Sorry if this is in the wrong section, but..

I have an opportunity to move to Taiwan in August, and I'm fairly certain I'm going to take it. Obviously I need to start studying mandarin hardcore, but I'm afraid of giving up Japanese and forgetting everything I've learnt; that would be a real waste of the past 2 years! My worries:

1) The most logical way to start would be to complete Remembering the Hanzi; Tradition edition, but I'm worried it'll interfere with my Remembering the Kanji reviews (as the primitives and keywords are fairly similar). Do I even need to do it if I've done RtK?

2) Should I just give up on Japanese and concentrate on mandarin, or is it possible to study both at same time without confusion? Anyone here been in a similar situation, and do you have any tips??

Thanks

I think to learn two languages simultaneously would be quite difficult, because you start mixing stuff up. When trying to recall a word, I would mix up French and Japanese when I used to study French, and still even after stopping french for a year now. And given how similar the hanzi and kanji are, that would increase. That being said, nothing is impossible, and if you approach the task with total resolve and total will, anything is possible.

I'm studying Japanese and Mandarin at the same time, and there is really no confusion. I thought there might be, but they are so different that my brain seems to have compartmentalised them. Sometimes I will think of words in both languages simultaneously, but I never get confused. It might be more difficult for Japanese and Korean for example, because they are similar. When studying with Anki I often do half an hour of Japanese reviews followed immediately by half an hour of Mandarin - the mental transition is easy and immediate. I don't see why this would be different for others.

When doing Mandarin reviews I often have a situation where I think of the Japanese answer first, but only because I know it better.

I didn't bother with RTH (I'm learning simplified) because I find it easy now to remember new characters having been doing Japanese for a couple of years. Many are the same, and the ones which are different I pick up from normal vocab drilling quite fast.

I've made decks containing all the vocab, sentences and audio for both from ChinesePod.com if you're interested. Only the Newbie part is ready for distribution, but you're welcome to try it out. You'd need to use the Mandarin toolkit in Anki to convert simplified to traditional, but you only have to run it once. vocab/sentences from each lesson are tagged, so you could just unsuspend each lesson after you've listened to the podcast.

I am working on both simultaneously, and the process seems to be going well enough. I worked on an Anki RTH 1 deck for a while, well after I finished the RTK set, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort. I might go back and delete all the duplicate characters from the set and work from there. I think it's a few hundred extra or so at this point.

I do separate the study time for the two languages, keeping them an hour apart, which is keeping with some recommendations about avoiding interference, but I don't know whether that's helping. It's easy enough to do, though.

Hey guys, thanks for the tips; sounds like I can do both with no issues. Also won't bother with RtH then; will just pick up characters as I need them.

Blahblah - I'll look into Chinese pod. Definitely upload the Anki deck if you can!!

One thing I'm curious about - are there many shared words between Japanese and Chinese? It's just it's Chinese new year today, and one of the congratulations I've heard today is "shin nen *something something*", new year being the same as in Japanese!

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one crazy enough to attempt this . I'm currently studying both simultaneously and it is going quite well. I am also able to compartmentalize them, although to get myself primed in the proper language takes some prep work in my head, like dialing a switch to the correct setting: a few sentences spoken in the desired language seems to do the trick just fine.

I am really enjoying learning the two simultaneously.

There are tens of thousands of shared words between Japanese and Chinese. Although pronunciation may differ significantly.

Although I wouldn't say learning both at the same time is impossible. It will just take a long time. I'm still learning Japanese. But once I do gain a level of which I can call fluency in my own eyes. Then I'll start learning mandarin Chinese

I'm studying Japanese, Chinese, AND Korean at the same time. I kinda rotate here and there though....

But I am a HS student so I have lot more time.

1) Studying Japanese 漢字 and Taiwanese 漢字 at the same time is NOT HARD! It's actually a relief how similar they are. There are differences but you have a huge lead!

2) With me, I stopped Japanese for a month while I studied Chinese pronunciation and basic grammar vocabulary and then went to doing them simultaniously. I reccomend you get a grib on the basic differences before starting both of them, but I'm still new to this "layering"' as well.

Khatz's posts on critical frequency might be of some help to you guys. He claims that frequency of a language seems to help more then the actual quantity. Maybe you could have an hourly chime to tell you to practice or listen to a language and alternate which language on the odd/even hours. Just a thought.

aphasiac Wrote:Sorry if this is in the wrong section, but..

I have an opportunity to move to Taiwan in August, and I'm fairly certain I'm going to take it. Obviously I need to start studying mandarin hardcore, but I'm afraid of giving up Japanese and forgetting everything I've learnt; that would be a real waste of the past 2 years! My worries:

1) The most logical way to start would be to complete Remembering the Hanzi; Tradition edition, but I'm worried it'll interfere with my Remembering the Kanji reviews (as the primitives and keywords are fairly similar). Do I even need to do it if I've done RtK?

2) Should I just give up on Japanese and concentrate on mandarin, or is it possible to study both at same time without confusion? Anyone here been in a similar situation, and do you have any tips??

Thanks

similar situation here; having completed RtK and been studying Japanese on and off for 1 year before moving to Taiwan 4 months ago.

i'd say you don't need to do RtH, if you still review RtK it's fine. Sure, there might be some disrepancies, but you'll get used to it. for example, 画 -> 畫. then again, other people might think similarly. i usually don't see lots of really different words.

right now, since i've done a year of japanese, i am still in the environment where i am more comfortable with japanese than i do mandarin. i have regressed so much that i barely do any more anki reviews, nor do i review japanese anymore. because of that, sometimes i worry that my mandarin is not improving to the level i want it to, but since it's at least improving, i'm not worrying all that much since i have like 4 years (ugh) in here left.

i usually just keep up with japanese by reading random stuff in japanese i guess - which is pretty useful since lots of stuff are in japanese. lots of japanese-speaking people in taiwan as well - tourists as well as residents as well as japanese themselves.

also, studying mandarin actually helps as well in understanding japanese.

as it stands now, i can hardly read a japanese passage, but i can look at it and understand what it means because most of the 漢字 are similar. I'd say having learned a bit of Japanese and only having basic Mandarin when I came (Sept 2010), Japanese helps a lot, especially with meaning of 漢字.

Where are you moving in Taiwan btw? I'm in Taipei right now.

edit: and yes, i did not really start going mandarin hardcore until i came here and got shocked all over. knowing the pronunciations and getting tones right will be a huge help if you already know it.

What to start with: Kanji/Trad. Hanzi
Hi
This is my first post and as I see the topic hasn't been active for some time, but maybe someone sees this question and able to answer.
A while ago I did Pimsleur Japanese but shortly after neglected it beside Mandarin. Now I'm reconsidering the whole studying method and decided to do script first,hence RSH 1 (simp.) seemed like a good idea, but many say that it's better to kick off with traditional (as yet I'm only at 180 characters so it's not too late to change). My plans include both Japanese and Chinese in the future. What do you think, any experiences?? RTK then RTH (traditional), or the other way round?

Cool to see there are so many people from this board in Taiwan. Though I have to say, this weather blows (in Taipei at least).

Two languages at once is certainly doable, but IMO you have to be able to prioritize. One language needs to be your focus. It's easy if you're in the country where the language is spoken. I live in Taiwan, so my life is almost completely in Chinese by default. I also spend three hours per day in class and about the same amount of time doing homework/studying per day during the week. This doesn't leave a lot of time for Japanese, Classical Chinese, and French, but that's OK. As long as I'm making progress in each (well...except for French ) I'm happy. I'm laying the foundation for later study. I spend half an hour on Classical Chinese and half an hour on Japanese per day, and French whenever the urge strikes.

My approach to this is to mainly focus on reading skills in the secondary language. For me this is great, because that's the primary skill I need in all my other languages (which are primarily for research purposes). But when/if I need to be able to speak, the foundation I'm laying now will make it easy to get that skill up to speed. I've already proven this to myself once when I moved to Taiwan. I had self-studied Chinese for a while, and could read quite a bit but couldn't make small talk to save my life. I struggled the first few weeks in class, but at this point everyone in the class thinks I've made offerings to the language gods or something, because my Chinese is the best in the class in most respects. My vocabulary is certainly a lot higher than anyone else's, as is my knowledge about the Chinese language and culture.

Anyway, for Japanese I'm more or less following NukeMarine's beginner's guide, though I use Assimil occasionally. But it's all about reading. Listening is also important, and relatively easy to develop compared to speaking or writing. I think only by listening will you be hearing the language in your head correctly when reading, and this is very important for later when you want to activate your passive knowledge. For Classical Chinese, it's only a written language anyway, and it's sort of an extension of my classwork, so maybe it doesn't count (though it gets me brownie points with my teachers).

As far as learning characters, if you have no preference of one language versus the other, I'd learn from RTK first. The sheer volume of material out there designed to help you get through the book wins out over RTH/RSH easily. I wouldn't recommend going through RTH/RSH afterward though (same goes if you do hanzi first, no need to learn kanji afterward). By that point it will be easy to learn new characters, so you need to just dive into the languages.

Wow, thanks for the quick reply and sharing! It's really useful to see others' ways of learning. Classical Chinese, impressive! Aren't kanji/hanzi giving you a hard time, mixing them up and whatnot? By the way, what kind of school do you go to?
Your reasoning was sensible, I will go with RTK then. SRS is also completely new to me, I downloaded Anki and the shared deck of RTK (the first one on the list). Do you think it's enough or other complementary stuff are needed, too?
Again, I'm really grateful for your help.

Eh, more like "Classical Chinese, necessary!" I'm going to grad school for Chinese history/historical linguistics when I get back to the States, so my Classical Chinese has to be really good. I'm even staying here an extra yer beyond what I planned so I'll have time to take Classical Chinese courses at my school. That school is the Mandarin Training Center at National Taiwan Normal University, by the way.

Hanzi and kanji don't present much problem. I've developed an eye for kanji that don't quite look "right" (and thus are simplified from their orthodox/"traditional" form). Since my Chinese is so far ahead of my Japanese, I usually already know the traditional form, so remembering the kanji as a variant of an already known character is easy.

RTK is enough by itself. I don't know about the deck though, does it have stories/mnemonics? At any rate, if you get stuck or feel like you don't want to continue, make use of the tools available in the RTK section of this forum, and it will make it much easier. I remember the one kanji, one picture project from a while back was really good, but I don't know if they ever finished it.

daniel11 Wrote:A while ago I did Pimsleur Japanese but shortly after neglected it beside Mandarin. Now I'm reconsidering the whole studying method and decided to do script first

No offense, but after reading this post I wondered if you really intend on studying a language to fluency. Usually when people start switching from language to language, trying to find the perfect sequence and such, they wind up learning a little bit of several languages, then quit. So it might be a good time to ask yourself if you really want to spend on the average at least an hour a day for several years to learn a language. If your answer is "yes", my deepest apologies for jumping to conclusions.

Now my advice for someone who likes Heisig to learn Japanese and Mandarin.
1) RTK1
2) Japanese
3) Mandarin

or

1) RTH
2) Mandarin
3) Japanese

Reasons:
on a level playing field
a) it doesn't matter which of these languages you start with
b) doing Heisig first and hitting the ground running is an efficient way to start
c) staggering languages is more efficient than learning 2 at once, or learning both scripts first, etc. So after finishing Heisig in one of the languages, learn the language at least to the level where you are no longer using "learning" materials. By that I mean that you are learning by actually using the language.
d) when you start the 2nd language, there is no need to do another Heisig exercise; it will be too easy for you to be worth it's time
e) When you learn Mandarin, it doesn't matter whether you start with simplified, traditional or both. Just know that you will eventually need to learn both

None taken! I am serious about studying them, it's just that I had the opportunity to take up Mandarin class at a Confucius Institute here, and I devoted my time to it fully since "my Japanese" was still a teensy bunch of ridiculously basic words and phrases, and it didn't seemed like a good idea to juggle with both at that messed up period of my life. However, when the courses ended it was back to self-teaching and not so long ago I found Heisig's book. Before, my idea of learning characters was simply repeating them for hours. I'm only at the beginning of RSH and was told by others that traditional is better to start with and it made me utterly perplexed and contemplating about a logical and efficient order of simplified/traditional hanzi, and kanji. All this isn't meant to be any kind of excuse (I know I'm lame ), and apparently I made many silly mistakes/detours trying to figure out the how-to's.
Thank you both ever so much for the useful advices, very appreciated. They helped a lot to clear the confusion.

bflatnine, Chinese history/historical linguistics sounds interesting, I wish you good luck with it. Do you enjoy being in Taipei/Taiwan?

Yeah, I'm loving Taipei. Like I said, the weather sucks but otherwise it's great, lots of fun.

hey as a follow up to this thread - I gave up on Japanese, and am now dedicate my time solely to studying Mandarin. Though to be honest, I don't study that hard as I live in a foreigner friendly ex-pat cram-school teacher bubble.

Interestingly after 7 month break my Japanese hasn't faded that much, and I can still remember a hell of a lot of words, most grammar I learn and all the kana. To be honest it's still stronger than my chinese, argh!

To answer daniel's question, life is fantastic in Taiwan; wished I'd moved sooner! People are friendly, food is great, and the weather is nice all year around here in Taichung

How many Taiwanese people speak Japanese? I've heard there's quite a few...

Also how useful is bopomofo (zhuyin)? I started learning it yesterday but am wondering how useful it really is as I already know pinyin which I use for typing and dictionary lookups etc.

nadiatims Wrote:How many Taiwanese people speak Japanese? I've heard there's quite a few...

Also how useful is bopomofo (zhuyin)? I started learning it yesterday but am wondering how useful it really is as I already know pinyin which I use for typing and dictionary lookups etc.

Japanese is a very popular language in Taiwan. Most people here speak either Mandarin or Taiwanese as a first language, and the other as a second. Nearly everyone can speak Mandarin, and most people who can't speak Taiwanese can at least understand it. Most people are required to take English classes in school. But it's telling that at the flagship eslite store (a major bookstore chain in Taiwan focusing heavily on the humanities), there's a whole room devoted to Japanese learning materials.

Bopomofo is useful, and is very quick to learn to read. It's used in children's books here, and in the 國語辭典, an outstanding dictionary put out by the Ministry of Education. In its abridged form it's a dictionary for school-aged kids, and it's by far the most popular dictionary in Taiwan. In full form (which of course requires a very high level of proficiency in Chinese to use), it is one of the most authoritative dictionaries of Chinese out there. Pinyin, however, is not used in any editions of the abridged dictionary that I've seen. Gwoyeu Romatzyh is the romanization system used, unfortunately, so unless you want to learn that (I don't recommend it), you ought to learn Bopomofo.

Then there's also the 國語日報, which just might be the best thing ever for Chinese learners. It's a daily newspaper written for elementary and middle school students. It contains graded articles in several sections (education, family life, stories, science, life, comics, etc.), and gives a great insight into Taiwanese and Chinese culture. Every single character in the newspaper, aside from headlines and author names, is annotated with the Bopomofo next to it. This is an absolute goldmine. Even more so for someone who has learned hanzi using a Heisig-like system, or for people who already know many kanji from learning Japanese.

I don't see much need to be able to write it, however.

nadiatims Wrote:How many Taiwanese people speak Japanese?

That's exactly what I wanted to ask.
Is it popular just as a foreign language to learn or do you guys often come across it in daily life in Taiwan? And what about the Japanese ethnic minority there, is it noteworthy?

I'm not really sure. My school has a lot of Japanese people, and I see Japanese writing all over Taipei, but I don't know if that's just because Japanese culture is so popular here. Many restaurant menus will be in Chinese, Japanese, and English. Many Japanese restaurants have only Chinese and Japanese. KTV's are chock full of Japanese songs. Other than this, I don't know. I'm very much a rank beginner in Japanese, so I don't go looking for Japanese around town.

I'd be willing to bet that if you were at a Mandarin school you'd be able to make lots of Japanese friends. I have an American friend who speaks Japanese and hangs out mostly with Japanese people outside class.

daniel11 Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:How many Taiwanese people speak Japanese?

That's exactly what I wanted to ask.
Is it popular just as a foreign language to learn or do you guys often come across it in daily life in Taiwan? And what about the Japanese ethnic minority there, is it noteworthy?

Japanese culture is really popular here.

I've got 2 japanese channels on my TV package, plus lots of Japanese shows, music videos and movies subtitled on other channels. Most shops stock Japanese products; beauty things and magazines seem most popular. ALL video game shops stock Japanese games.

As for people understanding it, not sure though at least 3 teachers can speak a little at my cram school; They learnt it at school, in the same way us Brits learn French and German. I've also see の used a few times on shop signs to connect two Chinese words; it's used to look "cool" i guess. Guess there are Japanese living here but I've never met any.

Ya, I heard that の was used in Taiwan. It's a remnant of influence from Japanese occupation.