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Best order to learn C/J/K? | ||
Tags: Asian Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 25 of 33 12 February 2010 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Learn one well before you start the next - not because that generally is a good idea but because the more you know about one of the languages, the easier it will be to see where the others have corresponding patterns or ideas and where they don't; and don't put Japanese last because it can ease your way to Chinese, Korean or both.
I agree with whoever said it's best to start out with the one one has the most and most constant motivation for. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sandman Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5410 days ago 168 posts - 389 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 26 of 33 13 February 2010 at 10:38am | IP Logged | ||
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I can't speak for Chinese ...
But as for Japanese vs. Korean it seems like a pretty obvious choice. Either way you'll have to learn a completely new writing system. With Japanese though, that is almost the biggest obstacle. The grammar rules and particularly the phonetic system is simple for the most part (compared to other languages) and you have a truly massive amount of media materials at your fingertips. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hombre gordo Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5585 days ago 184 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Portuguese, Korean | Message 27 of 33 14 February 2010 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am currently studying Asian languages so I feel I should comment.
My opinion for the best order is: Japanese ＞ Chinese ＞ Korean The reason I believe it is better to learn Japanese before Chinese is because Japanese uses less characters and the Kana help to break it down and make it more manageable. When I looked at Chinese a couple of years ago before I had even started to study Japanese, it looked to intimidating. I wouldnt have know where to start. However, now having a strong base in written Japanese, learning Chinese writing doesnt look too hard. I think it is better to learn Korean last because it has less materials, less influence, and in my opinion is less transparent because of the lack of Characters. That said, that is only my ideal order. In actuality my order is: Japanese ＞ Korean ＞ Chinese (Not yet studied it. Plan to study it in the future.) Please note that the ideal order I mentioned is what I feel is best for efficiency. Like other members have mentioned, if you want to learn the languages in a different order because you like a specific culture more or if you have reasons to learn a certain language first (for example you are engaged to a Korean lady or you get posted in X country because of work reasons), you are certainly better of learning them in the order you want. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nescafe Senior Member Japan Joined 5411 days ago 137 posts - 227 votes | Message 28 of 33 15 February 2010 at 2:45am | IP Logged | ||
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I do not know which is the best order for English speakers, but I believe to learn Chinese characters, Hanzi or Kanji, is very important. They are to Asian languages what Latin is to European languages. You will find how useful they are if you learn them. They are idiograms, so you can write even English in Chinese characters. Just write in Chinese character and read it in English:
Chinese character is very useful. 中国 文字 是 非常的 便利 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| xd3qu1n0x Newbie United States Joined 6685 days ago 11 posts - 22 votes Studies: Korean, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 29 of 33 15 February 2010 at 6:21am | IP Logged | ||
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As I am currently studying the CJK exclusively, this topic comes up quite often and is one i love to discuss.
My opinion on this is that native English speakers who have spent a good amount of time learning the CJK usually come to the same conclusion about the ideal order: excepting environment, resources, and motivation...Japanese should come first. The reasoning is straightforward,and other commenters have hit upon it already. Japanese has more simultaneous similarities with the other two languages than either Korean or Chinese do, respectively. This is mainly because Chinese characters have been for the most part phased out in Korean while still integral in Japanese. Also, Japanese and Korean structure are very similar to one another while Chinese is quite different and simpler than either. So the advantage a beginning CJK'er has starting with Japanese is that they get crucial exposure and familiarity with the Chinese characters while also getting the grammar and other closer similarities Japanese has to Korean. Again this is the conclusion excepting the most important things, we all know, in learning a language; environment, availability of resources, and particularly motivation. In my case, the order was an overlapping K->C->J. I've been studying Korean about 4years now, Chinese 2yrs, and Japanese just about 1yr. I live in an area with a huge Korean and Chinese population, but i made more Korean friends first, so Korean was also the first language to stick. My environment gave me huge motivation to learn Korean so the lack of learning resources in comparison to Japanese and Chinese was just a small stumbling block to me at the time. Although I have absolutely no regrets about the order I chose, looking back I often wonder if there would have been less resistance if I had started out with Japanese. Now that i am well into learning all 3, the relationships between them became clearer. With a strong foundation in Korean, learning Japanese has mostly become a game of finding the similarities to Korean. At the same time a good grasp of Hanzi has made Kanji more a matter of learning the correct readings. Flipping these scenarios you can see why the best link and starting point of the CJK languages would seem to be Japanese. After Japanese the choice is up in the air. In my opinion it would be better to go with Korean as they seem to have a slightly stronger relationship to one another and you could pick it up faster. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hombre gordo Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5585 days ago 184 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Portuguese, Korean | Message 30 of 33 15 February 2010 at 7:17am | IP Logged | ||
That is precisely the reason I believe it may be better to learn Korean last and focus on Japanese or Chinese first. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5569 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 31 of 33 15 February 2010 at 8:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I personally started with Chinese. I decided to take a Mandarin class in college because I was a big language nerd majoring in linguistics who wanted to see how an isolating language works. I also figured it would be useful to know a language spoken by a billion people. My interest in Chinese eventually sparked an interest in Japanese; once I got a feel for how the characters worked, Japanese suddenly didn't seem so scary. I'm not sure if I want to study Korean, though. It's definitely a possibility, but it'll have to wait until I reach proficiency in the first two (and some European languages to boot). Edited by Levi on 15 February 2010 at 8:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 32 of 33 15 February 2010 at 6:58pm | IP Logged | ||
Well but you have to put ruby characters everywhere then because we lack the Chinese loanwords Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese have, as well as the concepts they stand for. Edited by Bao on 16 February 2010 at 10:07am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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