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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7107 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes  6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 22 11 November 2004 at 7:26pm | IP Logged |
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Just like to say that I'm very happy that the Chinese profile has been updated to provide more correct information.
(You used to say that they don't speak Mandarin in Taiwan and that people from different areas can't understand each other. It's no for both of these statements.) I just want to say that 99 out of 100 Chinese people would say that Chinese is ONE language, with many dialects, of which Putonghua (Mandarin) is the official dialect. Cantonese is NOT a language according to the Chinese, only a dialect of the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7104 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 2 of 22 14 November 2004 at 9:44pm | IP Logged |
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I second that. The new review is definitely more accurate.
I'd love to see a review for Cantonese. Perhaps I'll write one when I can speak it a bit better... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7165 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 22 16 January 2005 at 5:58am | IP Logged |
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If anyone is familiar with the differences between various dialects of Chinese or has studied Cantonese and feels like writing a review, let me know.
Chinese is one of the most captivating language there is and many prospective students are puzzled by the various dialects. I wish somebody would help us shed some light on these issues. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7104 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 4 of 22 17 January 2005 at 9:48pm | IP Logged |
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I don't speak Cantonese, but from my brief experience with it I believe it to be more difficult than Mandarin. This is because there are more tones and the tones are more difficult to distinguish from one another. Even more difficult is the Taiwanese (Minnan) dialect, which has a very complicated system of tones. Also, I've heard that the Shanghai dialect has nine tones. Maybe Mandarin is the easiest Chinese dialect.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7045 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 5 of 22 18 January 2005 at 5:10am | IP Logged |
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I disagree with an important point in your Mandarin profile, namely the claim that it is "the hardest" language to learn. I think everybody participating in this exciting forum knows that the difficulty of a foreign language is largely subjective, based upon your starting point, so I am not going to raise that issue again. Rather, what I object to is the implicit claim that it is harder than Japanese, and the more direct claim (based on your separate Korean profile), that it is more difficult than Korean. In my experience, while all three of these languages are in the highest category of difficulty for non-East Asians, the reverse is actually true (i.e., Korean is marginally more difficult than Japanese, which is a shade harder than Chinese).
We can speak of difficulty in terms of a) phonetics and intonation, b) grammar and structure, c) writing systems, d) vocabulary, and e) social-linguistic factors. In terms of phonetics, Chinese is certainly a killer because of its tonal system. Many people, both Chinese and foreigners who have learned the language well, have told me that the key to the language is in the tones: if you can master the system, you've won, if you can't, you've lost. For this reason, many of the best school programs for teaching Chinese spend the initial several months or an entire first semester working exclusively on tones. Korean has nothing like a tonal system, but it does make distinctions between regular, stressed, and aspirated consonants that are all but impossible for a non-native ear to catch. Furthermore, while Chinese intonation is not all that tricky (to put it simply, it is loud!), Korean has a much harder rhythm to catch. All in all, I don't consider Korean to be less difficult than Chinese phonetically. As for Japanese, it is positively easy in this respect, having very few sounds that are not found in European languages. In terms of grammar and structure, Chinese is certainly the easiest of the three, for it is an isolating language whereas the other two are agglutinating. If you could get a complete grammatical synopsis of Chinese on, say, 10 pieces of paper, you would probably need about 50 for Japanese and closer to 100 for Korean (I recently explained why and how Japanese grammar has been "streamlined" compared to Korean in another post). In terms of writing systems, Japanese is even more complex than Chinese because you have to know about 2000 Hanja, most of which chancge their pronunciation depending on how they are employed, plus two different syllabaries, each with about 50 basic characters and 25-30 diacritical variants. Furthermore, words are generally connected rather than written with spaces in between, and punctuation is limited, which is not a problem once you know the language, but... Chinese only uses Hanja and requires you to know about 3000 for basic literacy; most of the characters retain the same pronunciation regardless of how they are used, and words are generally separated these days. Korean has a marvelously simple alphabet that was perfectly tailed to the language (and would actually work better for Japanese than Katakana and Hiragana), but again as I pointed out in another recent post, if you want to be fully rather than only partially literate, and if you want to understand the etymology of the language, you also still have to be able to read a mixed script that includes at least 1800 Chinese characters. In terms of vocabulary, the structure of Chinese doesn't really allow it to borrow words from other languages, though it does make calques. Both Korean and Japanese, on the other hand, how now borrowed hundreds of English words. However, the phonetic structure of these languages usually distorts them to the point of unrecognizability, and they are mainly limited to common items of modern life. So, while they provide a few familiar (and generally funny) links, it is going too far to say that they facilitate the overall task of vocabulary acqusition in these languages. In my view and experience, they are all equal in this respect, though of course this is the area where it is truest that after you have learned one, learning the other two is no major task. In terms of social-linguistic factors, i.e., finding natives who are willing to speak their language with you, Chinese is reputed to be relatively open in this respect. Lots of Chinese know no other languages, and they are not unused to speaking with non-native minority Chinese or with foreigners, plus they have a sense of pride and confidence and strength in their language and its culture. Japanese tend to be more xenophobic, but as they also tend to be poor language learners themselves despite huge sums spent on English language education, they have no recourse but to speak their language with you. Koreans, however, are comparatively good linguists, and there are now millions of them who can say something in English and who wish to practice their language in every single encounter with an outsider - indeed, the social pressure to do so is so great that those who cannot feel ashamed and so often give you the silent treatment rather than speaking Korean with you. All in all, if you are Caucasian, it is extremely difficult to get Koreans to speak their language with you. So, to sum up, and keeping in mind that all three languages are excruciatingly difficult for outsiders, a relative comparison between them in the five respects is: a) phonetics and intonation: Chinese hardest on tones, Korean hardest on phonemes and intonantion, Japanese relatively easy in this respect. b) grammar and structure: Korean enormously convoluted, Japanese less so but still with lots of grammar, Chinese actually quite simple. c) writing systems: Japanese extraordinarily difficult, Chinese only astoundingly so, Korean alphabetic but still requiring Hanja for true literacy and competence. d) vocabulary: three way tie. e) social-linguistic factors: Korean least open and receptive, Japanese more so, Chinese not all that closed. Conclusion: both Korean and Japanese, in that respective order, are slightly more difficult to master than Chinese. Anyone reading this form will know that it is possible to get a good anchor in any language in under a year of hard application, while learning it in depth is more of a life-long task. Still, while immersion in another European linguistic environment might bring relatively completely mastery in two to three years time, my own experience, and that of everyone I know, is that it takes more like twelve to fifteen years of living in a Far Eastern country to feel really and truly at home in one of these languages. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Languagelover Heptaglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 7165 days ago 41 posts - 50 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 22 18 January 2005 at 5:38am | IP Logged |
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I am learning Chinese and agree with most of what Ardaschir said. Chinese grammar seems much easier than Japanese or Korean. When learning a language over the long run, grammatical difficulties are a much bigger problem than phonetics and intonation. Phonetics and intonation is difficult when starting Chinese, but for intermediate/advance level, it is no more an issue. The point (e) of Ardashir is also important. Chinese speaker are really opened minded.
For those reasons I would say that speaking a few sentences of Japanese may be easier than Chinese, but arriving to an advanced level is something else. I would definitely say that Japanese is much harder than Chinese. I unfortunately can't really say anything for Korean. The idea that Chinese is the most difficult language probably comes from its writing system and not from an in-depth comparison. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7104 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 7 of 22 18 January 2005 at 3:39pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the essay Ardaschir. I felt that the level 4 difficult rating for Korean was based on the assumption that the writing system is exclusively hangul, and thus easier to learn than Chinese and Japanese. It is therefore a review of the writing system rather than the language. I think the writing system carries too much weight in the difficulty rating. For me, learning the writing system for a language, even for chinese, is nothing compared to learning the advanced grammar and vocabulary. I'm also curious about the 3-heart rating for Korean. I thought it was a tremendously unpopular language, as students tend to choose the easier and more useful Japanese language. Speaking of which, I think the review section is in desperate need of a Japanese page. I'm sure there are several people here qualified enough to write a review for it.
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| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7107 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 22 18 January 2005 at 7:07pm | IP Logged |
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I agree with all of you. (So many posts since my last visit! And that was only one week ago!)
I'm a native speaker of Chinese and I have spent some time learning Japanese, then had given it up. I couldn't agree more with "with tones, you have won; without them, you lost". General impressions of foreigners in China are ones who get all the tones wrong. We are so impressed if a foreigner can read the tones correctly. The extra challenge in phonetics is probably getting all the j,q,x,zh,ch,sh,r,c,s sounds correctly. They are slightly different than English, particularly x and r. My view is that Chinese is very easy grammatically speaking, for every day functions. Learning base characters, you can expand your vocabulary very easily because most Chinese vocabulary derives from two or more separate characters. One can write perfectly grammatical and ordinary sentences that way. But once you go deeper into the Chinese language, you realize its depth. There's more descriptive and more metaphorical vocabulary, so many that you will never learn them all. You will start to see more unfamiliar characters and I would say that even doctorates in the Chinese language can say that they know more than 80% of the characters in complete dictionaries such as the Xihua Cidian (New Chinese dictionary) or the Kangxi Cidian. But if you're not going into literature, it certainly isn't difficult to learn at all. I did self-study in Japanese. The grammar is so different from other languages that you need to learn grammar all over again. It's difficult right from the start. Without a teacher (and I never had a Japanese teacher), I couldn't write any complex sentences without making many many grammatical errors. And as Ardaschir said, most kanji have more than one pronunciations, making it more difficult to remember. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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