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2. Taiwan - Actually pretty horrible, but ends up here by default as other countries all have issues which I can't quite put up with.
3. Israel - Life seems pretty tough there as the cost of living is said to be extremely high, and the conflicts with other Arabs are pretty scary. There's also racial tension between the Jews and the Arabs I guess? It's extremely gay-friendly, which is amazing.
4. Korea - The fact that they have no death penalty is excellent and an example for all Asian countries. Lower than Taiwan because of the hierarchy, chaebols, and their highly stressful and competitive society.
5. Singapore - I like Singaporean people, at least the ones I've met. Would've been higher if it was freer and less conservative.
6. Hong Kong - Ruined by China. The Hong Kong spirit is almost completely gone. Still a developed city though. Has bar none the best and most efficient legal system in Asia notwithstanding the hilarious wigs, which is great.
7. Russia - Russian culture is sublime and Russian cities are grandiose. Too bad it's such a corrupt blackhole and bully to its neighbours in Europe.
8. Turkey - Like Russia, seems to be such a great country to visit, too bad the country is such a mess.
Don't really care about the rest.
If it is the whole continent (Europe and Asia share one continent), I am sure Switzerland, Austria or Norway offer better life than Russia, Turkey and Taiwan.
If it is the whole continent (Europe and Asia share one continent), I am sure Switzerland, Austria or Norway offer better life than Russia, Turkey and Taiwan.
I guess I just have a different definition on what a continent is.
Chinese should be much more harder for westerners than Japanese and Korean as Chinese language do not have alphabets and a phonetic system. You cannot pronounce a Chinese word by just looking at it. You will need to hear someone to speak the word first. Most learners need many years to be able to pronounce a whole Chinese book read by a high school student in China, because pinyin is not typed in most Chinese books.
For China, you cannot easily generalise because China is large with considerable cultural and economic differences in different parts of China.
Chinese is definitely not harder than Japanese and Korean. Maybe my perspective is different because my stepfather and stepbrother are Chinese immigrants whom I lived with for 10 years, but Chinese grammar is FAR simpler than Japanese and Korean grammar. Chinese characters in Chinese are also actually easier than in Japanese. In Chinese, most characters have one reading, maybe sometimes 2 readings but that aren't so common. Chinese characters in Japanese frequently have 2 or more readings depending on how the character is used (verb, noun, or compound word). You basically have to double the amount of time learning Japanese than you do Chinese. 月 for example, is getsu, gatsu, and tsuki in Japanese and only yue4 in Chinese. You also cannot pronounce Japanese words by just looking at it. If you don't have cursory knowledge of Japanese, you can't read 名鉄駅 by just looking at it either. By the way, 名 has multiple readings, and the reading for this phrase is different from 名古屋.
Chinese and Japanese have phonetic system and alphabet, what are you talking about? Just because they don't normally use it to write their languages, doesn't mean they don't have it. You don't need to hear someone pronounce Chinese characters. Look up the pinyin or zhuyin of the character in Chinese, or hiragana, katakana, or roumaji for Japanese Chinese characters. It's not difficult.
Chinese should be much more harder for westerners than Japanese and Korean as Chinese language do not have alphabets and a phonetic system. You cannot pronounce a Chinese word by just looking at it. You will need to hear someone to speak the word first. Most learners need many years to be able to pronounce a whole Chinese book read by a high school student in China, because pinyin is not typed in most Chinese books.
I wrote this many times but you're wrong.
Let's learn a Chinese character and its pronunciation first.
青=qing
OK. Now we know 青 is pronounced as qing.
Next, let us guess how to pronounce 請.
請 is a combination of 言 and 青.
Remember how to pronounce 青? Yes, it is qing.
Then 請 = qing as well.
清=水+青=qing
情=心+青=qing
晴=日+青=qing
蜻=虫+青=qing
We can pronounce these characters by just looking at them, can't we?
I have a book written in Japanese in front of me, which title is： 絶妙な聞き方技術. No Hiragana or Katakana is typed by the Kanji.
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