Who has studied mandarin & japanese?
I have studied both and still find chinese simpler to learn. However, the tones system is always the hardest part.
Which one do you find easier to learn, to speak and to read?
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I have studied both, but I find Japanese much easier, especially coming from Spanish, since we have an almost overlapping set of sounds. Though, I think the difference is that I was exposed a lot to Japanese from an early age before formally studying it. So now, when I read a textbook or have lessons, the grammar just “makes sense”. Additionally, I really suck at tones.
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I have studied Mandarin and Korean. I find the honorific forms in the Korean language to be tough to master. At the beginning, you will be making a lot of mistakes, and this isn’t easy to deal with when you’re trying to build up courage to speak. The pronunciation in Korean was easy for me since I grew up listening to it and speaking some (my mom is Korean).
Mandarin was much easier for me but the characters require some serious investment in time. But I stopped studying years ago so I think my Korean at its peak was better than my Mandarin is now. I had a much larger vocabulary in Korean.
I would like to learn Japanese someday just so I finish off the third East Asian language.
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I found Japanese much easier to pronounce, and for that reason was able to easily retain a wider vocabulary. The grammar is f’ed. I’m getting by alright with Mandarin now, but I’ve basically resigned to the fact that I will always make tonal mistakes and be misunderstood. Not particularly an encouraging thought. At least in Japan people could understand me the first time.
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