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Is Mandarin Really More Difficult? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7182 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 33 of 47 15 March 2010 at 6:43am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Raincrowlee some good points, I've followed your posts since I became a member
on this forum and sussed out from the posts that you have probably always been ahead of me in learning Mandarin, so I greatly respect your comments. Yes I realise that 'someone' said you need 6000 characters to be good in Japanese. Good is subjective though. I could well say you need 12,000 characters to be 'good' in Chinese. The point is though that what ever your definition of good you still actually need to know a significantly higher number of Hanzi than you do Kanji to be 'good' or even 'passable'. Of hand I remember you need to know roughly twice as many Hanzi as Kanji. As for reading for fun, again of course this is subjective. I can certainly 'read' a paper (kind of!) IF I concentrate on what I know and rather on what I don't know I can probably get the gist. However, I don't really equate fun reading with concentrating, to me this just isn't happy reading at all. It feels like work. I like to be able to read a text and have a clear and unquestionable understanding of every word and sentence. I was looking at some French texts the other day on www.project- syndicate.com (i'm on lesson 17 of Assimil right now) I think I can certainly get some sort of gist and work out a good deal of the meaning. Again this just isn't fun for me. Obviously considerably less fun than picking up a Chinese text! Perhaps my attitude to reading or even learning a language is one of constant self criticism as I strive for perfection. I do tend to concentrate on what I don't know rather than what I know. I'm the sort of reader that when meeting a new/semi familiar word (even if I can get the meaning from the context) will usually want to know more. My overall point was elaborated by my personal struggle but the point is clear and I stand by it. The point is, it will take you much longer to get to the level where you will be able to read a paper in Chinese than other languages because the script is not phonetic. For example let's say it took you 3 years to read a Chinese paper well then with the same effort you could probably be doing the same in German, French and Spanish. Of course on a personal level I did write that I give my self the excuse that perhaps I am not as bright as other people, learning Mandarin. Certainly on this forum there are many a more talented language learner than myself, and of course, I humbly admit, if you are picking up a paper and enjoying the read, that you are probably one of them. But, you do make a point that it's only fun if you don't concentrate on what you don't know (again that's just not fun for me). After 6 years of study you say you can get the 'main point'. For six years of effort in most languages 'just' getting the point or the gist really isn't good enough. Again this could be my own anal standards. I would think after 6 years of living and studying in say France, Spain from someone who's native language is English there really wouldn't be much at all in that newspaper that you don't know. Now reading that foreign language paper is fun! Edited by delectric on 15 March 2010 at 5:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 34 of 47 15 March 2010 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
Spend a while in a European country and you may revise this opinion. There are many natively English-speaking expats throughout Europe who have spent decades in one continental European country and aren't conversational, can't properly handle the present tense (much less using other tenses), and would never read for pleasure. For that matter, I know plenty of people who are conversational but can't stand reading books in their target European language, because they find it far too slow and frustrating. A fair number of them often would be thrilled to get the point, because they still miss it so often. It would be convenient to imagine that these people haven't made an effort, but unfortunately, at least some of them have. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6703 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 35 of 47 15 March 2010 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | ||
Careful, careful. You didn't quite read what I wrote. I said I was not a very good student in Taiwan during those six years. I took 12 semesters--about three years' worth of classes in that time, but there was a good two year gap in the middle where I mostly hung out with English speakers because I was burned out on Chinese. I was only really a good student the last two years I was there, during which I was able to read the first Harry Potter book in Chinese. Did I understand every word? No. It reminded me of something a girl was telling me about reading some great classic English novels when she was 12--the story in her head was nothing like she understands it now. Still, I could follow the story. At the same time, it doesn't make Chinese harder than Japanese or Korean. Heck, given the OP's question, one could point out that Cantonese and Taiwanese are notorious for being more difficult dialects of Chinese, which means the answer to his question is still "no." But I've seen the argument about CvJvK on this forum enough times already, with the only seemingly definitive answer was from Charlie, who seemed to be the only person to post in one of these threads that's really studied all three languages, and he said Korean was the hardest of them. Until I've studied all three (and I'm looking into an offer than would take me to Korea for a couple of years) I will accept his judgment. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7182 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 36 of 47 16 March 2010 at 9:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah about the CvJvK debate, true I haven't spent a long time learning Japanese or
Korean. I've really just glanced at he pair but if like you I listen to so many other foreigners that I've met that have studied Chinese and (Japanese or Korean) the answer has always been the same. Chinese is more difficult. That opinion is also expressed by Koreans/Japanese learning Chinese and vice versa. The Chinese think Japanese and Korean are easy but this doesn't go the other way round. Granted I honestly don't know anyone who has studied all three to a high level. I obviously can't disagree with Charlie, he makes some interesting points and from his subjectivity for him Korean is the hardest. What I definitely don't agree with is saying Korean writing is difficult. It really is one of the most well thought out scripts in the world and if you can speak (and learn the Korean phonetic script) you can read. Korea often invites Chinese scholars to their country to help them teach/learn the 'ancient' Korean/Hanzi script. I would completely agree that Taiwanese and Cantonese are probably more difficult than Mandarin. If you want to be fluent in any of them you'll have to learn to read and write this is really where your time will get sucked up. If I learn to speak Korean I'll be able to write every word that I can speak with very little effort, I just wish it was the same for Chinese. So what is easy about Chinese, Japanese, Korean is probably a more relevant question. All languages are hard so it might actually be more informative to say what's easy. 1) Now there's so many good resources in China and abroad that really make Chinese accessible. Seems like there's much less for learning Korean. Though learn Chinese first and you'll find there is a ton of material for Korean. Maybe the very fact that there's so much good Japanese and Korean study materials in Chinese makes the two languages easy for Chinese students to learn. 2) If you don't want to write (with a pen) you can save a considerable amount of time learning Chinese characters. It's much easier to have passive recognition of the script than active knowledge. 3) If you really think the tones are difficult - 'just forget them'. This seems the general view of many learning Chinese. Personally I think tones are really important. Without correct tones you'll sound like a naive child who has rudimentary language skills. Ask the Chinese they'll tell you themselves (if you can get past the face thing). However, it's true that you can do much with the context of your speech. I mean if you ask a question and the only logical word/subject is the word that they 'kind of' understand then you'll get by. Get out into the countryside though, away from the big cities, away from your educated middle class that are used to dealing with foreigners, increase your conversational level to where you're using some 'high ended' vocabulary and you'll find that tones start to have more meaning. On the other hand Mandarin is a second language for many people in China too like in Taiwan, Guangdong, Fujian, Tibet, Xinjiang - the list goes on and on. Remember they have terrible tones too so many won't even notice yours and you might be better than they are! So if you want with a hint of caution you can forget the tones. 4) Chinese people are welcoming and friendly. They'll praise you a lot when you speak. It's very easy to strike up a conversation with a stranger. This can give you plenty of language practising chances. I hear Japanese tend to be less inviting to foreigners (but again no experience of this myself). 5) The praise you get from Chinese people is really good motivation to keep up the studying. 6) If you find conjugating verbs or having different vocabulary for various levels of politeness difficult to get your head round then your in luck Chinese is easy. 7) There are many schools in China to study at. Oh, and it's cheap compared to living in Japan or Korea. Obviously this will make it easier for many a student to study Chinese. Let's face it if you want to study Klingon it's going to be really difficult for you to find a school to achieve your aim. 8) Have a look at this constructed language 'Ilkash' - www.ithkuil.net/ilaksh/Ilaksh_Intro.html. Maybe Chinese, Korean, Japanese and other world languages are all easy in comparison. 9) ... Maybe someone else can think of another point. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7182 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 37 of 47 17 March 2010 at 10:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Just thought I'd share a short conversation with you today. I noticed a European was
studying Japanese using Chinese text books next to me. I asked him what he thought of Japanese. Did he think it was harder than Chinese? He replied that 'for him' it was very easy as a large amount of difficulties, he thinks people have, with Japanese are the loan words from Chinese and the many Kanji which he of course he said are easy, to learn, for him. So his conclusion was that Japanese was very easy (assuming you know Chinese). He did add however, that for him learning Chinese wasn't difficult either! It really does make me think about the whole Korean, Japanese, Mandarin difficulty debate. Really the difficulty of a foreign language is very relative to where you're coming from. No doubt the first one you take on will often seem harder. It would be good to know other people's opinions. So far it seems to me that many people who find Chinese easier than others often already have a background in Japanese. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Danakin Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 6421 days ago 14 posts - 19 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese Studies: Russian, Mandarin | Message 38 of 47 18 March 2010 at 5:58am | IP Logged | ||
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I few years ago I started learning Japanese at University and found it really hard, grammar was different from my native language (German), words were nothing alike, I had to learn Kanji, vocabulary and so on.
When I was in my third year of learning Japanese I started to take Mandarin classes as well, for fun. In the beginning I found it was REALLY easy. Learning grammar consisted only of remembering word order (which is very close to English, or German for that matter), I did not really have to learn Hanzi but mostly just another reading for words I already knew from Japanese. But as I continued learning Chinese I found it increasingly difficult. I think because I had such an "easy entry" into the language I underestimated the difficulty. The number of structures you have to learn and the number of characters quickly increases. Long story short, starting to learn Mandarin was easy for me (but not for my colleagues who did not know Japanese), but it quickly became rather difficult. I'm only talking about reading/writing, though, as my listening comprehension and speaking level really sucks. ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5736 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 39 of 47 18 March 2010 at 6:10am | IP Logged | ||
I think a lot of people underestimate Chinese because they only dabble in it at the beginning, and it seems so easy (compared to languages which hit you in the face with grammar right at the beginning). I love how you can see that progression here at Tae Kim's site. (Those of you who have studied Japanese probably know Tae Kim). He goes from "Chinese? Total cakewalk!" to "Uh?! Seems there is more to it than I initially thought!" and ends up with "WHAT THE FUUU...nky Chinese..!" :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cameroncrc Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6518 days ago 195 posts - 185 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Ukrainian | Message 40 of 47 24 March 2010 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||
I asked my host mom about a Kanji Level 1 practice book (highest level) that I had found, and she said that they hardly use those characters and couldn't even read quite a bit of them. Just because thousands of characters exist doesn't mean that they are necessarily in use. In fact, newspapers in Japan must include the furigana on a character that is not included in the Joyo (general use) Kanji. Also, knowing a character also constitues knowing its readings. There are often times where a Japanese person recognises the characters but not the reading because it is an uncommon word (not uncommon character). Knowing the Joyo Kanji alone could be considered up to the 'native' level, since most study beyond this is neither required nor necessary. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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