Learning Chinese Korean And Japanese

[Andrew Schiavo]

Asianlanguages may sound mysterious and alien, which is also why they fascinate so many people. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are three east Asian languages that have many connections and are frequently compared with each other. Contrary to what some would expect, they are independent and unintelligible to one another.

It is worth mentioning that Chinese characters have two writing styles: the simplified and the traditional. Mainland China uses simplified characters, while Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan use traditional ones. The simplified and traditional characters correspond to each other and have the same pronunciation but are written differently.

The application of Hiragana and Katakana is more than just pronunciation. For instance, some words can only be written in Hiragana or Katakana (no kanji equivalent). Generally speaking, Hiragana is the more common variant in regular text than Katakana. In contrast, Katakana is usually reserved for specific purposes, such as loanwords and advertising phrases to catch the eye.

The grammar of Japanese is possibly the most complex globally. For example, there are 13 different forms of any given Japanese verb, and when combined with the tense, even more forms are derived.

Furthermore, the honorific system of Japanese is quite brain-racking, requiring the speaker to change the speech politeness levels depending on different listeners and situations. Many native Japanese even make mistakes with this themselves!

Japanese has been dramatically influenced by the Chinese language in terms of its pronunciation, vocabulary, and writing system. In archaic times, Japanese was only spoken and not written. Things changed when Chinese characters began to be imported into Japan in the 3rd century AD.

By the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), Japan had studied the Chinese language and culture on all fronts. Based on the Chinese characters they had learned, Japanese people created kana to suit the needs of the Japanese language. Nowadays, you can still find many Kanji (Chinese characters) in the Japanese language, and many Chinese people can read them without learning Japanese itself.

Before the modern era, Korean was mainly written in Chinese characters, as is Japanese. After World War II, when the Korean peninsula gained independence from Japanese colonial rule and national consciousness rose, the abolition of Chinese characters became a national consensus. In 1945, both North and South Korea banned Chinese characters and promoted Hangul, the phonetic writing system invented by King Sejong in 1443.

Korean is one of the most attractive languages today. According to the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange, 77 million people worldwide were learning Korean in 2021, in striking contrast to the 52 million people who live in South Korea. During the last two decades, Korean culture has ridden a wave of popularity worldwide as many are fascinated with K-pop and K-dramas, which is probably why so many people are learning the language.

Yes i agree, japanese is very hard for me to learn, because of grammar structure is so different from my language, also writing system also has 3 different type, kanji, hiragana and katakana, in the other hand Chinese writing system is also hard to memorize but the worse is pronunciation even one word has 4 different meanings based on the tone, but grammarly it almost similar to my language

For me chinese Is the hardest for sure, its hard to pronounce and read and write it. Korean and japanese are still hard but easier. The pronounciation is quite easy. I have started learning korean and now also japanese so im learning both of them slowly but surely. It feels like im stuck, but when I think about what I knew like a month ago Or when I started, it feels very rewarding lol ^_^

Just to be clear, this is all based on my personal experiences as a very acquisition-conscious language learner, not on scientific research. Please feel free to add your own experiences with these two languages in the comments.

A work colleague spent a three week holiday in China last year and a three week holiday in Japan this year. He spent a fairly diligent and equivalent few months on each language before each holiday, with no real expectations of continuing after the holidays.

Verdict, although he felt he had learned an equivalent amount of language in each the Chinese he learned was next to useless on the ground, but he had real fun with the Japanese (people understood what he was saying). This would seem to agree with your feelings.

I had the same feelings about Japanese grammar. At the very beginning, it was terrible. After a while, though, it helped me a lot. When hearing unfamiliar words in a conversation, I often realized immediately whether if they were verbs (う行), gerunds (ている), adjectives (な or い), or some other part of speech. That sped up the process of figuring out what those words meant. With Chinese on the other hand, new words often come in the form a random syllable or two that could mean just about anything.

This seems to back up what I thought. I am amazed you find time to even carry on learning Japanese, you definitely seem like you have a full schedule with chinesepod, blogging and mastering Chinese. Very impressive!

Japanese and English have a lot of redundant structure that can help learners figure out the grammatic context of new words. On the other hand, Chinese appears to have no such redundancy which makes parsing sentences a lot more difficult.

As for pronunciation, as you mention both are difficult but for different reasons.

The tones (at least in Mandarin) are manageable and pretty

straightforward but does require more work upfront.

But I think Japanese is just as tonal as Chinese. While not as

critical for comprehension, sounding natural requires a lot of

mimicking and practice.

From what colleagues have told me about writing systems, it is easier for a Japanese person to read Chinese and understand it than it is for a Chinese person to read Japanese and understand. You probably know more about why than I do though.

For me, a native Japanese guy, learning Chinese characters is just a piece of cake (except for their pronunciations), and the same could be said of Chinese people who learn Japanese. Simplified Chinese characters are slightly different from Japanese kanji, but this is not a serious problem when learning.

On the other hand, Chinese grammar and pronunciation are completely different from Japanese ones. There is no advantage anymore. I have the same difficulty learning them as most of you have, but fortunately Chinese grammar is not so complicated, a bit confusing though, compared to European languages.

I just used regular old Photoshop. My brain is still incapable of comprehending the pen tool, so I managed to do all those curves by carving chunks out of blocks of color with oval selections and creative manipulation of the selections.

I guess it all depends on your personal experience. For me Japanese wasnt that difficult to master. Pronuntiation wasnt a big deal (maybe my Spanish background helped) and working at a Japanese company from the very first day i arrived in Japan made it quite easier for me to get the essence of Keigo. I must admit, though, that after teaching Japanese to foreign students for some years, i realized how difficult it can be to learn the proper use of Keigo if you havent been living (and working!!) in Japan.

Japanese is definitely easier if you are just going to be in one of the two countries for a couple of weeks. I think though that Korean is the most difficult of all. In China, when I mispronounce a word, I am usually understood. China has so many different accents and foreigners and regions, etc. that the people there are used to imperfect pronunciations. Koreans are not and if you get the littlest thing wrong, you are just not understood.

The most striking thing about your graph (to me) is that Chinese starts off so easy, but Japanese so hard. Did you learn Japanese before Chinese? Did your language skills in learning Japanese make picking up Chinese easier?

Many Chinese people can speak Japanese.But most of them are not fluent level.I use Japanese language service of Phone company or Airline company in Shanghai.Many times, I get frustrated.Their Japanese is not communicable.I prefer using English service.

I think that having a Spanish or French background helps with Japanese vowels; French especially seems to help for that accent-less Japanese tone that is so difficult for some. In that regard I think Japanese is challenging to sound native, but Chinese tones are probably more difficult.

Interesting point! Considering some questions about Chinese people learning Japanese. My experience (I am native Chinese) is that I have a lot of problems memorizing kunyomi of the kanji because the Mandarin pronunciation just haunts my memory. However, if the kanji is onyomi, it would be much easier. Most times, some corresponding rules between the Chinese pronunciation and Japanese Onyomi apply, for example most -ng in Mandarin become ゅう, ょう or う.

My son has massive reading/writing learning disabilities, but is an extraordinary musician. He heard a visiting Chinese speaker read a poem to the class, recited it back without even knowing the meaning, and then went on to win a school prize! He was completely mystified why anyone found it hard, it came so naturally. My question is, do you know a program or even a summer experience where he could learn to speak Chinese or another tonal language by ear?

Thank you very much. (do you answer via my email or do I have to check back here?) Margaret

Japanese is harder to sound natural and native than Chinese. I still sound like a retard when I speak in Japanese. But my Chinese when I started correctly and someone really have the patience to listen to me, then my mouth and tongue just flows without much effort.

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