Study Japanese & Chinese

[japanchina]

Hello people of china forums please I need much much of help I am a University student at this very moment who is making a Japanese study seriously. But then decides that Chinese is also so very beautiful. I am a Kanji Otaku person which is why I want to study Chinese as well someone please help of advice of what to do because someday I want to be fluent in both Japanese and the Chinese and if there are foreigner in this world who is fluent in both and how to balance both of these hard studies what to do about it please. How to balance the study of Japanese and Chinese. Japanese is my priority but I don't want to leave Chinese behind. I have already started the study Japanese but Chinese not yet because I have no idea how to do it in the foreign location I am in. To study the Chinese because of the tones that china has is of a problem in the foreign location.

 

Forgive the English please people of the china forums it not my language native. I love Japanese and Chinese please advice on how to do both or it both at the same time is not of the recommendation and people who have done both at the same time or anything please help me!! SOS!!

[dtcamero]

-do japanese first.

   -see ajatt.com for how to do this... (don't buy anything, just read the early articles)

      best articles: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/the-best-well-least-crappy-of-ajatt/

      full table of contents: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/all-japanese-all-the-time-ajatt-how-to-learn-japanese-on-your-own-having-fun-and-to-fluency/

   -also http://forum.koohii.com/ for tips, info

 

-after 3 1/2 years jlpt n1 合格

 

-with that language background, chinese is easier (like it is for japanese students)

 

-then attack chinese in the same disciplined, systematic way

   -(again using ajatt methods)

 

???

profit

 

(this is how I did it, and in retrospect i think it's easier this way than doing chinese first... for too many reasons to list here.)

[japanchina]

Hello and thank you for it... Appreciate the postage of the links very much. I going to also apply ajatt & your good technique into my daily of study! 

 

Another question it is I have. What is the advice for if writing? Can you write Kanji and Hanzi at to a good level? please notify again! 

[Angelina]

I haven't started learning Japanese yet. It is useful to know that many words in Mandarin come from Japanese (originally English): 自由、哲学。Not sure if it is better to first start with Japanese, then Chinese, or the other way around. 

 

Also, I have noticed how there is more vertical writing in Japanese, I think for Chinese characters vertical is more natural than horizontal. In China the only place  we use vertical is at school (a very limited number of schools), only limited to a handful of scholars, while there is more vertical writing in Japanese. 

 

You have probably realized that learning Chinese and Japanese are two complementary processes. It depends on you to choose the one you want to start with. I chose Chinese and am happy with it, but still interested in Japanese. 

[murrayjames]

dtcamero,

 

If you don't mind elaborating, why do you think it's easier to learn Japanese first?

[dtcamero]

well essentially, japanese is like chinese lite if you're a westerner. one can absolutely learn them both in either order... but i think that japanese in particular has certain features that make it a good stepping stone between english and chinese.

 

the modern japanese language is like an interesting hybrid of ancient chinese culture, 20th century western culture, and the spoken language of the japanese people.

until the 14th century japan did not have a written language. for centuries wealthy monks would go to china and study, returning literate. in the 14th century some of those japanese monks came up with a writing system, in which they essentially phoneticized their spoken language, appending chinese characters to the beginning of most words. they also directly imported several 2, 3 and 4-character chinese compounds, giving them japanese pronounciations that were close to the original chinese.

then after the country's tumultuous opening up in the mid-19th century, as Angelina says many japanese went to the west to study, and came back inventing new words with chinese characters to approximate new ideas they had learned (like 社会 for example). But as time went on these new words were imported at a great rate of speed, and a new phonetic system was created called katakana. now modern words like internet and computer are just converted to japanese phonetics using this system.

 

- so, with that background out of the way, we can see that the japanese used chinese characters much more sparingly than they exist in chinese. to read a japanese newspaper you only need to know 2k or so kanji characters, whereas correct me if i'm wrong but for chinese it's over 4k hanzi i think...

 

- just looking at commonly occuring katakana words, there are many, many english words in japanese. native english speakers start out with a japanese vocabulary of 1,500 or so everyday use words.

 

- in the process of learning japanese you learn many 2-character kanji compounds that then become an equivalent starter vocabulary when moving on to studying chinese.

 

- and of course, when you do start studying chinese after becoming comfortable with japanese, you only have to learn a supplementary set of chinese characters. you already know almost all of the everyday characters, their meanings and how to write them... they simply have new pronounciations.

 

- I also think that the first language one learns is generally the hardest, because you don't know yet what you're doing and what works well for you individually, so it's better to do japanese because tremendous tools exist to help you. especially in the west, japanese has an enourmous learner base... larger than chinese. this is because of the popularity of japanese culture in the last 30 years... anime and manga mostly. having studied both languages it seems to me that there is a greater base of learning materials and blogs etc. for japanese, and that there are some better developed examples of that support that only exist for japanese (e.g. the ajatt blog; also japanese the manga way - a decent textbook that is also a decent comic book; also the NHK-created curriculum erin's challenge and NHK news easy, among others).

 

- on a tangential topic, the great firewall does chinese learners no favors for finding good access to media and chinese websites, blocking huge sections of what would otherwise comprise their free internet. comparatively japan is an open, wealthy democracy with a tremendous internet presence, and a huge variety of high-quality news sources and television shows that are uploaded for free viewing daily. as this is my second time self-studying a language I'm pretty adept at digging up media I like and can definitely make do, but the situation is not as easy as it was for me poking around on the japanese internet starting out.

 

tl/dr

 

anyway like i said at the top you can definitely do both in either order... but I think the hybridized nature of japanese structurally is really the biggest reason why using it to ladder from japanese to chinese makes a lot of sense for a native english speaker.

 

on the other hand if you have already done chinese, then japanese will be a piece of cake... as you've already got all the english and chinese vocab... you simply have to learn their pronounciations and cultural ideosyncracy. many smart chinese students move to japan and can pass jlpt n1 with only two years' study.

[Angelina]

- on a tangential topic, the the great firewall does chinese learners no favors for finding good access to media and chinese websites. nor does the communist party by blocking huge sections of what would otherwise comprise their free internet. comparatively japan is an open, wealthy democracy with a tremendous internet presence, and a huge variety of high-quality news sources and television shows are uploaded for free viewing daily. as this is my second time self-studying a language I'm pretty adept at digging up media I like and can definitely make do, but the situation is not as easy as it was for me poking around on the japanese internet starting out.

 

 

 

I don't agree with this. 

 

There is plenty of content available on the Chinese Internet (more like an Intranet). There is something called Internet+ now. I have noticed too much commercial, cheap content, but it does not mean that the good stuff is being censored out. Let's put it this way, the economic development has pushed culture to the background.

 

Outside of China, there is YouTube, inside China: 爱奇艺、乐视、腾讯视频, then 酷狗、虾米 for music. 

[dtcamero]

ya you can find tv shows very easily inside china, for sure.

apps like 腾讯视频 are better than what we have in the west.

many of those apps don't work outside the country though...

 

and then there's a whole realm of political discussion that isn't possible in any mainstream, well produced manner...

which has ramifications on historical discussions...

economic discussions...

you see where i'm going with this.

[Angelina]

what do you think made it easier for you to learn Japanese: the media content available or the English-speaking community of Japanese learners? 

[dtcamero]

well for me they were both pretty fundamental.

 

the media, because obviously you need lots of input...

 

and then re 'the community of learners'... that sounds a little hokey, like a chinesepod101 ad, haha

but truly there are a lot of koohii forum conversations that really changed the way i do things, fundamentally.

like for example, you have probably heard of subs2srs...

well that is one of several programs written by a guy on the koohii forum specifically for fellow japanese self-learners.

i use subs2srs as a core part of my study regimen everyday, and would enthusiastically encourage everyone to try making it a part of their studies, regardless of your target language.

 

so yes having access to a 'community of [serious] learners' was indispensible also.

[japanchina]

DTcamero, for extending information thank you again!! appreciate it. I want to follow your path it my wish! I following the RTK path in my native language so Kohii is good for the information right!!

 

Angelina, my case is reverse, I choose the Japanese already from a year ago, but still interested in Chinese too.

[mouse]

There's a one word solution to the issues of horizontal text and the firewall: Taiwan.

[Angelina]

If you are learning Japanese and want to be better at it, learning Chinese can be beneficial; if you are learning Chinese and want to be better at it, learning Japanese can be beneficial. 

 

Taiwan is a good idea for vertical. 

[japanchina]

Angelina yes the decision for chinese is the traditional way!! Due to it being of a preference!!