Asian language (country, people, speaking, beautiful)

[Neutre]

Hello!

Has any of you learned an Asian language as a foreign language?

Was it hard?

I've been interested in Chinese, but after reading that it has thousands of characters I was very discouraged.
On the other hand there are enough non natives in Asian countries which don't seem to have much problem learning the local language.

Thanks

[lndigo]

I'm learning Chinese. It's difficult, but it's not insane. The characters aren't just random strokes, though. There are patterns that repeat themselves, so it's actually a lot easier to memorize the characters that it'd seem.

[Mrs. Jones1]

Try Bahasa Indonesia

[Neutre]

Originally Posted by Mrs. Jones1

Try Bahasa Indonesia

I already master Indonesian.

Indonesian/Malaysian is really one of the easiest ones among the world's major languages today. Including Malaysians and East Timorese, it is spoken by around 270 million people.

Btw, it's good that you say Bahasa Indonesia instead of just Bahasa. Because the Indonesians themselves don't say only bahasa, which means only language, to refer to Indonesian.

The languages:
Indonesian = Bahasa Indonésia
English = Bahasa Inggris
Spanish = Bahasa Spanyol
French = Bahasa Prancis
Chinese = Bahasa Cina
Japanese = Bahasa Jepang
etc.

To say a language, Indonesian doesn't have special adjectives like in English England vs. English, Spain vs. Spanish, France vs. French, China vs. Chinese, etc.
Basically Indonesians simply add Bahasa (language) to the country. So something like "Bahasa England", "Bahasa Spain", "Bahasa China", "Bahasa France", etc.

[Mrs. Jones1]

I lived there for 4 years N so I learnt something then?

I did have lessons whilst there but other things took over like badminton, swimming clubs and the sports club in general. Can't say I remember much, my boys probably remember more than me

[Mar0]

I studied japanese for 10 years and it was rather difficult. Learning the different alphabet systems (hiragana and katakana) are very easy, and I feel that either you are good at Kanji (chinese characters) or you aren't.

The thing that makes Japanese difficult is that the sentence structure is different from English. Rather than subject/verb/object, Japanese uses subject/object/verb. That part can be mastered after a bit.

The other issue at play is that there are (obviously) so many cultural influences on Japanese. Learning keigo (polite speech) is extremely difficult for foreigners because it is not only a matter of speaking, but understanding the cultural significance. I know many Japanese people who say that even they can hardly understand keigo!

Regardless, Japanese is a beautiful language. If you are interested in Asian languages, I have learned that generally Korean and Japanese are similar and harder for English-speakers to grasp, whereas Mandarin (and other chinese dialects, I believe) are more similar to English and therefore slightly easier. Just what I have been showed/taught over the years.

[phoenix_talons]

Fun way to learn a language is to learn it with your kids. Another excuse to bond.

[Nelly Nomad]

I've recently begun the study of Japanese and am finding it both challenging (in a good way) and fascinating. It is so different from English, as Mar0 has pointed out. I think that's one of the reasons I find it so intriguing.

I haven't really delved into kanji yet -- still working on getting the kana down pat. I'll tell you this much, though, it's a great feeling to look at Japanese script and recognize the characters (even if I don't know the words)! Or to watch a Japanese movie and recognize some of the words as they are spoken.

[crewbank]

I can get around pretty well reading and speaking Mandarin, and am just starting to learn Japanese and Korean. Of the 3, Chinese is the easiest to speak, and fun too! Once you get over the tonal system, which you get used to with a little practice, the grammar rules aren't very hard, and the word order is similar to English as someone else mentioned earlier.

Writing is a different story, but it may help you to know that ALL east Asian languages have used Chinese characters at some point in their history, so learning Chinese will give you access to a lot of history and literature in the region. I can actually read Japanese pretty well using my knowledge of kanji, even if i don't know the Japanese pronunciation yet!

[Neutre]

Crewbank, how long did it take you to learn Chinese?

I suppose the spoken one is not that hard, but how about the characters? I read that you need to know a couple of thousands to be able to read day to day themes, not to mention writing, which has its own challenge.