which is more difficult in terms of pronunciation; Chinese, japanese or korean language?

Answer 1

Assuming you know English, Chinese would be the most difficult because there are several vowels in Chinese that are not in English, there are syllabic sibilants (including retroflexed ones) which are not in English, and there are tones. Almost all the sounds in Japanese and Korean (except for the tensed stops) also occur in English and those two languages do not have tones.

Answer 2

In order of difficulty I would say;
1. Chinese, some of the consonant sounds are very different from English e.g. 'zh' or 'x' (pronounced like "ss") and there are four tones, ma1 [level] ma2 [rising] ma3 [falling and rising] ma4 [falling sharply]. This is in putonghua (Mandarin), (if you were learning Cantonese then you would have 9 tones to contend with), this means that in Mandarin most words have at least 4 different pronunciations that will change the meaning.

2/3 Japanese and Korean, neither language is tonal and both share similar traits in pronunciation.

Answer 3

Chinese definitely... because the language has four tones.. the words are pronounced the same but if the tones are different the meaning changes as well.. you need to learn the pronounciation (pinyin) and the characters as well.. and believe me they have a lot.. they also have dialects as the previous answerer mentioned so you can't learn chinese and expect to understand everyone.. but generally, they use Mandarin Chinese..

I'm learning Korean.. its easier you just have to know how to read their characters and memorize the words..

Japanese works the same way.. and its easier when you know the Chinese characters..

Good Luck!

Answer 4

I've heard Mandarin is very difficult, but I have no personal experience, so I'd have to say Korean. There are about half a dozen sounds I don't get at all in Korean, plus another half dozen that I have trouble with. Japanese I got almost right away, with two or three exceptions.

Answer 5

Chinese by far. I grew up speaking Chinese so it's not a problem for me, but whenever I have tried to teach a few words to my friends I have cringed at their pronounciations. I discovered that they're just not familiar with the way Chinese words are pronounced: you have to learn all over again how to move your lips and tongue to produce a certain sound. Even a slight alteration in your tone of voice will completely change one word to another. I'd imagine it difficult to learn for somebody who does not have previous experience with Asian languages, and grew up learning English.

Japanese is quite easy and interesting to learn though - if you don't want the challenge of Chinese, I'd encourage you to take Japanese.

Answer 6

Well, I can speak Japanese and Korean... and haven't had too many problems with pronunciation.
Chinese is a tongue twister, and it seems to me that wherever I go the dialect changes very distinctively.
Chinese is so tonal, and important to get the tone right, or you could be asking for a foreskin instead of a wallet.

Answer 7

I think Chinese because there are at least 4 tones.

Answer 8

I guess Chinese is more difficult.. Hangul is really easy to memorize and it's alot of fun to use as well > <...
and Japanese is too easy..

Answer 9

i speak korean and i'm learning japanese now. Chinese..is hard to pronounce correctly.

Answer 10

chinese 40 000 diferent prnunciations