To my friends learning more than chinese at the same time out there...

[nipponman]

Hey everyone, this is a question for those who are learning another language while you learn chinese, Do you find it easier to learn chinese in english or in the other language you are learning? Even though this seems to be arbitrary, I've brought this up because I realize that when amego told me jia1 you2's meaning relative to Japanese, I understood it alot better, and now think of it as ganbatte (ne) instead of whatever its english equivalent is (the fact that I don't know the english equivalent speaks to my point).

I think, for some reason, I (and maybe others) would have more success learning chinese if we linked expressions and vocab to another language we learned/are learning. Any thoughts?

[roddy]

I've never thought of this, but I think you might have a very good point. I have found in the past that when learning a third language (which I've only ever done very briefly) in English, the new vocab got totally mixed up with Chinese (I wasn't in China at the time, btw).

However, if I'd learned new vocab in Chinese then maybe it would be filed away in relation to / contrast with Chinese. Very interesting idea . . .

[leosmith]

Do you find it easier to learn chinese in english or in the other language you are learning?

I haven't started learning Chinese yet, but it will be my 6th language. so I have some experience using my other languages to help me. In general, I use words from other languages to facilitate mnemonics. For example, I might memorize "itadakemasu" as eat a doggy maz (Spanish for "more"), and I imagine myself wanting some more of that delicious doggy. Mmmm, doggy......

What you're suggesting goes beyond what I've done. I think it makes sense. I personally would just learn the easiest way possible. If that meant using a roughly equivalent Japanese word, I'd go for it. But if I couldn't find one, I'd go back to english (my mother tongue).

There are tons of people who learn languages in English even though it's not their mother tongue. I'd like to hear their opinion on this. Interesting topic, btw.

I have found in the past that when learning a third language (which I've only ever done very briefly) in English, the new vocab got totally mixed up with Chinese

I had this problem big time, but only when learning my 3rd language. After that, it's as if my brain finally figured out that I need to have seperate locations for seperate foreign languages.

[nipponman]

I had this problem big time, but only when learning my 3rd language. After that, it's as if my brain finally figured out that I need to have seperate locations for seperate foreign languages.

Really, I don't think I've ever had this problem, but I have had one similar, I call it "cross-over". Here's an example: boku ha da4xue2 ... and then i'd stop because I'd realize that I'm speaking two different languages at the same time.

Since I'm still mulling over whether or not this is effective, I haven't given this possible-new technique any trial runs yet. But I plan on doing so tonight before I go to bed (another vocab learning technique that has proven mildly successful) so I'll see how it works. If it works, this could help multilingual chinese learners everywhere!

[novemberfog]

I have found studying Chinese through English to be more *productive* than in my second language. When the a new term is defined in the second language, sometimes I still do not understand the meaning, and then I feel it is just easier to look up the word in my Chinese<->English dictionary.

I must say learning the third langauge is easier than the second. But speaking it is difficult for me. When I visited Taiwan, sometimes I mixed the second language in with Chinese and it just felt really weird. I guess that will go away with practice.....I hope.

[atitarev]

It all makes perfect sense to me, Nipponman - linking Japanese to Chinese - characters, words (and in some cases phrases). However, there's no English language textbook on that but Japanese dictionaries and some online and offline electronic programs sometimes provide information on how characters are pronounced in both languages and, to a lesser extent in what way they are similar or different from each other, something along the lines:

乐 (C.S.)- 樂 (C.T.) - 楽 (J.)

恶 (C.S.) - 惡 (C.T.)- 悪 (J.)

On the other hand, you don't have to learn French in order to learn English or words originally having the French origin, so your learning is slowed down if you try to learn both languages but it's much easier to memorise new words in Chinese/Japanese if you already know the equivalent in the other language.

[nipponman]

Ah, glad to see someone else can experience the same thing, I may be on to something here...

[roddy]

To be honest you'd need to do actual experiments to prove anything. However, I reckon you could come up with a theory that learning L3 in an native language environment, and learning it in a second language environment is different on some factor (retention of vocab, for example) and then test that.

[atitarev]

We have a Japanese girl (with perfect English) in our Chinese class - although she is doing fine in the class, most of the time she has the same problems as any other English-speaking student, except for learning characters. I am curious about her learning experience and have been asking questions about her Chinese studies.

We use simplified, so she has to learn simplified characters. These words (bank and park) cause no problems (only need to learn the simplified) version, they mean the same thing. I am giving the Japanese pronunciation of the words:

銀行 (银行) ginkō (Mand.: yínháng)

公園 (公园) kōen (Mand.: gōngyuán)

The "thing" word has only the original meaning in Japanese - East and West:

東西 (东西) Tō-zai (Mand.: dōng-xī, dōngxi)

Not sure how these words start meaning "study" in Japanese, they mean "to force" in Chinese:

勉強 benkyō (Mand.: miǎnqiǎng)

When I first time came across 恶心 (惡心) ěxin, I didn't think about the Japanese kanji in 悪い (warui - bad; guilty), it looks different now (see my previous post) but when I knew it, it made it easier to remember.

喝 Mand:hē (to drink) [On-yomi: KATSU] means a quite different thing in Japanese - hoarse; scold but the Japanese 飲む (nomu) [On-yomi: ON, IN] is used in components meaning drinks in Mandarin 飲 (饮) yǐn, in Cantonese it's still in use in the same meaning - "to drink".

It's all a bit confusing but also interesting. I am working on the list of Japanese characters dissimilar from both Chinese simplified and traditional - I finally found a good source disctionary, you're welcome to join in the effort. Learning those characters separately, if you learn both languages will help understand characters better.

I also have to learn both simplified and traditional, in my observation - just under 70% of characters that have been simplified are same in Japanese as the traditional (e.g. 東, just under 30% of the simplified are the same as Japanese (e.g. 国), but these 30% are the most common ones and the ones that are really complex and the 70% of those traditional use commonly well-known components. The remaining deviating characters are the Japanese kanji that were simplified in a different way and only a few "pure" Japanese characters, like 込む [komu].

[zhenhui]

I am often thinking about the derivation of Chinese words into other languages too.

I am really glad I know Chinese cause I'm trying to learn Korean.

There are many words in Korean that are derived from Chinese

and it makes learning so much easier.

聪明 = 총명 (chong myong)

学生 = 학생 (hak seng)

学校 = 학교 (hak gyo)

同窗 = 동창 (dong chang)

车 = 차 (cha)

And quite alot more which I cannot remember at the moment

[HashiriKata]

There are many words in Korean that are derived from Chinese and it makes learning so much easier.

That's right, zhenhui. There're also about the same amount of Chinese words in Japanese and Vietnamese, too. So when are you going to tackle these easy languages ?

[yingguoguy]

I hadn't thought of jia1yu2 as being ganbatte but it makes sense.

Before I went to China a Japanese friend gave me a Japanese how to learn Chinese book. Seeing the same dialogues written in both languages is quite a good way to realize both how similar and yet completely different the two languages are. Wouldn't recommend pronouncing Mandarin using katakana though.

I've been buying quite a few books for learning Japanese from Wangfujing in the past few months. As I'm now at an intermediate level in Japanese I found there was a severe lack of good, cheap materials available in the UK. I'm in heaven in China however, and have been meaning to post a review of some of the one's I've bought, if there's any interest in such a thread.

You've got to smile at the vocabulary lists which say 电话 = 電話

I don't get the spoken languages of Chinese and Japanese mixed up as they're too different, but I know as I get more sophisticated in both when I write something I'm always going to be thinking "Does this compound only exist in the other language".

Funnily enough I had a Chinese girl in my Japanese class in England and she didn't do any better than the others in the class either. She wasn't particularly good at remembering the readings for the characters either, though obviously she knew the meanings.

[HashiriKata]

Funnily enough I had a Chinese girl in my Japanese class in England and she didn't do any better than the others in the class either.

I've taught Japanese to a few Chinese speakers and the results depend greatly on how well motivated the learners are. Some with motivation can get a 1st in Japanese without too much difficulty while others simply waste their advantages and manage to get worse results than those from non-hanzi backgrounds.

To be honest you'd need to do actual experiments to prove anything. However, I reckon you could come up with a theory that learning L3 in an native language environment, and learning it in a second language environment is different on some factor (retention of vocab, for example) and then test that.

Even with actual experiments, it may not be possible to prove anything, because of:

1. The linguistic relation between L2 & L3, L1 & L3, etc.

2. The learner's style of learning; his intelligence in making use (or abuse) of the linguistic relations in 1 above.

When you start thinking carefully about 1 & 2 above, you'd come up with too many combinations (variables) for effective control and testing.

My own case is again very different from 1& 2 above:

1. When I learned English (as an adult living in the UK), I decided to do it directly because I felt it was too cumbersome to do it through any other languages.

2. I started learning Chinese also in the UK (and mostly within my arm chair ), and my learning materials and methods are entirely in English. Still, I wouldn't say that I don't benefit indirectly from my knowledge of other languages.

[nipponman]

Even with actual experiments' date=' it may not be possible to prove anything, because of:

1. The linguistic relation between L2 & L3, L1 & L3, etc.

2. The learner's style of learning; his intelligence in making use (or abuse) of the linguistic relations in 1 above.

When you start thinking carefully about 1 & 2 above, you'd come up with too many combinations (variables) for effective control and testing.

My own case is again very different from 1& 2 above:

1. When I learned English (as an adult living in the UK), I decided to do it directly because I felt it was too cumbersome to do it through any other languages.

2. I started learning Chinese also in the UK (and mostly within my arm chair ), and my learning materials and methods are entirely in English. Still, I wouldn't say that I don't benefit indirectly from my knowledge of other languages[/quote']

Yeah, right... I have no I dea what you guys are talking about.

To be honest you'd need to do actual experiments to prove anything. However, I reckon you could come up with a theory that learning L3 in an native language environment, and learning it in a second language environment is different on some factor (retention of vocab, for example) and then test that.

That's true, and I don't think that experimenting on myself will prove much, even though it probably works.

I am often thinking about the derivation of Chinese words into other languages too.

I am also guilty of this. I often wonder about how/why things changed when kanji came to Japanese how pronunciation changed meaning, etc. Its a very interesting topic in and of itself.

[zhenhui]

Originally Posted by Hashirikata

There are many words in Korean that are derived from Chinese and it makes learning so much easier.

That's right, zhenhui. There're also about the same amount of Chinese words in Japanese and Vietnamese, too. So when are you going to tackle these easy languages ?

LOL...don't see me too up (你太抬举我了！)... lol i think languages is not my forte... i often failed English in high school...(thank Gawd i scored in my Chinese)... and now when I try to learn Korean...i have to learn from nouns, pronouns, verbs, proverbs, adverbs, adjectives, past perfect, blah blah blah...AHHHH!!!!

it's easier when you're younger... it just sounds right!

"it are" doesn't sound nice.... "it is" sounds better....."a apple" also sounds bad.. "an apple" sounds better! ^_^

[atitarev]

Learning ANY language is an effort, no doubt, knowing one language only automatically gives you some knowledge of another one, only if they are really closely related and similar, only in the way they are similar. Even if you're fluent in Chinese, you still have to work hard learning any other language but you don't have to do it if you're not interested. I guess, Nipponman, the original poster, meant the question: does it make your life easier if you're know a language (close to Chinese in some way, meaning Japanese). Yes, it does, but only to the extent where you already know the characters and their meanings. You have to relearn the readings, usage, combinations and grammar.

It helps me now when I read some articles in Japanese and pick up some new words - I can sometimes assume, that these words (whole words, not just individual characters) will mean the same in Chinese, and when I know for sure it will be quite different in Chinese it's hard to tell when I have this feeling: names of sciences, some philosophical or political terms. These similarities are not systematic and unpredictable, besides, you still need to know how to read those words. The usage can differe greatly too, even if the words exist in both languages and sometimes may have different meanings or variety of meanings.

物理学 butsurigaku (physics) wùlǐxué

文化 bunka (culture) wénhuà

独立 dokuritsu (independence) dúlì

発展 hatten (development) fāzhǎn

The words above is the modern Japanese writing and pronunciation with a full match in meaning but different pronunciation. The Chinese traditional characters for some are different (独 = 獨, 学 = 學) but the words fully match the modern simplified Chinese writing. Character 発 is the Japanese simplified form of 发 (S) and 發 (T)

As for grammar - apart from adjectives being both adjectives and verbs and measure words (counters), there's not much similarity Chinese vs Japanese.

adjectives:

He is young.

彼は若い(です)。 kare-wa wakai (des) (copula desu is optional, for politeness only)

他年轻。 Tā niánqīng.

Word building is similar, so knowing components and knowing how they are used (ON-yomi in Japanese) you may transfer these skills to Chinese.

e.g.

海 + 軍 (军) = 海軍

Learning 2 languages like Chinese and Japanese is hard but I am glad that if I learn Chinese (I am focusing on Mandarin at the moment) I am not forgetting how the characters and getting back will not be so painful, which I do, now an then, and my knowledge is good enough to teach my daughter Japanese (she learns it at high school) and do some basic readings - an article or 2 a month.

A recent example I learned from a Japanese article: (notice that one Japanese character matches the simplified, the other traditional one) - advanced country(-ies):

先進国 (Japanese) senshinkoku = 先进国 (Chinese simpl.), 先進國 (Chinese trad.)

You get more benefits from comparison if you learn both simplified and traditional and know some deviating characters deviating from both. The new "purely Japanese" character I learned yesterday:

仮 e.g. (平仮名 hiragana, 片仮名 katakana) - Chinese uses character for those 假 ([jiǎ] false [jià] vacation)

I don't have any theory behind it either but it also works for me and, knowing the similarities and differences in characters shows the history of languages, you may guess how old a word is (if it wasn't borrowed) or get its original meaning, etc.

I don't know any Korean and comparing would be harder as the Chinese characters are not in everyday use and the dictionaries I saw, don't have any characters.

頑張って! [ganbatte]