Mandarin or Japanese

clearz

Hi

I recently started to learn Japanese but am starting to have second toughts. I am learning it for personal reasons but also want to learn it to enhance future employment opportunities. Japan is a stable western style country that I would have no problem living in.
But, I recently have been thinking that maybe Mandarin would have been a better choice. There are a lot more Chinese people than Japanese in the world and with China being on the fast track to becoming a world power maybe knowing the language would be a valuable asset to have in the near future.
On the other hand at the moment I would not likely spend any time in China other than a holiday due to their political system.
What are peoples views on this? Which language would you recommend and why?

John.

Dont be at yourself

Japanese would be a hell of a lot easier to learn. They're also one of the biggest economies in the world, and have a huge number of multi-national corporations.

biko

Japanese seems much easier. I went to evening class for six months and took to it quite fast. Grammar was not too hard but then comes writing...
Speaking to Japanese natives is a whole different kettle.

Captain Corelli

I can only speak on learning Chinese(i aam still at beginners stage). I spenty 3 months in China and even though I took a mandarin course It did little to help me in China. I took classes, the lack of one-on-one practice with a chinese person meant it was E200 wasted.

To learn a tonal landuage properly you need to study in the country of native speakers. Chinese is straight forward but it takes time and study.

What I am confused about is why you don't think you will ever go to China- because of the political system. Why would you even think of learning the landuage of a country you don't want to spend time in?

For that reason I would advise you to learn Japanese, unless you open your mind to the wonderful country that is Zhongguo!

monkey tennis

clearz wrote:

Japan is a stable western style country that I would have no problem living in

At the risk of going off-topic, this comment made me double-take - have you ever actually lived in Japan?

HammerHeadGym

clearz wrote:

... Japan is a stable western style country that I would have no problem living in....

WRONG!!

Japan is mr big happy smile time of crazy town. Sure boss, why not.

Did that make sense to you? Welcome to Japan.

Also Japanese is remarkbly easy to get from don't know a thing to pretty fluent in a small space of time, particularly when you live there. Also, the Japanese show remarkable patience when they see that you are trying to adopt their culture and language.

clearz

monkey tennis wrote:

At the risk of going off-topic, this comment made me double-take - have you ever actually lived in Japan?

First off all sorry for the late reply. My email client is putting boards.ie mails into my spam folder even though I told it not to.

No I have never been to Japan, America, Canada, Australia and about 50% of Old EU countries. My statement "stable western style country" is based on the fact that we live in the 21st century where it is possible to draw an educated conclusion about a place using this little thing called technology.

clearz

HammerHeadGym wrote:

WRONG!!

Japan is mr big happy smile time of crazy town. Sure boss, why not.

Did that make sense to you? Welcome to Japan.

Also Japanese is remarkbly easy to get from don't know a thing to pretty fluent in a small space of time, particularly when you live there. Also, the Japanese show remarkable patience when they see that you are trying to adopt their culture and language.

OK I ment politically western style. Its differences is what makes it even more appealing to me.

HammerHeadGym

Oh. I figured as much to be honest, but didn't have many jokes for that.
Anyway, great place, lovely people. Huge culture shock though. And be prepared to work hard if you want to live in Tokyo.

theprophecy01

Funny that you wish to discuss this...I came about the same question this week...I am wanting to begin Japanese since I have been interested in Japanese culture for many many years and am wanting to learn a language. However, like you said China is becoming a world power and will have a greater influence on the west as time goes on. In my opinion I would begin with Japanese to understand a language and become semi-fluent in one and work your way to Chinese later. I've been hearing that Japanese is easier to learn.

That was my dilemma...mandarin=more professional ops vs. japanese=relate more to japanese and have a great love for mainland japan and japanese culture.

oh yes, and choose to learn mandarin over cantonese...although Hong Kong is predominantly cantonese, about 700 million ppl speak mandarin.

I'd like to hear more opinions on this as well...thanks to all those who contribute...and lets try to keep the sarcasm and nastiness to a minimum please.

clearz

Hi prophecy. You seem to be thinking about it the exact same way I am.
In the end I stuck with Japanese. I done some research on other websites and read that the Chinese written language is next to impossible to learn for someone that wasn't brought up learning it. There is literary thousands of symbols where as the Japanese Hiragana and Katakana forms have less than 100. The third Japanese form Kanji is more like Chinese but you can get by without it.

theprophecy01

Thanks for the response...I'm glad you saw it the same way I did and I too will look into Japanese. Thanks for reinforcing my choice! Take care.