Learn Mandarin (chinese) or Japanese?

HostMan

Hey there,

I want to learn a new language (an Asian one), but I cannot decide between Chinese and Japanese.

I think Chinese make the most business sense, as it is obviously going to be such a huge economy in the future, but I think I'd be more motivated to learn Japanese as I prefer their culture and I think Japanese women are hot... (yeah I'm a shallow one...)

Do you think I should choose the business option (Chinese) or the one that motivates me more?

I can't decide... HELP!

Serbian

Learn the one that motivates you. You are more likely to succeed if you actually want to learn the language, and not just think that you should.

KlodaX

I want to learn Japanese aswell ...
Bruce Lee was Chinese though wasn't he? .. hmm... I dunno...

yeah ... Japanese is my vote!

just out of curiosity ... where or how are you learning this?

HostMan

I'm going to learn it via (initially) Linguaphone and then try to arrange a kind of "I'll teach you English, you teach me X" with a Chinese/Japanese person...

Kone

Good Idea HostMan, I have often thought of learning Chinese myself, can you let me know how you get on with it?

SheroN

Irish is the way to go....learn a bit of gaelige....lauguage of the past, present and future!

sionnach

Originally posted by SheroN
Irish is the way to go....learn a bit of gaelige....lauguage of the past, present and future!

well, at least you're 1/3 right

DMT

Originally posted by HostMan
I'm going to learn it via (initially) Linguaphone and then try to arrange a kind of "I'll teach you English, you teach me X" with a Chinese/Japanese person...

Linguaphone is the biggest pile of crap I (and my pocket) have ever had the misfortune to experience - you'd be far better getting the Pimsleur courses, as they actually work:

Pimsleur Mandarin I
Pimsleur Japanese I

There's also versions with less lessons for under €20 and €40 so you can try them out, before splashing out on the full versions.

HostMan

DMT why did you think linguaphone is crap?

Faust

Japanese! So you can watch anime without subtitles! wahey! and go to japan!

blondie83

Learn Japanese cos it's really good fun. I've learned Irish, French, German and Spanish in the past and it's absolutely nothing like that at all. You have to learn what the little pictures mean as well, but that makes it more interesting I think. The grammer is very easy to get, and the vocab isn't to bad either. It's offered as an option with our course (3rd Eng UCD) and I just started doing it cos it sounded interesting. To be honest I never thought I'd stay with it (I'm a typical non-linguistic engineer!), but for some reason it's just really easy to learn:D

Also, if you want to get good at a language go for the one that motivates you, cos otherwise you'll never put enough work into it:ninja:

Kone

I'd go with Chinese for business purposes, I mean there are 1 billion of them! ;-)

Faust

Originally posted by Kone
I'd go with Chinese for business purposes, I mean there are 1 billion of them! ;-)

But the majority are quite poor..

Kone

Originally posted by Faust
But the majority are quite poor..

This is true.....


Ok ok, I just think Chinese girls are hot!

Japanese is actually a pretty cool language. I learned a bit in fourth year...it's actually quite easy.

Writing it isn't though :dunno:

blondie83

Just out of my Japenese class, it was great tonight:D I figuired out why I find it easy, it's a really logical language, like for the months they don't have January, February ect, they have (translation) one month, two month, three month... the grammar's real logical too.

DMT

Originally posted by HostMan
DMT why did you think linguaphone is crap?

It relies too much on reading comprehension and learning technical grammer. On the other hand, the Pimsleur courses are completely audio only and teach the language in much the same way you learn a language as a child - by listening, repeating (but not in a rote manner), understanding and forming sentences intuitively.

I've found the pimsleur courses to be the only language course thats worked for me because they actually make you think in the language you're learning instead of trying to remember a heap of grammer rules.

If you PM me I can set you up with an mp3 of the first lesson of Mandarin I or Japanese I, to see what they're like.

[edit]BTW, I got mine at http://languagelovers.com/ who have seriously cut theit prices since amazon.com matched their prices (each course used to cost around US$345 each, now their under US$120 each at http://languagelovers.com/)[/edit]

BoobeR

Japanese! So you can watch anime without subtitles! wahey! and go to japan!

Oh yes!! lol and you could talk to them dirty chick's, you could have more of a conversation than "me love yo long time $10?"

Japanese > Chinese