is japanese language worth learning or should i learn Mandarin

[xyzone]

I wouldn't mind learning both just for spite, tbh. korean is the one of the big 3 asian langs I wouldn't care about. Sorry, but it's just too small. Btw, it's true that Japanese is easier, the spoken part; or maybe that's just my experience. But I watched chinese tv and got very little out of it.

[komitsuki]

Originally Posted by MMM

So if your only interest is "career development" by all means, start learning Mandarin. I hear it's a cake-walk.

In a linguistic typology view, Mandarin is grammatically similar to English.

Originally Posted by xyzone

korean is the one of the big 3 asian langs I wouldn't care about. Sorry, but it's just too small.

But it is one of fastest growing Asian languages in Canada and USA. I've seen some people who used to take Japanese courses, now learning Korean independently. And believe it or not, the best non-Korean Korean speaker I met is a German-Canadian and he gave up learning Japanese for Korean.

[TalnSG]

Though I have ben dabbling at learning both Japanese and Korean, from a business standpoint I would opt for Mandarin. At the very least Cantonese, since that is your secondary Chinese dialect considering its use in Hong Kong.

Personally, I am more comfortable with Hangul than Nihongo because it is easier to read and the phonetics are almost natural for me, but that isn't the case with everyone. I tend to remember more Japanese vocabulary though.

Given enough time and energy to devote to it, I would be studying all three. And "traditional chinese" rather than "simplified" should help with the kanji that is also used in the other two languages.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by warakawa

i see, i will unlike be able to speak mandarin to a native status. competition is ferocious in china, but not many foreigners can speak mandarin right?

what about in japan, can how many younger japanese generation can speak fluent english?

There's an entire island of people called "Hong Kong" filled to the brim with trilingual people who speak English, Mandarin, and Cantonese extremely well.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

There's an entire island of people called "Hong Kong" filled to the brim with trilingual people who speak English, Mandarin, and Cantonese extremely well.

Then there's the city-state of Singapore, as well. Never met a Taiwanese person under the age of 30 who didn't speak English pretty darn well, too.

[ozkai]

Originally Posted by MMM

Then there's the city-state of Singapore, as well. Never met a Taiwanese person under the age of 30 who didn't speak English pretty darn well, too.

Are you applying your opinion to Taiwanese in Taiwan or in the US?

[MMM]

Originally Posted by ozkai

Are you applying your opinion to Taiwanese in Taiwan or in the US?

Never been to Taiwan, so it would be in the US, but I hear it is considered the third language in Taiwan, and at least in urban areas is pretty widely known.

Of course, tell me if I am wrong.

The overall point still stands. Being bilingual in English and Mandarin does not make you a member of a particularly exclusive club.

If I can make a living translating Japanese to English, well, there's a reason for that.

[calv930]

Hello, I am a Native Chinese(Cantonese) person, I was born in the USA and 15 years old currently.

First of all, I agree with what MMM said about learning a foreign language for business purposes. You can never exceed to such a level unless you are genuinely interested in the language/culture/etc.

It really all depends on what interests you, Japanese or Chinese(Mandarin)? Since I'm native and speak Cantonese, Mandarin to me is a piece of cake, all I need to know is to know the different ways of pronouncing a word. lol

Although, I am not interested in the Chinese culture or anything...my parents call me something in Chinese which directly translates to "Japanese Kid." This is because I'm so into the Japan/Japanese. All the Japanese I know so far are all self-taught, so before taking a class, you can also try some self-teaching and see what suits you better if Japanese and Mandarin are both as interesting to you...

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by komitsuki

In a linguistic typology view, Mandarin is grammatically similar to English.

HOLY MOLY, THIS.

There's a reason my university could take a class full of white people and turn out skilled Mandarin speakers in two years but couldn't replicate that with Japanese until year three or so.

I learned more in my first semester of Mandarin than I did in Japanese. The only problem is the writing.

The nice thing is that, after having spoken Japanese for approaching a decade, learning Mandarin is a lot easier now because I know a lot of the kanji already (with modifications to make up for the difference between the two sets of kanji).

English:
I love you.

Chinese:
我愛你
I love you

Japanese:
好きだ。
[As for me,] [you] are pleasing.

Also, tones are a joke. I don't understand why native English speakers can't learn them. Three of the four show up in our daily speech! Every child makes the fourth while playing.

1 is like singing a note, laaaaaaaa
2 is like asking a question: "Right?"
3 is like growling "grr"
4 is like saying a one-word command like "Go!"
(5) is toneless.

[jesselt]

I would guess that the hard part about tones is that mixing up the tone can create a completely different word. I guess the same sort of thing is in Japanese with vowel elongation 囚人　主人 but either you elongate the sound or you don't. There aren't 3 additional options.