I've studied both.
Chinese grammar is easier for English speakers.
Japanese phonology is easier.
Writing is complex in both. Japanese has kana that helps a lot. And you only need to learn 2000 kanji instead of 6000 hanzi. But hanzi has only one reading instead of multiple like in Japanese. Hanzi has more clear meaning and very often they are more phonetic that in Japanese (you often can guess the reading of a new hanzi/kanji using the radical). So the difference is not so huge at the end.
In my opinion difficulty is similar. I would say that Japanese is easier at beginning level. And Chinese is easier at advanced level.
One question, how hard is to remember both kanji and hanzi vocabulary?
I thought about learning Chinese in the futurr(after Japanese ofc), but I just cannot imagine how will I distinguish kanji and hanzi without confusing those two
It can be confusing sometimes, yeah. But for basic grammar most of the time different characters are used, they coincide mostly on more literary and advanced vocabulary. A lot of Chinese characters have been so simplified that they are very different too.
I recommend you to have at least Intermediate level in Japanese before starting with Chinese so you have a good solid base. And look for false friends written the same but with different meanings (like 手紙).
I agree with this, but I want to add that you can also guess the main ON reading of a kanji using radicals in Japanese, since those readings are usually derived from Chinese. Obviously you can't be certain you're right without looking it up, but I think it's good to note. If nothing else, it makes looking them up easier.
I am undecided. I think it depends on what you're good at.
\-Japanese has hiragana and katakana. Once you know these 100-ish symbols (representing syllables), you can *technically* read and write Japanese. You are just missing all of the Chinese characters (kanji). This is a huge advantage of Japanese.
\-Japanese pitch accent is easier than Chinese tones. Japanese pitch accent can also be ignored and Japanese people will understand you. This is not the case with Chinese tones. This is a huge advantage of Japanese.
\-For English speakers, Japanese sounds will be easier to distinguish. Chinese has a lot of sounds that are rather similar: \[u\] and \[y\], \[ʂ\] and \[ɕ\], aspirated and unaspirated affricates. For those who know pinyin, I am talking about u/ü, sh/x, j/q, zh/ch and z/c. This is a huge advantage of Japanese.
\-In Chinese, the characters (hanzi) mostly have one pronunciation. In Japanese, kanji usually have two pronunciations depending on the word. This is a major advantage of Chinese. Also, Chinese characters were made for Chinese and their logic is simply more apparent in Chinese. Sometimes the characters don't make sense in Japanese.
\-Chinese uses 8000-ish hanzi regularly whereas Japanese only uses 2000-ish kanji regularly. This might make Chinese look more daunting, but they use the same amount of radicals (214) and hanzi were made specifically for Chinese. They make more sense in Chinese. Also, once you know the first 2000, the remaining 6000 hanzi shouldn't be harder to learn. It will be like memorizing the spelling of new English words once you know the first 2000 words.
\-In terms of grammar, Chinese will be easier for English speakers because it's a very analytic language. Japanese is agglutinative and its grammar will be somewhat alien to English speakers.
\-In terms of vocabulary, Mandarin Chinese is more "pure" and likes to recycle root words. Japanese uses a mixture of pure Japanese words, Chinese loanwords and loanwords from other languages (mostly English). I am not sure which is easier. I think I would personally go for Chinese being the easier one here. In both Japanese and Chinese, advanced vocabulary is based on Chinese roots, so more advanced vocabulary should be easier for Chinese learners.
Japanese has hiragana and katakana, which means as soon as you learn those "alphabets" you can read at least kindergarten-level text. It's much easier to ask what a word means when you can actually /say/ the word.
Chinese -and Japanese Kanji, which is obviously just Chinese characters for the most part- doesn't have that luxury. The majority of Chinese dialects are also tonal, so you have to have a good ear for it.
Japanese is probably easier, but not by much.
In Chinese almost every character is read in only one way, whereas in Japanese each character will have at least two if not more readings. Japanese generally takes a bit longer to learn for native English speakers, though not by much.
True, but again a beginner can actually read and write simple stuff with hiragana or katakana. That gives you something to work with if you know how to say the word, but don't know the Kanji. For Chinese, if you don't know the character, you aren't going to be speaking it, and you can't write an approximation of words you verbally know.
A Japanese learner can use kana only as a crutch. A Chinese learner can use pinyin the same way.
Doesn't really change the long term learning trajectory in any way.
Chinese also has Pinyin, which is used in kindergarten texts. Chinese children use Pinyin, or Zhuyin in Taiwan.
I don't see how this makes Japanese easier in the long-term, because no real texts are written exclusively in katakana and kiragana.
I've studied both and I consider Japanese clearly harder.
Honest question: Don’t most Japanese Kanji in public get written in Hiragana to the side of the character just for that reason?
I mean, I’m sure it depends on who wants to do that or expensive light up signage or very commonly used Kanji…
Its called furigana (the tiny kana on top of kanji). It might be more common in Tokyo, but I’m currently living in Akita and you very rarely see furigana
It is a thing that exists, and it's called "furigana". But it's not used as much as you'd think.
For books and magazines aimed at a teen demographic, it's used extensively. But for signs and things aimed at the standard adult reader, it's rarely used. Basically just over characters that are rare, or being used in a weird way, or sometimes names.
Ahh that would makes sense. Not necessarily something that could be sounded out and guessed through context like most other languages (in academic situations like school)
Thanks for that!
It's hit or miss, but it isn't uncommon. I'm an assistant teacher at a school in Hokkaido right now though- fliers, announcements, and more than a few pieces of general signage are just standard Kanji-hiragana mixes.
**[Assassination Classroom](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_Classroom)**
>Assassination Classroom is a Japanese science fiction comedy manga series written and illustrated by Yusei Matsui. The series follows the daily life of an extremely powerful octopus-like being working as a junior high homeroom teacher, and his students dedicated to the task of assassinating him to prevent Earth from being destroyed. The students are considered "misfits" in their school and are taught in a separate building; the class he teaches is called 3-E. It was serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine from July 2012 to March 2016, with its chapters collected in twenty-one tankōbon volumes.
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From personal experience living in Japan and in Taiwan I found I picked up Chinese much faster than Japanese. I had tutors for both and self studied on the side. I felt the Chinese grammar just made sense to me structure wise . Reading japanese is far easier though kn my experince as it uses more recognizable alphabets as you are learning. Just my experience though
I think Chinese is harder because of the tones. its much harder to get started with. it takes a lot of training to reach the point where you can actually notice the different tones and only then will you be able to understand the most basic vocabulary.
People say Chinese grammar is easy but i don't think that Japanese grammar is very hard compared to some other languages. maybe compared to Chinese its hard but i would rather learn vocabulary first and learn grammar later on. i don't want to learn grammar before i can say yes and no
Without a doubt, Japanese is harder by a landslide. Extremely complex grammar, plus two additional writing systems, plus the main writing system can be read in *Chinese* or *Japanese*.
Mandarin has only 4 tones when comparing to other nearby languages, which diminishes its difficulty. You can not have less grammar than Chinese has for any functioning language (from a linguistic process that reduces grammar complexity over millennia).
I studied a bit of both, and in less time I could function alone much better in China, and that having myself a sound system virtually identical to Japanese, which makes it easier for us than for speakers of other languages.
Just based on my personal experience and assuming a native English speaker trying to learn to an advanced level over the long term...
The difficulty is basically the same and any difference in learning outcomes will come down to personal motivation. Each language has quirks that make it appear "easier" at first glance that immediately get canceled out by something else.
It could be they've stopped distinguishing within categories, but I don't think that corresponds with any change in what their research showed for decades.
They didn't have actual research though. It was a onetime mark on a onetime document based on an analysis of student pass rates at a certain point in time...which allowed for the alternative interpretation that "the Japanese school in Yokohama has bad teaching methods and might need new management" as opposed to "the Japanese language is more difficult than X".
For more info on this and other quirks of differing success rates among different language programs at FSI, see this report from 2013.
https://www.stateoig.gov/report/isp-i-13-22
No. OIG hasn't circled back to them yet. They're supposed to do overseas posts every 5 years and domestic offices every 7 years or so but COVID wrecked that plan.
Chinese
Japanese has kana so we can spell somewhat normally and I personally only use it.
The Chinese don’t have a way of spelling it’s just thousands of drawings you need to memorize if you want to learn the alphabet.
I've studied both. Chinese grammar is easier for English speakers. Japanese phonology is easier. Writing is complex in both. Japanese has kana that helps a lot. And you only need to learn 2000 kanji instead of 6000 hanzi. But hanzi has only one reading instead of multiple like in Japanese. Hanzi has more clear meaning and very often they are more phonetic that in Japanese (you often can guess the reading of a new hanzi/kanji using the radical). So the difference is not so huge at the end. In my opinion difficulty is similar. I would say that Japanese is easier at beginning level. And Chinese is easier at advanced level.
One question, how hard is to remember both kanji and hanzi vocabulary? I thought about learning Chinese in the futurr(after Japanese ofc), but I just cannot imagine how will I distinguish kanji and hanzi without confusing those two
It can be confusing sometimes, yeah. But for basic grammar most of the time different characters are used, they coincide mostly on more literary and advanced vocabulary. A lot of Chinese characters have been so simplified that they are very different too. I recommend you to have at least Intermediate level in Japanese before starting with Chinese so you have a good solid base. And look for false friends written the same but with different meanings (like 手紙).
>I recommend you to have at least Intermediate level Oh yeah that's for sure. I'm gonna start learning Chinese in a really distant future
I agree with this, but I want to add that you can also guess the main ON reading of a kanji using radicals in Japanese, since those readings are usually derived from Chinese. Obviously you can't be certain you're right without looking it up, but I think it's good to note. If nothing else, it makes looking them up easier.
I am undecided. I think it depends on what you're good at. \-Japanese has hiragana and katakana. Once you know these 100-ish symbols (representing syllables), you can *technically* read and write Japanese. You are just missing all of the Chinese characters (kanji). This is a huge advantage of Japanese. \-Japanese pitch accent is easier than Chinese tones. Japanese pitch accent can also be ignored and Japanese people will understand you. This is not the case with Chinese tones. This is a huge advantage of Japanese. \-For English speakers, Japanese sounds will be easier to distinguish. Chinese has a lot of sounds that are rather similar: \[u\] and \[y\], \[ʂ\] and \[ɕ\], aspirated and unaspirated affricates. For those who know pinyin, I am talking about u/ü, sh/x, j/q, zh/ch and z/c. This is a huge advantage of Japanese. \-In Chinese, the characters (hanzi) mostly have one pronunciation. In Japanese, kanji usually have two pronunciations depending on the word. This is a major advantage of Chinese. Also, Chinese characters were made for Chinese and their logic is simply more apparent in Chinese. Sometimes the characters don't make sense in Japanese. \-Chinese uses 8000-ish hanzi regularly whereas Japanese only uses 2000-ish kanji regularly. This might make Chinese look more daunting, but they use the same amount of radicals (214) and hanzi were made specifically for Chinese. They make more sense in Chinese. Also, once you know the first 2000, the remaining 6000 hanzi shouldn't be harder to learn. It will be like memorizing the spelling of new English words once you know the first 2000 words. \-In terms of grammar, Chinese will be easier for English speakers because it's a very analytic language. Japanese is agglutinative and its grammar will be somewhat alien to English speakers. \-In terms of vocabulary, Mandarin Chinese is more "pure" and likes to recycle root words. Japanese uses a mixture of pure Japanese words, Chinese loanwords and loanwords from other languages (mostly English). I am not sure which is easier. I think I would personally go for Chinese being the easier one here. In both Japanese and Chinese, advanced vocabulary is based on Chinese roots, so more advanced vocabulary should be easier for Chinese learners.
🙄
If you don't agree, I would love get more input than just a smiley like that...
Japanese has hiragana and katakana, which means as soon as you learn those "alphabets" you can read at least kindergarten-level text. It's much easier to ask what a word means when you can actually /say/ the word. Chinese -and Japanese Kanji, which is obviously just Chinese characters for the most part- doesn't have that luxury. The majority of Chinese dialects are also tonal, so you have to have a good ear for it. Japanese is probably easier, but not by much.
fun fact, hiragana and katakana are not alphabets, but syllabaries!
In Chinese almost every character is read in only one way, whereas in Japanese each character will have at least two if not more readings. Japanese generally takes a bit longer to learn for native English speakers, though not by much.
True, but again a beginner can actually read and write simple stuff with hiragana or katakana. That gives you something to work with if you know how to say the word, but don't know the Kanji. For Chinese, if you don't know the character, you aren't going to be speaking it, and you can't write an approximation of words you verbally know.
A Japanese learner can use kana only as a crutch. A Chinese learner can use pinyin the same way. Doesn't really change the long term learning trajectory in any way.
Chinese also has Pinyin, which is used in kindergarten texts. Chinese children use Pinyin, or Zhuyin in Taiwan. I don't see how this makes Japanese easier in the long-term, because no real texts are written exclusively in katakana and kiragana. I've studied both and I consider Japanese clearly harder.
Honest question: Don’t most Japanese Kanji in public get written in Hiragana to the side of the character just for that reason? I mean, I’m sure it depends on who wants to do that or expensive light up signage or very commonly used Kanji…
Its called furigana (the tiny kana on top of kanji). It might be more common in Tokyo, but I’m currently living in Akita and you very rarely see furigana
It is a thing that exists, and it's called "furigana". But it's not used as much as you'd think. For books and magazines aimed at a teen demographic, it's used extensively. But for signs and things aimed at the standard adult reader, it's rarely used. Basically just over characters that are rare, or being used in a weird way, or sometimes names.
Ahh that would makes sense. Not necessarily something that could be sounded out and guessed through context like most other languages (in academic situations like school) Thanks for that!
It's hit or miss, but it isn't uncommon. I'm an assistant teacher at a school in Hokkaido right now though- fliers, announcements, and more than a few pieces of general signage are just standard Kanji-hiragana mixes.
Thanks for that info Side note: I though you wrote “assassin teacher” lol
If I start working with a floating yellow squid, I'll let you know! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_Classroom
**[Assassination Classroom](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_Classroom)** >Assassination Classroom is a Japanese science fiction comedy manga series written and illustrated by Yusei Matsui. The series follows the daily life of an extremely powerful octopus-like being working as a junior high homeroom teacher, and his students dedicated to the task of assassinating him to prevent Earth from being destroyed. The students are considered "misfits" in their school and are taught in a separate building; the class he teaches is called 3-E. It was serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine from July 2012 to March 2016, with its chapters collected in twenty-one tankōbon volumes. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Haha, I actually watched a Shaffrillas anime review video a few wks ago where he mentions that show!
Never saw the anime, but read some of the Manga when I was in college. I remember enjoying it
Nice
From personal experience living in Japan and in Taiwan I found I picked up Chinese much faster than Japanese. I had tutors for both and self studied on the side. I felt the Chinese grammar just made sense to me structure wise . Reading japanese is far easier though kn my experince as it uses more recognizable alphabets as you are learning. Just my experience though
I think Chinese is harder because of the tones. its much harder to get started with. it takes a lot of training to reach the point where you can actually notice the different tones and only then will you be able to understand the most basic vocabulary. People say Chinese grammar is easy but i don't think that Japanese grammar is very hard compared to some other languages. maybe compared to Chinese its hard but i would rather learn vocabulary first and learn grammar later on. i don't want to learn grammar before i can say yes and no
Chinese, due to tones.
Without a doubt, Japanese is harder by a landslide. Extremely complex grammar, plus two additional writing systems, plus the main writing system can be read in *Chinese* or *Japanese*. Mandarin has only 4 tones when comparing to other nearby languages, which diminishes its difficulty. You can not have less grammar than Chinese has for any functioning language (from a linguistic process that reduces grammar complexity over millennia). I studied a bit of both, and in less time I could function alone much better in China, and that having myself a sound system virtually identical to Japanese, which makes it easier for us than for speakers of other languages.
Just based on my personal experience and assuming a native English speaker trying to learn to an advanced level over the long term... The difficulty is basically the same and any difference in learning outcomes will come down to personal motivation. Each language has quirks that make it appear "easier" at first glance that immediately get canceled out by something else.
https://effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty/
If you’re Korean Japanese is easier by magnitudes
According to FSI research, Japanese takes a little longer to learn for a native English speaker.
Just FYI, FSI no longer marks Japanese as more difficult.
It could be they've stopped distinguishing within categories, but I don't think that corresponds with any change in what their research showed for decades.
They didn't have actual research though. It was a onetime mark on a onetime document based on an analysis of student pass rates at a certain point in time...which allowed for the alternative interpretation that "the Japanese school in Yokohama has bad teaching methods and might need new management" as opposed to "the Japanese language is more difficult than X". For more info on this and other quirks of differing success rates among different language programs at FSI, see this report from 2013. https://www.stateoig.gov/report/isp-i-13-22
Interesting. Is there any more recent analysis of success rates?
No. OIG hasn't circled back to them yet. They're supposed to do overseas posts every 5 years and domestic offices every 7 years or so but COVID wrecked that plan.
Gotcha. Thanks for the info!
Chinese Japanese has kana so we can spell somewhat normally and I personally only use it. The Chinese don’t have a way of spelling it’s just thousands of drawings you need to memorize if you want to learn the alphabet.