chinese vs japanese which is harder??

Question

im korean and i no a little japanese and am considering learn 1st year japanese and chinese at the same time at my school
but im worried it might be a little too much work.... is it???

Answer 1

I think it would be taking too much onto your plate, so to speak. In order to learn a language, you have to really concentrate, ya know? Having your attention split between two languages will make them harder to learn. Then there's the fact that you could start confusing Japanese Kanji with Chinese Kanji later on... Perhaps you should just pick one to start off with?

Alot of people speak Chinese, but from what I can tell, they're all in China, while Japanese is alot more widely spread. It's ADVANCED as far as technology goes, and well....Anime and Manga are bad assed.

I would suggest picking one language, and learning one year of that, and if you find it isn't your thing, try the other language. If they both aren't your thing, well then.....Linguistics aint the job for you.

Answer 2

For a Korean, Chinese is much more difficult than Japanese. Korean and Japanese are both SOV (subject-object-verb) languages, so the grammatical structure is the same. Japanese is also very easy to pronounce.

Chinese is grammatically similar to English, so if you know English (which you seem to), the grammar should also not be so difficult. Chinese is a tonal language, unlike Korean and Japanese, which can be difficult, because the meaning is dependant upon how you say a word.

Chinese and Japanese are different enough that I don't think you would confuse them, but I think you would be better off choosing one and mastering it, rather than dabbling in two languages and being mediocre in both.

Answer 3

Japanese is probably easier, but Chinese is not difficult either. When I was studying in China (I'm a non-Asian American), the Koreans learned Chinese far faster than anyone, including Japanese. They could learn how to speak, whereas Japanese were only stronger at the written language.

Chinese is actually closer to English grammatically than Japanese is (I don't know about Korean). It's Subject-Verb-Object instead of Subject-Object-Verb. Learning Chinese writing is far more difficult, but once you do, it's easy to transition to Japanese because they use fewer characters. When I took Japanese (after three years of Chinese), I was first in the class without trying because I already knew all the hanzi/kanji used at that elementary level.

Answer 4

I am a native Chinese speaker from Taiwan, and I found Japanese very hard to learn. You are a Korean, you may find Japanese easier to learn.

Answer 5

probably chinese, cause you have to remember way too many characters.

but the real reason to learn a language is why you're learning it. i don't see much use in learning an easy language for nothing.

do you want to move to china or japan, or just like having a special skill? knowing either chinese or japanese will open up some job opportunities, i think. and if it's for fun, i think japanese is somewhat cooler and rarer.

Answer 6

I don't know about which is easier to learn how to speak. But Japanese had three ways of writing their language. One with Chinese characters, one with Japanese characters which were based on the Chinese characters but have evolved into seperate way of writing altogethor and one with the English alphabet.

Answer 7

I think you knowing KOrean would make Japanese easier I would think.

Answer 8

chinese because of the tones is a full time study project.

Answer 9

It is! wow. But japanese is harder.

Answer 10

Actually it matters on your personality... if your a hardworking, determined person it might be easy, but if your a lazy, easily worried person... you shouldn't. beni & aka=red, sakura= cherry blossoms, naruto= fish cakes, uzamaki= whirlpool