which language would be better to learn, chinese or japanese?

Question

I wanted to learn an oriental language, but I am torn between chinese and japanese. Learning a language is alot of work. I want to learn the one that will be the most useful. But both are useful, in different ways. Chinese is more widespread, but america trades more with Japan....

What do you think? Which language would be more useful?

Answer 1

Personally I Like Japanese because it is easier to learn BUT if you want to know what is more useful, It is Chinese. Chinese is one of the World's Three MAIN languages, English, Spanish, and Chinese.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Both are extremely useful languages to know. Being fluent in Japanese or Chinese opens up a lot of great employment opportunity. Chinese might be a little bit easier for a native English speaker, Mandarin has more similar word order to English than Japanese. I like Japanese better though. It is more beautiful, and Japan has so much cultural output to consume.

Answer 4

Chinese. I say this because I'm Chinese myself and have some knowledge of Japanese as well. It's best to learn Mandarin rather than Cantonese(the Chinese language is divided into 2 main types)since it's easier and there are more Mandarin speakers. Japanese is not one of the major world languages so not as useful, plus looking at the bigger picture it'll be very useful to know Chinese in the future.

Answer 5

I would pick the language that is more commonly found in your area (some areas have more Chinese immigrants, others have more Japanese). That way, it will be easier to practice speaking and hearing the language. A friend of mine says there is some overlap between the two languages (he is Japanese). So if you learn one, it probably wouldn't be too much work to learn the other.

Answer 6

Japanese

- Is not a tonal language
- Has less characters
- Some of the chracters are borrowed from China
(50% of Japanese words came from China)
- Japanese also adopt some foriegn words mostly English
(biru=beer, hoteru=hotel)
- Another interesting feature of Japanese is the distinction between male and female speech. This involves vocabulary, grammar and particularly pitch - women tend to speak in very high, squeaky voices, at least in public, while men prefer low, gruff voices. If a foreign man learns Japanese from his Japanese girlfriend the results can sound very funny to Japanese ears!


Chinese

- Is a tonal language
(different intonations are used to distinguish words with
the same pronounciation)
- Has many characters
(The largest Chinese dictionaries include about 56,000
Knowledge of about 3,000 characters enables you to
read about 99% of the characters in Chinese
newspapers and magazines. To read Chinese
literature, technical writings or Classical Chinese
though, you need to be familiar with about 6,000
charaters)
- Chinese has many varieties
( Mandarin has 4 tones, Cantonese has 6-9 tones)

------------> and now decide

Answer 7

Japanese

Answer 8

The answer to this question, as well as to any similar one, depends entirely on what is that you want to do with your knowledge? Anyway, this just might be a lead....
Chinese and Japanese are two different and unrelated languages, yet written Japanese (ideograms) is based on Chinese ideograms (old Chinese ones), so....

Answer 9

I personally think Japanese would be better to learn because it's a more interesting language.

Answer 10

i think that japanese is the most useful language to learn.
i lived with a chinese for some months and have known many japanese throughout my life.
china is mainly lower class with a little upper class. the lower class works and is basically useless to you in business(except slave labor)and the current upper class generations have been suffering from little emperor's syndrome which makes the people easily angered, and more lazy. also in china, if you aren't wearing "nikes" or the name brands*rolls eyes* you are an outcast -- this applies to little 7 and 8 year olds too!
much of the tech industry comes out of japan too and it is much more creative a country than china(they have ganguro fashion and way more fashions, tech, comix, action figures, arts, video games, cars, good food etc.)and, come on!!!, the president is obsessed with Elvis Prestely!!! that's sweet!!!XD
mmm...also...before the olympics are held in China, the chinese are taking classes in BASIC MANNERS such as
don't shove everyone out of the way
make a line
don't yell
patience
don't throw your food on the ground when u're done with it
don't spit everywhere
etc.
besides, although of course, there are many japanese who might treat you worst cuz u're from the US., i feel that many more Chinese will treat u like ****.
mmm...and also if u have interest in Japan anyways...the Chinese hate Japan and Japanese cuz of this event that happened like 200 years ago i think it was-_-...that whole comotion over that actoress in Memoires of a Geisha? exactly. the Chinese flipped...of course, Hong Kong is supposed to be different than main land china...however, in Hong Kong, Catonese is spoken and Mandarin is supposed to be the useful language.
the choice is up to you, but in my opinion, japanese is much better a language to choose.
good luck
:)
xaoooooo:)