Complete Japanese Grammar
Llanque Mazurek
This is the complete set of the 'A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar' published by The Japan Times in what many consider to be the most comprehensive resource for Japanese grammar available. It contains in-depth explanations in English and Japanese of approximately 200 grammatical concepts that make up the foundation of the Japanese language.
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar by The Japan Times is the first installment in what many consider to be the most comprehensive resource for Japanese grammar available. It contains in-depth explanations in English and Japanese of approximately 200 grammatical concepts that make up the foundation of the Japanese language.
The appendix contains surprisingly handy quick reference guides for hard-to-keep-straight grammar concepts, such as verbs/adjective conjugations, pairs of transitive and intransitive verbs, and counters to list a few.
Whether studying a textbook, taking a Japanese class or reading your favorite manga, A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar is the ideal companion, covering virtually all essential grammar concepts you are likely to encounter.
A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar by The Japan Times is the second installment in what many consider to be the most comprehensive resource for Japanese grammar available. It contains in-depth explanations in English and Japanese of approximately 200 grammatical concepts that make up the foundation of the Japanese language.
The appendix contains useful guides for hard-to-keep-straight grammar concepts, including charts of compound verbs, compound particles, conjunctions and affixes. They also walk you through the rules that govern the transcription of loan words into katakana. Yes, apparently there are rules for that.
Whether studying a textbook, taking a Japanese class or reading your favorite manga, A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar is the ideal companion, covering virtually all essential grammar concepts you are likely to encounter.
A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar by The Japan Times is the third and final installment in what many consider to be the most comprehensive resource for Japanese grammar available. It contains in-depth explanations in English and Japanese of approximately 230 grammatical concepts that make up the foundation of the Japanese language.
The English Index enables students to look up the book's main entries using English. The Japanese Index is comprehensive; it includes all the main entries and related expressions that appear in all three installments.
Whether studying a textbook, taking a Japanese class or reading your favorite manga, A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar is the ideal companion, covering virtually all essential grammar concepts you are likely to encounter.
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.
If both Chinese and Japanese use around the same amount of Chinese characters/kanji for a basic understanding of a newspaper, etc., then their differences would lie in the pronunciation and grammar. nods
spot on. I learned chinese and it was a royal pain in the beginning but once you learn how to pronounce pinyin, its a cakewalk, just gotta learn new vocab and grammar. I noticed that your graphs are pretty much opposites. Does that mean they both end up with the same difficulty overall?
I always had more difficulty with non-Germanic western languages more than Asian. While I studied Japanese before Chinese I could speak more in half the time than I can in French or Spanish. Japanese grammar is extremely simple when you are in an immersion environment, as it is neigh impossible to get an exact translation into English. As with any language though, in order to grasp it proficiently, one must study the context of culture.
One thing I see often is that most of the foreigners concentrate on the oral part of Chinese or Japanese but to master the language the oral part is only a slice of the cake. To really understand that language and the culture related to it one should also know enough about the written part.
John it would be nice if you poddies remind us this point as often as possible. Cheers