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The Asian 3 - Japanese easiest? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 17 of 43 19 December 2009 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Because in Chinese each kanji is it's own word (excluding compound words and phrases). So I would assume that if you see 6 kanji in a sentence, there's 6 words. It's not like you wonder "oh no, is this kanji here part of the previous word or is it part of the next word?" In Japanese kanji might involve some kana before or after it, so a beginner can't tell just from looking at a sentence where one word ends and the next word begins. Or is that kana actually a particle and not even part of the word. It makes it super hard to translate sentences that contain more than one word you're not familiar with. In Chinese, just look them up one at a time. I assume it's easy to tell where each word ends and the next word begins. (I'm assuming, having never actually studied Chinese) Edited by IronFist on 19 December 2009 at 11:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 18 of 43 19 December 2009 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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On that note, if you're reading in Japanese and you lose your place, how do you easily find where you were?
I hear Thai is difficult for the same reasons; it's difficult for beginners to tell where one word ends and the next word begins. Even in English if you were to eliminate spaces it would be difficult unless you began each word with a capital letter or something. (edit - the spaces in the sentence were automatically inserted by the forum software which puts limits on the maximum number of successive characters allowed, not by me) thissentenceisprettyhardtoread,behonest,evenifyouareanativee nglishspeakeryouarenotreadingthisasquicklyasyouwouldanormals entence vs ThisSentenceIsPrettyHardtoRead,BeHonest,EvenIfYouAreANativeE nglishSpeakerYouAreNotReadingThisAsQuicklyAsYouWouldANormalS entence. That first one is just nuts. Does anyone know how a written language can evolve without spaces? Of course, I should add that Korean, even with its spaces between words, is still very difficult to look up words in a dictionary due to all its endings/conjugations/other fun. I remember trying to translate numerous Korean CDs into English with the help of a dictionary. What a useless endeavor (maybe I just had a bad dictionary). I spent dozens of hours doing it and in the end only got a few song titles and the odd word here and there translated. Edited by IronFist on 19 December 2009 at 11:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6701 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 19 of 43 19 December 2009 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You've made a big assumption and an even bigger error. Most Chinese words (as we understand the idea) are compounds of two characters. Some are one, some are three, and some (especially more technical words and set idioms) can be much longer. This makes it *extremely* confusing for beginners, especially because sometimes parsing a sentence in different ways can result in different words. Or things that you usually assume are single character words and you feel safe in not looking up wind up being part of compounds. Heck, you even use the term "kanji" in your statement, a two-character compound in Japanese, and, guess what? The same in Chinese. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6033 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 20 of 43 20 December 2009 at 12:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's probably this one: http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cf m?story_id=15108609 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6293 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 21 of 43 20 December 2009 at 3:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I should have specified iPod Touch (or iPhone as well I assume). Settings --> General --> Keyboard --> International Keyboards Lots of choices for keyboards including Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. One of the Chinese keyboard options is for handwriting. You write with your finger on the iPod Touch screen in the dictionary program or web page you are using and the character pops up. If you type in Hanyu Pinyin, you can type two syllable character combinations and then you choose from the few that pop up. This is SO much easier than the bad old days of spending what seemed up a lifetime trying to look up each character. (Speed increases with practice but this is a real pain when you are first starting out.) RE: Lack of spaces between words for Chinese Don't let this hold you back; it doesn't take that long to get used to it. It is easy enough to see where one character ends and the other begins. Some beginning level textbooks use spaces to make life easier at the beginning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 22 of 43 20 December 2009 at 6:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I may be getting an iPhone soon. I may have to check out that application.
@Raincrowlee, thanks for correcting me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5782 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 23 of 43 20 December 2009 at 7:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
The same way I do in English, by looking for familiar words and phrases. Spaces don't factor into it for either language.
Yes, it's difficult but mostly because we are not used to it. A lack of spaces is not a trait of only Asian languages. Latin was often written without spaces. That said, Japanese books written for children of up to about 2nd or 3rd grade level (primary school) often use spaces. It is clear spaces are seen as a useful learning tool, though not a necessity.
Translation is a skill of its own and best done after one has learned the language. Songs and poetry in particular are known for their difficulty. Add to this the difficulty of looking up inflected words at the beginner stage and I'm not quite sure why you are either upset or surprised about this. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| JBI Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5690 days ago 46 posts - 67 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew, English* Studies: Italian, Mandarin, French | Message 24 of 43 20 December 2009 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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There's a bit of difference though, in that what people are actually studying and consider to be "learning a language" are relative things. The Pimsleur course, even if it s ingrained in your brain is not learning a language, as not only is the course very basic, it is also wrong and patchy in some places.
Likewise, some people think they can read and understand something, even though they have never been to China, or Japan, or Korea, and that because they memorized 3000 characters or whatever they are somehow fluent in Chinese - far from true - it takes more. So on one hand, I could say that learning basic Japanese is probably tougher - the grammar makes it difficult, but beyond that level, when you get into textual stuff and in depth conversation (we are talking at a level where you are discussing literature, for instance, or telling stories in a second language with punch lines) they are both kind of challenging. What you gain by not having to know grammar in Chinese ends up going nowhere, as you find out that Chinese isn't so simple, and there are 1000s of Chengyu you'll need to figure out, or for a Japanese person, you learn that the manners in which you speak in show different things, and the Japanese you thought you were speaking is really a female way of speaking, making you look like a girl in public. Certain things like that ultimately change perspective, but most people on these boards think going through podcasts makes them somehow fluent in a language (let alone regional uses - unless you are in a region, how can you even hear of them?). China as a place is different than Japan, in that the language is used for business and education, and the local for everything else. If you would go to Shanghai for instance, they wouldn't speak to you, as you aren't speaking Shanghainese - a completely different language altogether - even close cities have regional difference - Tianjin, for instance, is slightly different in pronunciation and idiom than Beijing. How can you pick up on that until you get there though? How can you decide what gets an 兒and what doesn't without getting a feel for the region - or better yet, how would you even know what words are used where? A noticeable thing with all these resources online and vocab lists is that the words chosen reflect a sort of unnatural standardization - so you get bus in Chinese as 公共汽车， but who is going to say that? Nobody. So, when it comes down to it, it really is just going to depend on how long you are planning, and how hard you are planning, to work. They are all hard - I personally think Korean is the easiest, but that isn't really relevant. The point is, in the end of the day, unless you plan to move to these countries, and sit there learning, no matter how hard you try, you won't learn the languages at a level that can be considered fluency. Most people on these boards I have noticed like to brag at how fluent they are in so many languages, but somehow one must find the claims doubtful, in that fluency is described as "being able to communicate and survive" (perhaps untested) whereas in reality fluency means you can have conversations, which is impossible to acquire unless you spend time within a cultural setting. Even if I had every Italian word at my disposal, I still wouldn't be fluent without time in Italy - the language itself is not something you learn at your computer desk and brag about. So on the whole, if you are choosing to see which is easiest, and which is the best to learn, or whatever, don't judge it by the number of cactus icons - you are probably better off asking "how much time, money, and will do I have," and also, "will I be able to spend 5+ years learning to a basic level so that I can communicate functionally" as within three years you probably will be able to hold basic conversations, but it will take longer (even if you are in the country) to fully grasp it. The people here that brag about knowing 3000 characters and still not being able to read probably don't actually know 3000 characters, or don't know them fully. A university student in China, for instance, knows upwards of 3000 - probably around 3500. The highest HSK level has fewer than that many characters - how then is it that people with all those characters keep hitting stumbling blocks? Is it that their command of the language cannot understand new characters they have never encountered because they can't match phonetic to meaning or radical to meaning within context, or is it because they didn't know that many in the first place? One could also argue that certain combos, because of lack of exposure were never encountered, or one could also argue that those characters are ones which everybody doesn't usually know - I would just like to think that the majority of the time, it is merely some snotty person who thinks themselves grander than they are. If you are going to embark on learning one of these languages, make sure you have money, time, and dedication, as you'll find quickly that the language is easier than you think only provided you live within it 24/7, otherwise it is not, and you will never be able to learn any of these three quickly, easily, or at home only. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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