Is Japanese similar to Korean or Mandarin?

[tipsygypsy]

well....many people say japanese and korean are similar. but i hardly believe that. to me japanese and korean look totaly different races. Korean look way too emotional and they are lacking of calmness. on the other hand Japanese are too shy and they are lacking of aggressiveness. i dont know what causes these differences if we used to share the same culture.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by tipsygypsy

well....many people say japanese and korean are similar. but i hardly believe that. to me japanese and korean look totaly different races. Korean look way too emotional and they are lacking of calmness. on the other hand Japanese are too shy and they are lacking of aggressiveness. i dont know what causes these differences if we used to share the same culture.

I think the question was about the languages, and not about the people.

[tipsygypsy]

oh cool! i'm always so impressed that old taiwanese speak fluent japanese. but that makes me sad at the same time. that's what's bad we left in taiwan. we snatched their culture away from them.

@MMM uum you're right. sorry that i was going away from the point

by the way, what MMM stands for? I know a hardcore house unit called Metal Minded Maniacs who used to be popular in japan. I'm just curious what MMM yours is

[TalnSG]

As a westerner the biggest difference I have learning the two is volume and accentuation.

Japanese is so much smoother and quieter for the most part. It almost requires me to focus with a different mindset to pronounce the words properly.

Korean is easier because the syllables vary in emphasis like they do in English and other western languages.

[nellie1208]

I think these 3 are different from each other. Maybe they are the same intonation but they have different accent, too. i prefer learning japanese, than any other language. I think it is much easier because I am inspired of Japanese culture and everything about Japan. =D

[Taberu]

I'm currently learning all three languages, Japanese being my second language; Korean, my third; Chinese, my fourth and English, my native.

Having learnt Japanese for quite some time before starting Korean made the process easier. The grammar is almost identical, though there are some differences here and there, and the words of Chinese and foreign origin are similar sounding. Although the alphabets of each language differ, the sounds are relatively the same and a Korean person should be able to pronounce Japanese almost perfectly, while a Japanese person might have trouble getting rid of the tendency to add a vowel after a consonant.

I've been learning Chinese for a little over three months, but the grammar is vastly different from Korean and Japanese; much closer to English, in fact. Mandarin generally uses simplified characters in writing, whereas Japanese will use a mix of simplified and traditional characters. When learning both languages, the distinction may be difficult to make at first.

Mandarin and Japanese pronunciation is extremely different due to the fact that Japanese doesn't have the sounds that Mandarin does, so similar sounds need to fill the space. Also, the Chinese origin words were brought into Japanese at a time when both languages were vastly different from what they are today (and the fact that there are many different Chinese dialects with different sounds must be factored into the equation).

Simple Answer: Japanese and Korean are closer as languages than Japanese and Chinese are.

[godwine]

I have to admit, i haven't read through the thread before making this post, so if what I mention here is a duplicate, just ignore it

I want to point out several things. Mandarin is not a Language, its a dialect. There is no writing system as mandarin. There are 2 major Chinese dialect: Cantonese and Mandarin, and 2 writing system: Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

Taiwan is a remote island from China, they speak Mandarin and uses the Traditional Chinese writing System

Hong Kong is a small Province that is ATTACHED to mainland China, they speak Cantonese and uses the Traditional Chinese writing system

The rest of China speak Mandarin and uses the Simplified Chinese writing system

Kanji is a mix of both Traditional and Simplified Chinese, there are also characters that doesn't exist in the Chinese language at all.

Pronunciation though, I personally think that its closer to Cantonese: For the number 9 (九）- Japanese is Ku (Kyu), Cantonese is "Gau", while Mandarin is jiu.

But there are also Kanji that is pronounced completely different from its Chinese counterpart: The family name 林 - Hayashi in Japanese, Cantonese is "Lum", while Mandarin is "Lin"

So when we want to talk about similarities, it will really depend on what aspect of the language we are referring to. Sentence structure and the use of grammar, I think Korean will be the closest. Writing and pronunciation, probably Chinese is closer....

just my $0.02

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by godwine

Mandarin is not a Language, its a dialect. There is no writing system as mandarin. There are 2 major Chinese dialect: Cantonese and Mandarin, and 2 writing system: Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

This is very misleading. Yes, some linguists argue that Mandarin and Cantonese are merely dialects of "Chinese," but you basically do away with all meaning of the word "dialect" if you treat them as mere dialects of Chinese. The are mutually unintelligible and don't even really share the same writing system (yeah, they use hanzi, but there are some Canto hanzi that don't exist in Mandarin, and they're all pronounced very differently and the sentence structures are often different).

The writing systems are different enough (no, written Mandarin is not the same as written Cantonese despite what you may read in some intro book on Chinese language), the vocab is extremely different in pronunciation, etc.

The only reason people ever consider calling Mandarin and Cantonese "dialects" is because they are both spoken in China. Mandarin and Cantonese are more different than Swedish and Danish and Norwegian (if you speak one of these three, you can understand the other two very easily).

Taiwan is a remote island from China, they speak Mandarin and uses the Traditional Chinese writing System

They also speak Taiwanese. My wife and her family speak both Mandarin (with a Taiwanese accent) and Taiwanese (Hokkien).

Pronunciation though, I personally think that its closer to Cantonese: For the number 9 (九）- Japanese is Ku (Kyu), Cantonese is "Gau", while Mandarin is jiu.

One example doesn't make your suggestion correct. And linguists would tell you "kyuu" is closer to "jiu" than "gau" anyway.

But there are also Kanji that is pronounced completely different from its Chinese counterpart: The family name 林 - Hayashi in Japanese, Cantonese is "Lum", while Mandarin is "Lin"

And 林 is also read "rin" in Japanese, so there goes your theory that Cantonese and Japanese are more similar than M and J.

So when we want to talk about similarities, it will really depend on what aspect of the language we are referring to. Sentence structure and the use of grammar, I think Korean will be the closest. Writing and pronunciation, probably Chinese is closer....

I think this is very correct!

[godwine]

I am Chinese, and I grew up speaking and reading both systems, so my knowledge wasn't from an INTRO BOOK.

You need to look at the history of the language itself. Mandarin was only used in a very small area back in the days, its originated form Beijing. Your example of Hokkien is not correct, Hokkien is a modified form of a dialect known as "Fukien", which is from the "Fukien" province of China, and you should ask your wife again, the "Hokkien" should be what is commonly known as Minnan. Its still only a dialect. In school, the type of "Cantonese" that people are taught (Writing and reading) share the same grammar, structure and meaning as their "Mandarin" counter part. Any Chinese character thats used in Cantonese and not in Mandarin are considered Slang.

The written system is not call Mandarin, there is no such thing as written Mandarin, its Simplified Chinese. The reason why they call it Simplified Chinese because it was modified from the original "Traditional" Chinese, this was done within the last 100 years (Since 1956ish to be exact), they were once written the same way.

Ok, I accept your argument that I was using just one or 2 character as an example, I didn't say I was correct either, everyone is just posting base on their opinion, myself as well. As I said, I grew up speaking both Cantonese , Mandarin, and some very limited Japanese. And base on my limited knowledge of Japanese, I just find it closer to Cantonese

EDIT: Have a look at these 3 wiki sites:

Mandarin Chinese - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just read the first 2 paragraphs....

Simplified Chinese characters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read the introduction.

Chinese language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

3rd paragraph:

Standard Chinese (Putonghua / Guoyu / Huayu) is a standardized form of spoken Chinese, based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese , referred to as 官话/官話 Guānhuà or 北方话/北方話 Běifānghuà in Chinese. Standard Chinese is the official language of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC, also known as Taiwan),

[komitsuki]

Honorific system in Korean is rather simplified as it doesn't have the humble form and is almost absent compare to Japanese.

Japanese use the passive forms of the verb extensively. Korean has two forms: one is an introduction from Japanese during the Japanese colonial age and the other one is to modify the causative form of the verb. To say this bluntly: the first form is often used in manual instructions and the latter one is more natural in everyday speech and writing. Some linguists say the latter form resembles the one used in spoken French. Oh yeah. I taught Korean to a few Japanese students in the past. They had a hard time learning the latter form.

And one more thing. The Korean equivalent of the Japanese -wa postposition functions a bit differently compare to Japanese.

Yeah. Hope that helps.