Oheao Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 4173 days ago 31 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Mandarin, Greek
| Message 1 of 15 11 October 2013 at 5:08am | IP Logged |
I only know around 300 Chinese words (I'm progressing much slower than I thought I would,
and much slower than I would like), and I'm wondering how much Mandarin Chinese I should
know before I start learning Japanese.
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lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5965 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin
| Message 2 of 15 11 October 2013 at 5:52am | IP Logged |
You make it sound as if Mandarin is a prerequisite for Japanese. I don't quite follow...
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Oheao Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 4173 days ago 31 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Mandarin, Greek
| Message 3 of 15 11 October 2013 at 6:01am | IP Logged |
What I meant is that I want to have a good enough command in Mandarin Chinese before I
start Japanese.
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Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4339 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 4 of 15 11 October 2013 at 6:19am | IP Logged |
Oheao wrote:
What I meant is that I want to have a good enough command in Mandarin Chinese before I start Japanese. |
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That sort of sounds like you answering your own question... :p
I've never studied Mandarin so take this one with a grain of salt, but I'd advice against learning them simultaneously. A good deal can be done with 300 words, but I'm not sure it's close enough to what you want out of Mandarin, so maybe you should keep at it a bit longer.
Then again, why are you asking us? Learning languages should be about having fun and fulfilling one's own goals, so while we can give you advice until we're blue in the face, it's up to you to weigh both languages and decide what to do next.
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mike245 Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6977 days ago 303 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese Studies: French, German, Mandarin, Khmer
| Message 5 of 15 11 October 2013 at 10:24am | IP Logged |
Oheao wrote:
What I meant is that I want to have a good enough command in Mandarin
Chinese before I start Japanese. |
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What do you mean by "good enough"?
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Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5771 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin
| Message 6 of 15 11 October 2013 at 12:57pm | IP Logged |
Ideally, I would say to learn any language at least to upper intermediate level before starting the next. Especially if you hope to have Mandarin vocabulary help you with Sinojapanese, and not both languages hinder each other.
Of course, if you feel the urge to dabble around, that's completely comprehensible. But serious study? Maybe at a weak B2 in the previous language.
Take it from an eternal dabbler.
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5987 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 7 of 15 11 October 2013 at 2:03pm | IP Logged |
You will need to devote at least as much time to Japanese every day as you are currently
spending on Mandarin. Given that your progress in Mandarin is already slower than you'd like,
it sounds like you probably don't have enough hours in the day to do both from a beginner
level.
Edit: I meant to say both at the same time from a beginner level.
Edited by g-bod on 12 October 2013 at 2:24pm
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anime Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6365 days ago 161 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Spanish, Swedish*, English Studies: German, Portuguese, French, Russian
| Message 8 of 15 12 October 2013 at 12:32pm | IP Logged |
You should definitely give up on Japanese. Apparently the grammar, writing and intonation are way too hard
as some people have explained to me
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