know the speaker well. This would be a student speaking to a teacher, a patient speaking to a doctor, a young man speaking to an elderly person on the street, or a citizen speaking to a politician. Informal is where the speaker is of a higher social status than the listener, or the speaker is older than the listener. This would be a company boss speaking to his employee, a father speaking to his son (or the reverse), a teacher speaking to his student, or friends talking to each other.

Doctors and teachers use formal speech exclusively, since their station in Japanese society is a special one.

The use of formal and informal speech is determined by how much respect the speaker accords the listener. In Japanese using speech not appropriate for the situation constitutes bad language - equivalent to an English speaker using vulgar slang at a formal function!

Chinese is less demanding since it lacks verbal conjugations and word ordercombined with tones determines what means what. Just as in a game of weichi (the Chinese name for the game of Go) one determines meaning in Chinese by looking at pattern and context.

Chinese grammar is very, very simple. Verbs do not conjugate at all and the other words do not change at all, expect for tone. Mandarin is simpler than Cantonese since particles that are commonly used in Cantonese are lacking in Mandarin. For one, Mandarin does not use topic or subject particles.

Chinese social conventions are a bit easier to follow and the difference between formal and informal language is not too great. Perhaps the only things that change are the personal pronouns. In speaking to an elder one uses formal pronouns and in speaking to a junior one uses informal pronouns. Apart from high social positions such as teachers, doctors, and government officials, there is not much variation in speech register.

So, in short, Japanese and Chinese are difficult for speakers of European languages due to their different grammar and pronunciation, and so take a long time to learn well. Even so, it is possible to learn both to fluency, provided that a study of society and culture is included along with the study of language. Speaking Japanese or Chinese while still thinking (and behaving)in English just plain sucks. When I was learning Japanese I found that I had to think in Japanese in order to speak Japanese fluently. I acted accordingly and my Japanese has improves as a result.

As for real-world uses, Japanese is still viable, at least for those in the applied linguistics fields. Of course the Japanese economy has matured while China's economy is on the ascendant, so for frontier entrepeneurs Chinese is the more attractive option. Even so, it is still possible to make a killing in Japan. One need only remember that the Japanese have a business culture not like that of the West. Also, even though the Chinese are adopting Western-style capitalism, the ancient business customs still apply. There have been cases of business deals being blown by something so innocent as erroneously presenting one's business card or patting someone on the shoulder.

To conclude, language is not strictly words, but includes thoughts and behavior. When combined, they form what every human being calls language.