Should i take chinese or japanese

But, for most of us, we learn much better when we work on just one new language at a time — and some languages are easier to learn than others. Which can mean making some tough choices. French or Spanish? How about Italian, or German? Made your decision, and keen to start learning? Jump in with our app, Busuu. With a Study Plan to help keep you on track and free online courses in both Japanese and Chinese, Busuu can get you where you want to be, whichever language you choose. On the other hand, for those interested in Chinese history and how it shaped many other Asian cultures, learning Chinese would be a great way to gain more insight.

The next thing you might want to consider when choosing between learning Chinese or Japanese is your own experience with languages. Why does this matter? Tonality in a language is where changing the pitch of a word — how high or low your voice is when you say the word — can change its meaning.

Another consideration is loanwords. This is when a language ends up using words that originate from a different language. I think learning a language other than your mother tongue is a huge accomplishment. Whether it is Spanish or Mandarin. My husband wants to learn Spanish. He is from San Diego, or something. He gave me a disbelief look on his face. It was priceless. My accent is so thick, not even Americans think I am American. Ladino is basically dead and useless, unless you want to read old manuscripts.

Either way you should have a strong understanding of spanish and hebrew before attempting. Good luck. Oh my god, Mary, I felt like this post spoke directly to me! But just like you said, at the end of the day as cheesy as it may sound , you must choose the language you love. It drives me crazy, but in a good way if that makes any sense….

I just need to find some time and a good teacher. Great post as always, Mary. Korean is really, really hard. That grammar is tough, eh? I tried to learn Korean but it was just too much for me, I really respect your drive!!

I wish I could learn Korean because I love the dramas and they would make such good practice material, haha. Hi Mary san!! Im really in love with your blog.. I have more than 3 years learning but i really suck!! So I can say that what you wrote is the truth.. But yes kunyomi and onyomi is a headache… chinese is so much easier to learn new vocabulary you can just your imagination and what you know so far and easily get the meaning of the new words. On the other hand pinyin is so hard for pronunciation ….

For susre keigo is so hard that I don't wanna even comment about it ….. In my case is different. Im a spanish native speaker by the way sorry if there is any mistake…. I have a friend that in went to study to semester in Tongji Daxue, now his chinese is very fluent and he have had so many opprtunity jobs since he came back to Ecuador thanks to the good relationship our goverment has with chinese goverment.

And yes… it seems that is also because there is are few chinese people that can speak spanish very fluent I get my chinese classes in english due to that.. I wrote to you because i also read your post about taking jlpt in shanghai that was so funny hahhaha..

So im wondering if you can tell me the exactly place you took jlpt which university, or institute?? Thanks for all of your nice compliments, it gives me more inspiration to update my blog, haha. And by the way, your English is amazing!

Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese—you could conquer the world! I agree with all of your comments. Speaking Japanese with your boss versus speaking Japanese with your friend is almost like two different languages entirely.

For the Chinese readings, try to memorize words that are only used frequently. Memorizing every kunyomi for every kanji is near impossible, but memorizing the frequently used kunyomi is definitely doable and effective. I think mastering Chinese and then moving onto Japanese will be a nice transition! Tonji Daxue is a great school! Are you going through an exchange program with your university? The only problem is navigating the horrible website, and doing it in Chinese.

I find your blog posts very interesting and fun to read! Not only the characters, but also the tones are pretty hard to master. Because Mandarin is such a time consuming language I self-studied it for about a month , I started learning some Korean two days ago, and it was much easier to remember and write words and sentences. Which would you say is best to learn? The hard parts about Korean are maybe the grammar and formalities. On the contrary, I have heard a lot of negative feedback about South Korea circulating racism, sexism, rude people, etc.

The thing is, I find the tones very hard. Also, I prefer the Korean television and music industry, so I wonder if there really is any purpose in learning Chinese. So I was thinking you could maybe help me with my choice? When I was around 19 years old, I also started to teach myself Korean. However, like Japanese, Korean is deceptively easy at first—and gradually becomes harder and harder. I know that Korean has extremely similar grammar structure to Japanese, which will definitely make it a hard language to learn.

Focus on one language at a time. You can learn Korean first, then perhaps move into Chinese later. Doing both at the same time will be difficult. And I can even consider watching dramas studying, haha! Thanks for the comment! I am very envious of Malay people, they grow up speaking so many languages and Malaysia is such a multicultural place. I think if you start off with these two at the same time you might get confused, especially with the character readings.

I suggest you study Japanese and then work on your Spanish on the side. If you give up Spanish now you might lose it. I hope that helped? Let me know if you have any further questions! Do you think it would be more beneficial for me to go to Japan for the whole of this year or would I benefit just as much from going for 5 months instead of 10? I think that you should go the whole year to Japan.

It would have helped my Chinese immensely and I would have learned the language much better. Again, go all the way Spanish or all the way Japanese but I dont recommend doing a little bit of both. One language is always going to be better than the other, so right now choose which language you want to excel in first. Hi Mary, actually I am a Taiwanese, I am so lucky that i discover your blog : D , i saw some of your articles which is very interesting, meanwhile, it makes me think over and over.

It is very impressive! Hi Jordan, thanks so much for your comment! I hope I can go back to Taiwan soon and visit more of the countryside… that would be so amazing! Wow, nice post! This article was very interesting, ahh I love it! But I do think Korean last is the smart way to go about things. Go you for attempting to learn 3 languages! Hopefully I can pick up Korean sometime soon, too… aaaaa.. Email me if you have any questions!

Very true, and if I might add, the deeper you go with that, the worse it gets. The initial kindness and consderation can almost feel sureal, but once you realize whats behind it, you kind of wish you didnt and could return back to that naive and ignorant state.

Ive had limited experience with Chinese, but from what Ive experienced, they are allot like Americans; they only care about themselves, immediate family, and making money. They say whatever they feel also. I dont want to live there, but Ive never had any problem with them. They do seem to be a bit closed to outsiders, sort of like they dont care if your in their space or not. I guess they are too concerned with Kiatsu and in the moment. Ive only been to West China, and I know that country is huge.

They dont seem to have the inward looking, introverted, paranoia about outsiders groupism you see in Japan, but my observation is just one of an outsider. Great article! Your article focuses a lot on reading and writing. Japanese is so extremely easy to pronounce. Meanwhile Mandarin has such an easy grammar structure, but those tones! I am so massively intimidated by tones. Japanese is easy to pronounce, but grammar really, really sucks like you mentioned. Japanese, like German, has a lot of intricacies that make it a really hard language to master.

I was intimidated at first, but if you get a good beginner Mandarin teacher and learn pinyin, you should master the tones in no time. A lot of people forego pinyin and they usually have terrible pronunciation.

I learned pinyin and pronunciation for 4 weeks straight before my teacher let me learn anything else. Right now, I say go for the culture you love the most. Find the culture that fits for you and the language will soon follow. I have 12 units for this class and I will be learning about my chosen language and culture all throughout my years in college alongside the degree that I have. After reading your article great article btw! However, liking a language is really the most important part.

In the end, she dropped Chinese and moved to Japan and now Japanese is the only language she knows. So, if you have a cultural preference for one language then I suggest to go with that language.

I hope that helps? Anyway, good luck with your studies and let me know if you have any other question! Its interesting; I never hear of any non Japanese wanting to learn Korean, but plenty of Japanese taking Korean lessons. Go to shin okubou behind the kabukicho slum area and all you see are Japanese visiting Korean shops. Well of courseoccasional the right wing demo as well, for your mental health and safety, please steer clear of that.

The thing is, from what I hear, South Korea is now the place to be. Im not speaking from experience because I havent been there recently, but met many who have. I hear they pay English teachers quite well there, without the mickey mouse games and salaries of Japan. Seems from what I hear they are making effort, and progress, towards integrating their immigrants. I just remember it was an extremely rigid and cold process. They treated us all like convicts or in boot camp. Everyone so eager to conform, we obeyed every command.

Japan has a long ways to go to catch up, but most could care less. I talked with some Japanese lady recruiter in the U. She was asking my age, my japanese level and other personals, just like they do in Japan. I told her why I need to work for Japanese in the U.

Unlike you I have passport and citizenship. I guess they think of you as a gaijin even if your in your own country!

Actually learning Japanese is the easy part, its what comes latter. I dont even bother with it anymore.

Why bother, the original meaning is still the same so all that effort and stress was for nothing. I guess you can fool yourself into thinking your now part of the Japanese family, but your a fool if you really believe that..

Japanese expect you to find your way through all their mazes and mindgames, only to be left at the same place you started at; your a gaijin. So, I now use English and avoid all that. Well, most of the time. What a pleasant experience the default in most countries to find a Japanese who can communicate in English. I had a frustrating experience once, however.

I called and asked for an English speaker at this company. I said, do you speak English? Do you know about this service offered…. I think Japanese is just used as a kind of mind control or method to bring minna under one umbrella so its one mind.

Getting into that heavy stuff nobody likes to get into, but thats where Im at, so I avoid it as much as possible. I think grammatically Chinese is easier than Japanese, but Japanese is acutally quite simple to learn to speak and understand.

I find it to be a language built around heiarchy and control, a holdover from the samurai days. I think its application in todays world is limited, whereas Mandarin doesnt have the same honorific obstacles and feelings to overcome and latter endure; you get your point across without hangups about the others feelings. I dont know why anybody would even need to study Japanese anymore unless your going to work for them, which isnt reccomended.

Most of their companies have an English speaking bridge engineer or translator anyhow, so IMO, Japanese is for Japanese people, period. I guess there was a time when Japanese empire or Japan Inc hoped for a world where Japanese was the lingua franca, but that dream collasped twice.

Just ask any older guam, singapore HK or Korean under what conditions they were forced to learn Japanese. I think English has become the first choice for people of the world to learn, perhaps followed by Chinese and German, maybe French. I would appreciate if you reply. Here in Cyprus Chinese is getting popular and i am thinking of learning them. They might help me with my business since i also know Russian which is also common here.

My true love is japaneese but they will be useless for me here. I dont know what to do. Are you sure Chinese would be useful? Because I know for English-Chinese, the market is over saturated and it is not that easy. Choose wisely! Thx for replying. Yes Chinese is very useful for business here.

I already started learning the language and i love it so far. Thanks for your time and i am planning to learn japaneese aswell when i have spare time since i have the ability to leaen fast.

Take care. Thank you very much for taking the time to write this. Thanks a lot again and have a great day! Thank you for writing this! I am planning on going to Japan in July to study Japanese for 2 years, I always found Japan so beautiful and the culture and food is great. And who knows maybe in the future and too the Olympics Japanese will become a much bigger language hopefully!

Ive seen this done in Japan, and could not process the logic behind it. Sometimes I would be doing a process or something and everybody copied exactly what I did. This guy really summed it up nicely. Even though Japanese arent as direct like Chinese might be about it and practice Kaizen continuous imrovement they still dont invent much like you see in the west and not allot of original stuff comes out of Japan.

Sure there are exceptions, but not like we can see in the west. Ive seen them copy products from the US, and it as almost like it was his right to do so and I must never ask as to why. So the individual is less imortant than the group, therefore what the individual creates must be shared by the group, a sort of means to an end…. Who knows? Maybe in the work field. I started to learn chinese on my own bought books and watched youtube and I really love it but right now I wonder which would be my best option I want to be able to use it in the future , before I start an academic course.

In case you see my comment, which one would you recommend me to learn? I would so go ahead with Chinese since you already started on it. Sorry for the delay but I started with my studies and I have a lot of work and tasks to do! I hope you still reply to this post after so long. By the way, i think your blog is great! It motivated me to think more carefully about the languages i want to study. So my question is: is it still usefull to learn Chinese Mandarin when barely any chinese people understand it perfectly?

I think now only the uneducated and the older generation have poor Mandarin. If you want to use Chinese for work then it will help immensely.

I think the dialect thing only becomes a problem when you study Chinese in a very dialect heavy environment and people refuse to speak Mandarin. For example, Tokyo-Japanese and Osaka-Japanese Osaka-ben have slight differences, but does not impose any barriers on communication. The only dialects that are crazy different in Japan are the northern dialects near Aomori—I heard that those are nothing like standard Japanese.

I think accents are not a big deal when it comes to learning Chinese and Japanese. So again… choose the language you love! Mandarin is SUPER useful and will continue to be the primary language of China; and standard Kanto-Japanese will allow you to go communicate with anyone in the country. Thank you! This helped a lot! I read that japanese grammar is a whole new level of difficulty in comparance to chinese that is apparently supposed to be simpler grammar wise.

Anyway, thank you again! I am a first year student of Chinese at British university. And now I am having a hard time trying to choose if I should stay on this course or transfer to Japanese and Spanish from the new year. I like both Chinese and Japanese, though I love the sound of Japanese more. The simplicity of Chinese grammar actually is something that makes it less interesting for me than Japanese.

And the fact that I could also study Spanish, which I truly adore, is making it even more exciting. But I know that it would take a lot of work to learn proper Japanese. My native language is quite complicated when it comes to grammar, so I am not worried as much, but still — I know it would be extremely difficult.

Hey there, sorry for the late response! Seems like Spanish is your favorite language so I would prioritize that. I think I mentioned that I was torn between Chinese and Korean essentially, but I took 2 weeks of each class and realized I had way more fun learning Chinese.

So, maybe you can go that route. Either way, prioritize Spanish. I think simultaneously learning two languages as an adult is just not a good idea. Though my dream is to do translations and maybe interpretations in the future. I learned spanish in high-school and it has been useless to me for trying to learn chinese. Japanese is far more interesting to me, linguistically and culturally. I just enjoy it a lot more. Chinese feels much more coherent to me.

If you prefer more classical culture I feel China is far more interesting. And really, I find Japanese poetry can't hold a candle to Chinese poetry, but that's just me. I'm probably biased, but I think Japanese is more interesting.

It's probably a little easier to learn too, at least in the written form because they use both an alphabet well, 2 alphabets technically and the kanji symbols, whereas Chinese uses only the symbols. Too much memorization for me The Chinese government wants to promote Chinese literacy among foreigners and offers numerous educational and travel opportunities for little or no money.

Check out Hanban website. I like it, if you are good at memorization and have a good ear for accents and dialect, you might like it. There are a billion Chinese so it should be useful. It's my first language, and I know from experience, the more Chinese you know, the crappier all your other languages become.