Would there be any conflicts while learning japanese?

[SquallStrife]

erm, hi guys i am new here.
My Japanese lesson is gonna start soon, so i am just wondering would it be easy for me since i know Chinese?
Or would it be harder for me since my first language is Chinese?
Sorry for my bad English.

[KyleGoetz]

你好!

It will be much easier for you. The high-level Japanese words often are related to Chinese and have a similar pronunciation. For example, 使用 is "use," and the pronunciation is "shiyou," which sounds a lot like the Chinese, which is also "shiyou," right?

Also, if you can write 漢字, then you'll learn a lot quicker because that is a major block for students.

Grammar and pronunciation are usually much different from Chinese, but there are a lot more advantages if you speak Chinese than if you just speak English! I went to a university in Japan, and the Chinese students there had much better Japanese than the Anglophones (US, UK, Australia, etc.). The Koreans were better than the Anglophones, but not as good as the Chinese.

[SquallStrife]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

你好!

It will be much easier for you. The high-level Japanese words often are related to Chinese and have a similar pronunciation. For example, 使用 is "use," and the pronunciation is "shiyou," which sounds a lot like the Chinese, which is also "shiyou," right?

Also, if you can write 漢字, then you'll learn a lot quicker because that is a major block for students.

Grammar and pronunciation are usually much different from Chinese, but there are a lot more advantages if you speak Chinese than if you just speak English! I went to a university in Japan, and the Chinese students there had much better Japanese than the Anglophones (US, UK, Australia, etc.). The Koreans were better than the Anglophones, but not as good as the Chinese.

thanks for your fast reply.
使用 in Chinese is shi yong , i'm afraid i would start reading kanji by the Chinese way and get laugh by japanese students.
I read about Japanese language before hand and i got very confused with the On and Kun readings of kanji and the sentence construction is super confusing for me.
o and i also memorized all hiragana characters i think but not katakana.
is there any very very very good sites to help me with so i don't get laughed?

[MMM]

In my experience the only advantage you will have as a Chinese speaker is writing characters.

I have taught Japanese to many native Chinese speakers and all were surprised at how hard it was for them to learn (meaning they assumed it was easy).

I also taught Japanese to many native Korean speakers, and many were surprised how similar it is to Korean, and picked it up much quicker than they expected.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by MMM

In my experience the only advantage you will have as a Chinese speaker is writing characters.

I have taught Japanese to many native Chinese speakers and all were surprised at how hard it was for them to learn (meaning they assumed it was easy).

I also taught Japanese to many native Korean speakers, and many were surprised how similar it is to Korean, and picked it up much quicker than they expected.

I think at a certain upper-intermediate point, the biggest roadblock to progressing is kanji. I have trouble upping my vocab because I'm at a point where a greater knowledge of kanji would explode my vocab like knowing Greek and Latin roots does for English.

Before that, yes, Koreans would definitely have an advantage, as the languages are grammatically similar.

I still think a Chinese student will have a better time going than an American, for example.

FWIW, at my Japanese university, I probably would have tested into the highest level of Japanese had I known more kanji. Instead, I tested into upper-intermediate or lower-advanced. This is why I always bemoan how underemphasized kanji are in language instruction. Learning a lot of kanji early on in the process doesn't pay off immediately, but it's a very long-term investment.

It's like putting 20K in the bank. It's 20K, but 20–30 years later, it's approaching a million.

Learning more kanji than usually emphasized in a first–second year class will not pay off in the short term: you'll carry around a lot of kanji that you won't use.

However, after two–three years, you'll hit a point where your vocab will explode because you'll be able to pick up a newspaper and read more easily than someone who knows less, and you'll start learning the way you learn vocab in your native language: contextualization.

[MMM]

I am not going to disagree with you Kyle, and in the long run what you are saying is certainly true. However the OP was talking about just starting his Japanese study.

I taught students from day 1 of their Japanese study, and as we got into kanji I found that Chinese students were surprised by 1) the meanings assigned to some characters were different then they were in Chinese and that 2) they had a hard time grasping the notion of multiple pronunciations for each character.

So in the long term, sure he has an advantage, but in the short term I do not think so as much.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by MMM

I am not going to disagree with you Kyle, and in the long run what you are saying is certainly true. However the OP was talking about just starting his Japanese study.

I taught students from day 1 of their Japanese study, and as we got into kanji I found that Chinese students were surprised by 1) the meanings assigned to some characters were different then they were in Chinese and that 2) they had a hard time grasping the notion of multiple pronunciations for each character.

So in the long term, sure he has an advantage, but in the short term I do not think so as much.

That is an absolutely accurate and fair assessment of the merits of my argument as well as OP's prospects. You have the better analysis!