Yufina Wrote:I think that chinese is harder: http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

lmao - that was a funny read!!! The author apparently has issues overcoming characters.

Chinese taking 3 times more than French?!?

I think the guy has been mezzed by Hanzi (or Chinese propaganda)!

He almost sounds like he's whining - boohoo...

Yufina Wrote:I think that chinese is harder: http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

To put it bluntly, that guy is a nong. He is a dropkick and should stick to learning European languages.

Serge Wrote:Do you know who else liked Apple Pies and thought Chinese was hard?! :-)) Hitler!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

q.e.d.

Tobberoth Wrote:And I found Japanese pronunciation very easy while I find Mandarin pronunciation harder. Still not harder than I found Japanese grammar, not even close.

That's fine, different people find different things to be difficult/easy.

Tobberoth Wrote:Um, excuse me? Read that part yourself. The topic asks for ones opinion on which language is easier. I gave my opinion. Compared to studying Japanese, Chinese will be a joke (compared to Japanese, quite obviously) after getting over the hurdles, I find the structure and stuff like that simpler to learn. I don't need to post in an academic way to give my opinion on which language is easier to learn, this is just an internet forum and it was an initial post. I expected to protect my opinions if someone questioned them in particular, I didn't expect to write one post then have to leave it at that, in which case the post would have to be 5 times as long.

Yes, this lame flame-bait topic asked for opinions on which is "easier," an entirely subjective matter. It did not ask you to spout asinine hyperbole and make outrageous claims such as "Language X is ridiculously easy! It's a joke!" Believe whatever you want, but you made an ass of yourself in your first post. Calling the language (which in turn is also part of the culture) of an entire population of people "a joke" is quite offensive and only conveys that you are an elitist with some sort of insecurity. I am not trying to create ad hominem, but I have no idea how else to word this statement. This entire topic is negligible because it is comparing apples to oranges. It does not work that way.

Let us review what you have written:

Tobberoth Wrote:"My experience tells me Mandarin is MUUUUCH easier than Japanese."
"I find Mandarin a peice of cake."
"Mandarin is a joke."
"it's MUCH harder to speak/write natural good sounding Japanese than Chinese. "

Why such an overbearing emphasis on how "ridiculously easy" it is to learn Mandarin and such an emphasis on how "hard" it is to learn Japanese? The only thing I can think of is some sort of elitism or insecurity, maybe both. You also made ignorant comments such as:

Tobberoth Wrote:Learning to speak mandarin is mainly learning new vocabulary

Your arguments make no sense at all. You say that "learning 2,500 extra hanzi and getting all 400+ syllables and 5 tones (half tone) perfected is a joke, but learning Japanese grammar is impossible!" HMMM? In the time it would take you to learn those extra 2,500 hanzi (yes, only about 1600 of the RTK kanji are the same) and get the syllables and tones to an acceptable level you could also master Japanese grammar. Learning the hanzi, reviewing them and getting the pronunciations/tones to an acceptable level would all take a minimum of 600+ hours. It is recommended to study 900 hours total for the JLPT level 1, but that is including all of the vocabulary and kanji as well, so much less than one fourth of that would be for grammar, meaning 200-225 hours maximum to master all of the JLPT grammar. If you want to argue about that, you have to be delusional. The bottom line is that your arguments don't hold up to evaluation.

Doh! I wouldn't quote those JLPT hours if I were you...

I think they may be off by a factor of 2-3 or more... (this is well known amongst students who have actually spent the time and actually tried to pass those tests).

Tak47 Wrote:Calling the language (which in turn is also part of the culture) of an entire population of people "a joke" is quite offensive and only conveys that you are an elitist with some sort of insecurity.

?!?!?

What is a joke is how contorted the Japanese language is.

You learn the character for 下 and learn that it's した. Later, you learn there is a げ pronunciation as in 下旬 げじゅん and a か pronunciation as in 以下いか. Then one day, walking down the street you see a sign 下目黒 and since you know 目黒 is めぐろ, you think you can read it. But no - it's pronounced しもめぐろ. Not to mention, you have 下さる「くださる」and 下がる「さがる」and even もと (but I haven't learned this one yet). This is all in modern-day Japanese and for one of the "easiest characters".

How many ways do you read 下 in Mandarin? What is the chance that I pronounce it right in a compound word if I know it is pronounced xia4?

Now, is this complexity in Japanese something to be proud of?!? Why should a Chinese person be offended that their language is more consistent (at least in writing and in reading)?

You should also see what a relief it is for a student of Japanese, after years and years of dealing with all these readings and special cases, in seeing the relative consistency/simplicity in Mandarin.

This is where Tobberoth and some of the longer-termed Japanese students on this website are coming from.

stoked Wrote:

Serge Wrote:Do you know who else liked Apple Pies and thought Chinese was hard?! :-)) Hitler!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

q.e.d.

You don't really need to call out Godwin's law when people were doing it on purpose.


Ah, Tak47, I'd like to point out that I didn't find Tobberoth to sound elitist or insecure (In that post, anyway, wink wink), just relieved at the relative ease of one of the languages he was studying versus another. I'm not even sure how you could read that into his initial post - it was pretty clear that calling it a 'joke' only meant that it was easy. People use that sort of language to refer to quite a lot of things, with no intended ill will. Also, it being easy (I am not asserting that it is) doesn't make it inferior - one might argue that it makes it superior.

I try not to be big on the whole ad hominem stuff, but you think you might be projecting just a tad?

kfmfe04 Wrote:You learn the character for 下 and learn that it's した. Later, you learn there is a げ pronunciation as in 下旬 げじゅん and a か pronunciation as in 以下いか. Then one day, walking down the street you see a sign 下目黒 and since you know 目黒 is めぐろ, you think you can read it. But no - it's pronounced しもめぐろ. Not to mention, you have 下さる「くださる」and 下がる「さがる」and even もと (but I haven't learned this one yet). This is all in modern-day Japanese and for one of the "easiest characters".

I wholeheartedly agree.
Kanji readings are a mess.

足下「あしもと」, by the way.

kfmfe04 Wrote:Doh! I wouldn't quote those JLPT hours if I were you...

I think they may be off by a factor of 2-3 or more... (this is well known amongst students who have actually spent the time and actually tried to pass those tests).

Even so, compare that to the 3,000+ hours stated to be able to pass the HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) Advanced. Even if the JLPT hours are off, if you tripled the number of hours stated for JLPT 1, it would still be less than the HSK Advanced.

HSK Advanced Requirements Wrote:# Master 2905 Chinese characters from Level A, B, C, and D of HSK Vocabulary
# Master 8822 vocabulary words from Level A, B, C, and D of HSK Vocabulary
# Master 1168 grammar rules from Level A, B, C, and D of HSK Grammar

The HSK Advanced is the equivalent of the JLPT 1, but for Mandarin. Once you pass one of these, you have reached fluency in the language. I counted all the grammar points for all JLPT levels (1-4) and it came out to less than 300. Even if you take into account the books that cover all grammar needed for fluency (~700+ grammar rules), it is still less than the HSK. Sure, initially Chinese grammar is simple, but it gets a lot more complicated.

iSoron Wrote:足下「あしもと」, by the way.

Ack! Of course I know that one, but couldn't think of how 下 is used as もと。Thanks!

Tak47, how many assumptions are embedded in your comparison?

1. An hour designated by HSK is the same as an hour designed by JLPT?
2. One Chinese grammar pattern is as hard or harder to learn than one Japanese grammar rule? I can list an example for just one of those JLPT grammar rules, but I'm sure it will confuse much more than illuminate.
3. Also the JLPT rules do not include participles, conjugations, passive/active, polite/humble/casual forms, and basic grammar. In other words, if you don't know the basic grammar, but knew all the JLPT grammar rules, you still can't make a sentence. Is that true for HSK grammar patterns?

And why does any of this matter? Some of us think Chinese is harder to learn than Japanese, while others think it's vice versa.

You will only find out for yourself when you try to learn both languages, and what may be true for you may not be true for me.

kfmfe04 Wrote:

iSoron Wrote:足下「あしもと」, by the way.

Ack! Of course I know that one, but couldn't think of how 下 is used as もと。Thanks!

Tak47, how many assumptions are embedded in your comparison?

1. An hour designated by HSK is the same as an hour designed by JLPT?
2. One Chinese grammar pattern is as hard or harder to learn than one Japanese grammar rule? I can list an example for just one of those JLPT grammar rules, but I'm sure it will confuse much more than illuminate.
3. Also the JLPT rules do not include participles, conjugations, passive/active, polite/humble/casual forms, and basic grammar. In other words, if you don't know the basic grammar, but knew all the JLPT grammar rules, you still can't make a sentence. Is that true for HSK grammar patterns?

I never said the hours listed were equivalent for each language. I merely used the hours that you stated were more correct and came up with a result. You are right, the JLPT grammar lists are not entirely comprehensive, thus let me give a new example: if you take into consideration the number of grammar rules you see in grammar books talked about on this forum (covering all the grammar needed for fluency 700+) you would arrive at a number still below that for HSK. Maybe some Japanese grammar rules are more difficult to get a grasp on, but even so, you are better off just learning in context. I only stated numbers in order to clear up misconceptions that Tobberoth (and anyone else) has that you can just string together a random set of words in Mandarin and have it be correct. That is far from the truth.

kfmfe04 Wrote:And why does any of this matter? Some of us think Chinese is harder to learn than Japanese, while others think it's vice versa.

You will only find out for yourself when you try to learn both languages, and what may be true for you may not be true for me.

It really doesn't matter; I was just trying to put this nonsense to rest.

Tak47 Wrote:

HSK Advanced Requirements Wrote:# Master 2905 Chinese characters from Level A, B, C, and D of HSK Vocabulary
# Master 8822 vocabulary words from Level A, B, C, and D of HSK Vocabulary
# Master 1168 grammar rules from Level A, B, C, and D of HSK Grammar

The HSK Advanced is the equivalent of the JLPT 1, but for Mandarin. Once you pass one of these, you have reached fluency in the language. I counted all the grammar points for all JLPT levels (1-4) and it came out to less than 300. Even if you take into account the books that cover all grammar needed for fluency (~700+ grammar rules), it is still less than the HSK. Sure, initially Chinese grammar is simple, but it gets a lot more complicated.

HSK
11 Characters: 2865 Words: 8840 advanced 3000 hours(!?)

JLPT
1 ~2000 (1926) ~10,000 (8009) Advanced 900+ hours(estimated)

Is that HSK measuring the time it takes a foreigner to reach proficiency or a native through all their years of schooling? With figures like that, I would guess the latter. I could be wrong though, so please tell more.

Also, about grammar points...more doesn't always mean more difficult.

And chinese readings are consistent with multiple readings being the exception rather than the rule, is this correct?

Just allow me to add a bit on why JLPT1 is not that great measure of proficiency.

1926 characters are not enough. Surprisingly common words are use different kanji and are outside the test. 俺, 誰, 匂 and so on.
And even it it was, you still wouldn't be able to read names.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Just allow me to add a bit on why JLPT1 is not that great measure of proficiency.

If you assume the student did nothing but study for the JLPT1, that would be true. But in reality, the student is studying Japanese but also studying for the JLPT1. Those 'common words' would be learned whether the student really tries or not.

Tests have -never- measured every little detail of a person's knowledge. They randomly test different parts of the knowledge to see if the general level is correct.

Tak47 Wrote:Yes, this lame flame-bait topic asked for opinions on which is "easier," an entirely subjective matter. It did not ask you to spout asinine hyperbole and make outrageous claims such as "Language X is ridiculously easy! It's a joke!" Believe whatever you want, but you made an ass of yourself in your first post. Calling the language (which in turn is also part of the culture) of an entire population of people "a joke" is quite offensive and only conveys that you are an elitist with some sort of insecurity. I am not trying to create ad hominem, but I have no idea how else to word this statement. This entire topic is negligible because it is comparing apples to oranges. It does not work that way.

Well too bad. That's what the topic is about so that's what my post is about. Compare Chienese and Japanese. Which do you find easier to learn? Chinese, by a huge margin. "WHAT!? YOU CAN'T SAY YOU THINK MANDARIN IS EASY! THAT'S OFFENSIVE TO CHINESE PEOPLE!". No it isn't. I find Chinese MUCH easier than Japanese to learn. That's right, to a ridiculous amount, that's why I used those words. It's not offensive to anyone. It's not asinine. It's my opinion and you still haven't brought up a single thing to change my mind. You seem to think I called Chinese as a language a joke. I did not. I used the expression in comparing difficulties. Compared to learning Japanese, Learning Mandarin is a joke. That's how the expression works.

Tak47 Wrote:Why such an overbearing emphasis on how "ridiculously easy" it is to learn Mandarin and such an emphasis on how "hard" it is to learn Japanese? The only thing I can think of is some sort of elitism or insecurity, maybe both. You also made ignorant comments such as:

Tobberoth Wrote:Learning to speak mandarin is mainly learning new vocabulary

The emphasis on how ridiculously easy mandarin is compared to Japanese is there because THAT'S MY OPINON AND THAT IS WHAT THE TOPIC IS ABOUT. Have you still not undertstood the point of the topic? How is it elitism and an issue of insecurity? Does one have to be elitist and insecure to claim they find math easier to study than chemistry? NO. Stop making stupid assumptions where there are none to make.

Tak47 Wrote:Your arguments make no sense at all. You say that "learning 2,500 extra hanzi and getting all 400+ syllables and 5 tones (half tone) perfected is a joke, but learning Japanese grammar is impossible!" HMMM? In the time it would take you to learn those extra 2,500 hanzi (yes, only about 1600 of the RTK kanji are the same) and get the syllables and tones to an acceptable level you could also master Japanese grammar. Learning the hanzi, reviewing them and getting the pronunciations/tones to an acceptable level would all take a minimum of 600+ hours. It is recommended to study 900 hours total for the JLPT level 1, but that is including all of the vocabulary and kanji as well, so much less than one fourth of that would be for grammar, meaning 200-225 hours maximum to master all of the JLPT grammar. If you want to argue about that, you have to be delusional. The bottom line is that your arguments don't hold up to evaluation.

When did I say learning Japanese grammar is impossible? No, you couldn't master Japanese grammar in the time it takes to learn 2500 hanzi. Not even close. You can study Japanese for 2000 hours, you won't "master" japanese grammar. Just because you can pick which word sounds right in a JLPT1 test after 900 hours (which is a huge underexageration), that doesn't mean you can use it properly yourself. This is where I'm claiming the difference between mandarin and Japanese lies, the complex grammatical structure of Japanese makes it really hard to produce natural sentences. In japanese, you have to know exactly when to use ha and when to use ga which is in itself a very deep subject, in Chinese that notion doesn't even exist, and that just one example out of thousands where Japanese grammar factors into how natural and "native" your produced output sounds. It's natural production which is so hard in Japanese because of grammar. Good luck writing a university grade essay in Japanese after 900 hours of study, THAT'S being delusional.

ADDITION: I'd also like to add that I don't think Mandarin is just "randomly throwing words together". There's structure to Mandarin just like any other language. The structure IS however less complex. If it weren't, there would be just as many grammatical rules etc for Mandarin as there is for Japanese. In Mandarin you don't have to worry about tempus, conjugation, declination... You have to worry about particles to some extent and you have to worry about wordorder and proper word usage, but it's still LESS to worry about. For someone (like me) who finds complex grammar a huge hurdle when producing creative output, this makes a big difference towards how easy one finds learning a language to be.

i really dont think that the multiple readings and how they much of a hassle that they are can be stressed enough


it boils down to the fact that when one is reading Japanese, you are nearly always "sight reading" -- meaning that you have the word(compound)'s reading memorized. If you know the kanji- you can guess, but it is hardly the norm that you'll guess the right one. The combinations and irregular words are seemingly endless.

In chinese you can simply read sentences with words that you have never encountered and feel confident that you have read it correctly, assuming you know all the kanji of course

This is getting very fiery. I think you misname the quote'ee there though. And I'm shocked I didn't notice how many insults were thrown in there. Let's stop chasing ghosts and try to keep it more civil guys.

Tak47 Wrote:The HSK Advanced is the equivalent of the JLPT 1, but for Mandarin. Once you pass one of these, you have reached fluency in the language.

As someone who passed JLPT1 a while back I can vouch for the statement that the actual hour figure for a native English speaker is about 3 or 4 times the quoted number (900). I can also say (to use a popular expression in this thread) that the JLPT 1 is a joke in terms of actual Japanese ability. It's really the bare minimum for someone to be considered "pretty good" at Japanese. It compares to 準B級 on the J-test, and probably pretty low in comparison to the BJT as well. So if HSK Advanced actually means fluency in Mandarin and it takes about as much study time as JLPT 1, then that suggests Japanese being harder.

Tak47 Wrote:In the time it would take you to learn those extra 2,500 hanzi (yes, only about 1600 of the RTK kanji are the same)
...
Master 2905 Chinese characters from Level A, B, C, and D of HSK Vocabulary

I'm confused here. Is the number 4100 (1600 from RTK plus 2500 more) or 2905 (which is closer to the approximate 3000 that I've been told)?

duder Wrote:i really dont think that the multiple readings and how they much of a hassle that they are can be stressed enough


it boils down to the fact that when one is reading Japanese, you are nearly always "sight reading" -- meaning that you have the word(compound)'s reading memorized. If you know the kanji- you can guess, but it is hardly the norm that you'll guess the right one. The combinations and irregular words are seemingly endless.

I've reached a point where I can guess the correct reading of new words most of the time. There are always tricky ones(usually involving kun-yomi), but there are also words that you pretty much can't misread if you know the yomi.
You just need enough vocabulary and practice.

yukamina Wrote:

duder Wrote:i really dont think that the multiple readings and how they much of a hassle that they are can be stressed enough


it boils down to the fact that when one is reading Japanese, you are nearly always "sight reading" -- meaning that you have the word(compound)'s reading memorized. If you know the kanji- you can guess, but it is hardly the norm that you'll guess the right one. The combinations and irregular words are seemingly endless.

I've reached a point where I can guess the correct reading of new words most of the time. There are always tricky ones(usually involving kun-yomi), but there are also words that you pretty much can't misread if you know the yomi.
You just need enough vocabulary and practice.

Even though the majority of kanji have just one on'yomi reading, quite a few of them have several, in those cases it is impossible, it's pure luck if you picked the right one. There's also some compounds where kun'yomi readings are used even though there's no kana used.

JimmySeal Wrote:

Tak47 Wrote:The HSK Advanced is the equivalent of the JLPT 1, but for Mandarin. Once you pass one of these, you have reached fluency in the language.

As someone who passed JLPT1 a while back I can vouch for the statement that the actual hour figure for a native English speaker is about 3 or 4 times the quoted number (900). I can also say (to use a popular expression in this thread) that the JLPT 1 is a joke in terms of actual Japanese ability. It's really the bare minimum for someone to be considered "pretty good" at Japanese. It compares to 準B級 on the J-test, and probably pretty low in comparison to the BJT as well. So if HSK Advanced actually means fluency in Mandarin and it takes about as much study time as JLPT 1, then that suggests Japanese being harder.

Actually, no. The HSK Adv is the equivalent of the JLPT1. The test makers for both tests state that they are the "fluent level" tests.

JimmySeal Wrote:

Tak47 Wrote:In the time it would take you to learn those extra 2,500 hanzi (yes, only about 1600 of the RTK kanji are the same)
...
Master 2905 Chinese characters from Level A, B, C, and D of HSK Vocabulary

I'm confused here. Is the number 4100 (1600 from RTK plus 2500 more) or 2905 (which is closer to the approximate 3000 that I've been told)?

3,000 is the absolute bare minimum for anything. You need many more in order to read novels and Taiwanese newspapers.

Tobberoth Wrote:There's structure to Mandarin just like any other language. The structure IS however less complex. If it weren't, there would be just as many grammatical rules etc for Mandarin as there is for Japanese. In Mandarin you don't have to worry about tempus, conjugation, declination...

Yes, Mandarin is an analytic language which lacks inflection, while Japanese is an agglutinative language. Because Mandarin lacks inflection that means word order and context is extremely important, much more so than a non-analytic (non-isolating) language.

Believe whatever you want to believe about the languages, I don't care. The fact that you are so delusional about both languages is what bothered me. Ignorance is bliss I guess?

Tobberoth Wrote:You can study Japanese for 2000 hours, you won't "master" japanese grammar.

Then I guess you will never be fluent Enjoy being illiterate for the rest of your life and never reaching your goal. Enjoy watching everyone else become fluent while you sit there telling yourself how impossible it is to master something that a 7-year-old has mastered.

Tak47 Wrote:Yes, Mandarin is an analytic language which lacks inflection, while Japanese is an agglutinative language. Because Mandarin lacks inflection that means word order and context is extremely important, much more so than a non-analytic (non-isolating) language.

Good, thank you for supporting a point I've been making since the topic started. Maybe you're finally catching up?

Tak47 Wrote:Believe whatever you want to believe about the languages, I don't care. The fact that you are so delusional about both languages is what bothered me. Ignorance is bliss I guess?

With the support I have in this topic and the lack of support for your ideas, I'd say you're the one who is delusional and ignorant. You're also uncivilized and seem to have a big problem with people not agreeing with your opinions even though you seem to have no way of expressing them since I still haven't seen you make a single solid point in this whole topic. I've been saying "Chinese is easier to learn because of X" and you've been answering "No, it isn't." Provide proper arguments if you want to try your hand at discussions in the future.

Tak47 Wrote:Then I guess you will never be fluent Enjoy being illiterate for the rest of your life and never reaching your goal. Enjoy watching everyone else become fluent while you sit there telling yourself how impossible it is to master something that a 7-year-old has mastered.

I will be fluent I'm just realistic, not trying to fool myself that I can sit down with a technique and master grammar the way I master kanji and vocabulary. Just like natives phrase themselves oddly from time to time, so will I. Setting a high bar just means that in the end, I will be much better at Japanese than the people who claim they mastered grammar yet speaks the language horribly bad.

[ファブリス]

Why are you guys being so argumentative? Nobody is winning medals here.

ファブリス Wrote:Why are you guys being so argumentative? Nobody is winning medals here.

I'm just doing what I've been doing this whole topic: Protecting the opinion I voiced in my first post. Since he replied to it in such an insulting way, there was really no other option. As long as he keeps flaming, it's kind of hard to stop.

Wise man once say grammar cannot be drilled in... grammar must come with time and exposure. The question becomes, which takes longer, studying grammar similar to your own languages grammar, or studying grammar completely foreign?

Could someone please point me to an English speaking person who has passed JLPT1 with only 900 hours of study, because I've been at this almost 1000 hours and I'm barely above 3kyuu? Maybe they're only counting classroom hours or something....

[ファブリス]

Tak47 Wrote:(...) convey to me that Tobberoth is the one who is "a joke." (...)

Since you started the arguments with a direct attack I'll ask you, Tak47, to refrain from further arguing in this topic.

Damn you smart people can be annoying, don't you have anything better to do ? Use your damned brains to do the only thing they're good at: maths, and studying Japanese ^_-, and for all the rest your frickin' heart is the only thing that gets you through life!!