Which to learn, Chinese or Japanese? Edit: or Gaelic

[DWW]

Lately I have been thinking about learning another language. While I could advance my English, I would rather focus on Chinese or Japanese.

But it is hard to choose between the two.

On the one side I can understand the Japanese culture more which I respect and I could watch anime in their natural form (haha lame reason). Or I could learn a language that is spoken by a large portion of the world--Chinese (and even then, which dialect--Mandarin vs Cantonese vs ??? others???).

Does anyone know which one of these is an easier language to learn? I'm tempted more by Chinese to be truthful, especially here in Toronto where there are tons of Chinese (Cantonese I think) and not nearly as many Japanese that I've come across.

Thanks.

Edit: There is always Gaelic which would be nice to learn. Thats more of my heritage as thats where my parents came from (the Highlands of Scotland)

 

[niwi7]

whats ur native language and wut other languages do u no and how will you go about learning the new language

 

[Amorphus]

mandarin > cantonese

its easier to find mandarin speakers than it is to find cantonese speakers. of course, you can take up both, its not that hard, and cantonese has no real written language - it uses the mandarin character set.

japanese? well, for me, I have no japanese people around me. in fact, the only people who speak japanese are the weirdo freakerzoids in anime club.

 

[boyRacer]

I would pick Japanese...

 

[HappyPuppy]

You will never become proficient in either of those languages unless you spend several years immersing yourself in the country. You have to live it in order to become proficient at it.

 

[ClueLis]

So, you want to learn Japanese?

 

[MaxFusion16]

chinese would be the easier of the 2, at least grammatically chinese is not that different from english as opposed to japanese which is just inverted. And for chinese, there is a ton of dialects, the most popular one would be cantonese, spoken mainly in the southeastern region such as hongkong and guangdong, but mandarin is the official language of china and is understood by most if not all chinese, so it has a wider appeal. But it's your choice, what's your purpose for learning either chinese or japanese? are u planning on using it or is it just a i have too much time thing?

 

[DWW]

MaxFusion16 its an "I want to expand my life outside of computers that I spend 16 hours daily programming, gaming, foruming on" type thing

I think they would be beneficial for business too. I want to get my masters in Business and become wordly someday.

 

[Imdmn04]

Do Chinese, Japanese is derived from Chinese anyways.
If you know Chinese well, then you can read Japanese too, you wont be able to understand every little detail, but most of the time, u can get the general idea of what the sentence means by reading the kanjis(chinese characters).

 

[Ionizer86]

In any case, the Azn languages are extremely difficult for people who weren't immersed in the culture since young. Try memorizing hundreds (thousands) of characters with marks that need to be made in a certain order for starts

But yea, like almost 20% of the ppl on our planet know Chinese, and Mandarin is the official lang, so it'd probably be most useful. Chinese grammar comes naturally for Eng. speakers: even the punctuation is mostly shared (ok, the period looks like a doughnut and the quotes look like << but that aside, the punctuation pretty much works out).

 

[ClueLis]

Gaelic is a beautiful language. It wouldn't be as practical as the others, but you might really enjoy speaking it.

 

[MaxFusion16]

Originally posted by: DWW
MaxFusion16 its an "I want to expand my life outside of computers that I spend 16 hours daily programming, gaming, foruming on" type thing

I think they would be beneficial for business too. I want to get my masters in Business and become wordly someday.

well then you better be prepared for the undertaking for it is not easy, it would take about 5 years immersed in the culture for you to be fluent with either language. Since china is an emerging power and a huge market with potential yet to be exploited and japan being a major supplier of consumer electronics, either would be good for business. So it all comes down to this, do you like chinese girls or japanese girls?

 

[Amorphus]

Originally posted by: ClueLis
Gaelic is a beautiful language. It wouldn't be as practical as the others, but you might really enjoy speaking it.

and then you could make a ring, and engrave it, and tuck it in a niiiight, and....

 

[z0mb13]

chinese definitely..

japanese if u want to play import japanese games

 

[TMPadmin]

Gaelic if you want to order a Guinness Properly!

Note sig.

 

[Sid59]

lol .. School Jane To Went Monkey Apple Carbeurator.

its easier to find mandarin speakers than it is to find cantonese speakers. ...

depends on where you live, eh?

 

[DWW]

MaxFusion16
Oh for sure Japanese. I notice at school, of the azn girls that appeal, they have huge, huge, "teeth" *cough*.
And they are thin too. But not all Japanese girls obviously are like this.


For real though I'd like to learn Chinese because I think it will be more important in the future. There are too many people to deny it. Japanese economy is so bad I'd rather think China will become a more "key" player. Heck everything I buy at the store is now made there.

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
You will never become proficient in either of those languages unless you spend several years immersing yourself in the country. You have to live it in order to become proficient at it.

for most people yea... but if you are extremely dedicated and have many chinese friends that are willing to practice with you, you can also do it. i know a guy like htat, it's weird to see a white guy speak it so well.

 

[Tetsuo]

Originally posted by: boyRacer
I would pick Japanese...

Same here

 

[Soybomb]

Gaelic is the coolest, but also the least useful

 

[WinkOsmosis]

Heh you could learn Elvish.

 

[DaWhim]

japanese would be easier!

toronto chinese are from hong kong, so they speak cantonese mostly! my native language as well. I don't think you will be able to learn cantonese.

 

[Konigin]

I know its not one of the choices, but German is really easy to learn, its hard to find people who speak it in the US/Canada, its still pretty cool.

 

[DWW]

Konigin I was thinking about that as an option too :\

It would be nice to be fluent in around 5 languages in the next 50 years of my life I hope
English, French (mandatory for Canadian business relations), Chinese, Gaelic and perhaps German or Russian

Yeah its a big goal, but thats 50 years

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Spanish

I know it wasn't on the list, but have you given it a thought?