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If you are a German speaker, Japanese and Korean are relatively easy to handle. Their grammatical structure is the same: Subject + Object + Verb. And of course German has the notorious der, die, das; which makes Japanese seem like piece of cake.
Moreover, unlike Chinese, neither Japanese nor Korean is a tonal language. But both languages have different levels of honorific language that take years to master. And both languages have tons of loan words from Chinese, English, German,.......etc.
Chinese seems easy in term of grammar to English speakers. But because it is tonal, unless the learners are totally immersed in the environment, it is very difficult for them to manage the right tone.
Actually, one noticeable aspect of the Japanese languages is that the subject is assumed and dropped most of the time in a sentence. Which becomes extremely difficult when it comes to translation, but I digress.
Chinese grammar is similar to English in that the basic form is Subject+Verb+Object. But Chinese doesn't have conjugations (with a few exceptions), no plural forms, no special treatment of adjectives, etc. Like one of the previous posters said, ease of learning a language is not tied to SOV or SVO at all. It's much more nuanced.
It's kind of interesting that so many people have these preconceived notions of language learning.
If you want your children to know Mandarin, they better have a way to USE it. What's the point of going to Chinese school every day for 10 years when outside of class, you end up speaking English with your friends and watch English TV? And you don't know any Mandarin speakers to speak it with?
Parents always say they want their children to learn another language (doesn't matter what, but Madarin, since that's the topic here), but when I see those children, they're speaking English for 8 hours a day at school and then speak some more English with their friends and they don't have any immigrant friends with whom to speak Mandarin anyway.
I have friends who went to school to learn a second language for some 10 years, yet I speak the same language better than they do, and I've never been to school!!! Why? Because I actually use it, more than they do!!
That's the only thing that bugs me about learning a foreign language. And yes, if you're an English speaker, an Asian language will be very hard to learn. Better off learning Spanish or Italian or some other language closer to English.
Yes. Agreed with everything.
If you don't use the language you learned, you will forget the language.
This is especially true for Chinese because of those thousands of characters that you need to know.
If you're English native, better off start with Spanish or French. If you think learning Spanish or French is too easy, then maybe then you should consider Chinese.
Spanish or French takes 4 times less time than learning Chinese.
So,
Studying Spanish for 1 year = Studying Chinese for 4 years.
Last edited by monkeyjobs; 09-22-2016 at 11:03 PM..
Actually, one noticeable aspect of the Japanese languages is that the subject is assumed and dropped most of the time in a sentence. Which becomes extremely difficult when it comes to translation, but I digress.
Chinese grammar is similar to English in that the basic form is Subject+Verb+Object. But Chinese doesn't have conjugations (with a few exceptions), no plural forms, no special treatment of adjectives, etc. Like one of the previous posters said, ease of learning a language is not tied to SOV or SVO at all. It's much more nuanced.
It's kind of interesting that so many people have these preconceived notions of language learning.
I don't have a preconceived notion because I have personal experience. I am bilingual in Chinese and English, learnt Korean and Japanese for four years in college, been to both Japan and Korea many times including attending conference and job training. That is my own experience in these three languages.
If you want your children to know Mandarin, they better have a way to USE it. What's the point of going to Chinese school every day for 10 years when outside of class, you end up speaking English with your friends and watch English TV? And you don't know any Mandarin speakers to speak it with?
Parents always say they want their children to learn another language (doesn't matter what, but Madarin, since that's the topic here), but when I see those children, they're speaking English for 8 hours a day at school and then speak some more English with their friends and they don't have any immigrant friends with whom to speak Mandarin anyway.
I have friends who went to school to learn a second language for some 10 years, yet I speak the same language better than they do, and I've never been to school!!! Why? Because I actually use it, more than they do!!
That's the only thing that bugs me about learning a foreign language. And yes, if you're an English speaker, an Asian language will be very hard to learn. Better off learning Spanish or Italian or some other language closer to English.
My child is learning Mandarin. She's 7. She's in an immersion program so she hears it all day.The kids have not had any trouble learning it. In fact, she was able to tell us what was on the back of the jackets on the Chinese Gymnastics team during the Olympics. They are also learning to read in English. They also have science and all the other subjects the other kids have that are in traditional classrooms. It will be like this through 5th grade. She can continue on into Middle school but at that time it switches to only one class in Mandarin.
If you want your children to know Mandarin, they better have a way to USE it. What's the point of going to Chinese school every day for 10 years when outside of class, you end up speaking English with your friends and watch English TV? And you don't know any Mandarin speakers to speak it with?
Parents always say they want their children to learn another language (doesn't matter what, but Madarin, since that's the topic here), but when I see those children, they're speaking English for 8 hours a day at school and then speak some more English with their friends and they don't have any immigrant friends with whom to speak Mandarin anyway.
I have friends who went to school to learn a second language for some 10 years, yet I speak the same language better than they do, and I've never been to school!!! Why? Because I actually use it, more than they do!!
That's the only thing that bugs me about learning a foreign language. And yes, if you're an English speaker, an Asian language will be very hard to learn. Better off learning Spanish or Italian or some other language closer to English.
I took piano lessons and ballet for several years growing up. I do not do them professionally now, nor have I touched a piano in ... oh, probably two decades. Was that a waste of time? Should children not take music lessons unless it's to train them for a job?
I took French for five years. I chose it over Spanish in high school (later taking both in college) because I was in ballet and all the terminology is French. I learned that pencher means to incline and is the source for the dance move I knew as well as the word penchant in English. Plier is to bend (pliant, pliable) and jeter is to throw (reject, inject). I can always remember the word is restaurateur, not restauraNteur, because I know the word comes from the word for to restore. French has helped me understand English more, not use it less or despise it somehow.
Last edited by toobusytoday; 09-23-2016 at 07:27 AM..
Reason: removed orphaned comment. I deleted the death wish post
I got bored with the article, because it keeps saying over and over, in different ways, how difficult the writing system is.
Sorry you found it boring. I learned Japanese in the pre-digital era, so I thought the way he was describing agony of trying to remember and, worse, look up unknown characters in a paper dictionary was spot-on and hilarious.
Of course, nowadays it is so much easier when you can just quickly look them up electronically.
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