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

[Babbles]

Originally posted by: Imdmn04
Do Chinese, Japanese is derived from Chinese anyways.

Umm, like no.


Here is a big hint, Chinese dialects only have one syllable where as Japanese have multiple syllable words.

Japan, however, did borrow the characters from China but they did get changed somewhat plus the addition of katakana and hiragana

 

[z0mb13]

gaelic is language of which country?

 

[Amorphus]

Originally posted by: z0mb13
gaelic is language of which country?

I believe its of the Celtics (pronounced Kel-ticks) (from Northern Ireland), right?

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: Babbles

Originally posted by: Imdmn04
Do Chinese, Japanese is derived from Chinese anyways.

Umm, like no.


Here is a big hint, Chinese dialects only have one syllable where as Japanese have multiple syllable words.

Japan, however, did borrow the characters from China but they did get changed somewhat plus the addition of katakana and hiragana

well japanese comes from korean, and korean comes from chinese at least that's my understanding, i'm not a linguist.

 

[DWW]

Both highlanders from Scotland and Ireland are partial to Gaelic or so it seems.

I actually never knew Irish used it at all, I thought it was exclusive to Scotts as my great grandfather spoke it and some other people (Scottish) I know do.

 

[ClueLis]

Originally posted by: gopunk

Originally posted by: Babbles

Originally posted by: Imdmn04
Do Chinese, Japanese is derived from Chinese anyways.

Umm, like no.


Here is a big hint, Chinese dialects only have one syllable where as Japanese have multiple syllable words.

Japan, however, did borrow the characters from China but they did get changed somewhat plus the addition of katakana and hiragana

well japanese comes from korean, and korean comes from chinese at least that's my understanding, i'm not a linguist.

Japanese has no linguistic ties to chinese. There are theories that Japanese has a distant relationship with Korean, Mongolian, and Turkic laguages, but it only tied to Chinese by the written laguage.

Edit: Here's a link.

Changed link to a better source.

 

[eliteorange]

learn french and impress the ladies

 

[THELAIR]

I'm in tokyo now, been here for about 10 months. At first the language seems sooooooo daunting, like how would i ever learn this? But now that I have been here and only hear japanese day in and day out, its all starting to click.

For these asian languages, you REALLY REALLY need to be in the country and forced to learn it.

If you come to Japan, tokyo specifically, its easy for english speakers to get around as alot of stuff is in english... plus Tokyo is a very kewl place.

You are a Canadian, you should look into the Working Holiday Visa option that we have with the Japanese (WHV) do a search for the japanese consulate web page for toronto or vancouver and look the visa info up. It is a snap to get, takes like... 3 weeks and you are good to go.

 

[DWW]

THELAIR what sort of work do you do in Tokyo might I ask?

 

[Imdmn04]

Originally posted by: Babbles

Originally posted by: Imdmn04
Do Chinese, Japanese is derived from Chinese anyways.

Umm, like no.


Here is a big hint, Chinese dialects only have one syllable where as Japanese have multiple syllable words.

Japan, however, did borrow the characters from China but they did get changed somewhat plus the addition of katakana and hiragana

Not only did they borrow the chinese characters, even their hiragana and the katakana characters are based from the different strokes of chinese characters. so when your whole writing system of a language is borrowed from china, umm yeah, i would considering that as the derivatation of chinese, at least the writing system, and the written language is what seperates the spoken-only languages from the sophisticated languages.

 

[Babbles]

You massively over-simplified hiragana and katakana. Sure, they were derieved from particular kanji, but they were done so to emulate certain Japanese sounds. Just becuase you may be able to read Chinese, there is no way you could comperhend hiragana or katakana wihout studying it. At least none of the Chinese speaking/reading people I know can. Not to mention their entire grammar structure is different. Just because something may originate from somewhere else (case in point) it does not mean that it did not evolve and change.

Using your logic is essentially saying that you should be able to speak French/Italian/German/Spanish (assuming one is an American and not exposed to foreign languages) because English and those languages share the same physical letters. Most languages are derizved from Greek and Sanskrit, so hell we might as well say that there are only 2 languages in the world (not including those off the wall ones where 20 people in some south pacific tribe speak it).

 

[Imdmn04]

Originally posted by: Babbles
You massively over-simplified hiragana and katakana. Sure, they were derieved from particular kanji, but they were done so to emulate certain Japanese sounds. Just becuase you may be able to read Chinese, there is no way you could comperhend hiragana or katakana wihout studying it. At least none of the Chinese speaking/reading people I know can. Not to mention their entire grammar structure is different. Just because something may originate from somewhere else (case in point) it does not mean that it did not evolve and change.

Using your logic is essentially saying that you should be able to speak French/Italian/German/Spanish (assuming one is an American and not exposed to foreign languages) because English and those languages share the same physical letters. Most languages are derizved from Greek and Sanskrit, so hell we might as well say that there are only 2 languages in the world (not including those off the wall ones where 20 people in some south pacific tribe speak it).

i simply said japanese's writing system has roots that is tied with chinese. i never said u can speak japansese because u can speak chinese, i said u can understand a lot of japanese writing when you know chinese. of course a language like japanese evolves, but that doesnt deny the orgin of the japanese writing system which is closely tied to chinese. I'm not trying to say that they are the same language but rather, trying to show you that they share some common roots. italian and portuguese are derived from latin, but they are different languages, this is what derivatation means. In this case, japanese is partially derived from chinese because of its writing system.

 

[Imported]

Learn both, Mandarin and Japanese.

I'm learning Japanese right now.. wish I could find a way to instantly re-learn all the Mandarin I knew as a little kid.

 

[THELAIR]

im a computer security consultant... i hack computers

we call it "risk management" where i am though

 

[idNut]

I'd say Chinese and the Cantonese dialect. I don't care for Japs.

 

[TheBoyBlunder]

Gaelic would be coolest imo (part scottish here too), but Chinese would be most useful if you go into business.

 

[Walleye]

learn klingon!

 

[LongCoolMother]

id say chinese. the grammar in chinese is very very easy (much easier than english). writing it, is however, very hard. another reason why is because id see chinese as being more useful/practical in the world market in the near future.

 

[Jombo]

Originally posted by: ClueLis
So, you want to learn Japanese?

nice link

Kanji are letters that were stolen from China. Every time the Japanese invaded China (which was very often) they'd just take a few more letters, so now they have an estimated 400 gazillion of them.

 

[dc]

chinese is harder to learn than japanese.

i say learn chinese first, japanese would be easier to pickup after.

interesting page

 

[gopunk]

Japanese has no linguistic ties to chinese. There are theories that Japanese has a distant relationship with Korean, Mongolian, and Turkic laguages, but it only tied to Chinese by the written laguage.

Edit: Here's a link.

Changed link to a better source.

i didn't see anything there saying that there were no linguistic ties, just that the theory you mentioned is inconsistent with some aspects of japanese. but like i said, i'm not a linguist, and i realize that nobody really knows for sure anyways.