I’ve been asked many times: Which is harder to learn, Chinese or Japanese? Well, the latest time finally inspired me to make this graphic. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory, but some notes will follow anyway.
In case you couldn’t figure out from the graph, both are difficult, but in different ways. Both have insane writing systems and lots of cultural background to learn, so those basically cancel each other out. Any language requires lots of vocabulary memorization. Japanese has loads of loanwords from English, but really learning to use the loanwords like a native speaker instead of a crutch is not so easy to do, so I left that factor out as well. For me, the major points of comparison come down to just pronunciation and grammar.
Japanese pronunciation is quite easy at first. Some people have problems with the “tsu” sound, or difficulty pronouncing vowels in succession, as in “mae.” Honestly, though, Japanese pronunciation poses little challenge to the English speaker. The absolute beginner can memorize a few sentences, try to use them 20 minutes later, and be understood. The real difficulty with Japanese is in trying to sound like a native speaker. Getting pitch accent and sentence intonation to a native-like level is no easy task (and I have not done it yet!).
Chinese pronunciation, is, of course, maddeningly difficult from the get-go. It can be so hard to make yourself understood when your sentence is only three syllables long. Yes, I know. I’ve been there. If you keep at it, though, things get waaayyy easier. And in the later stages, accent isn’t as big a deal in Chinese. There are so many wildly different accents in China alone that once you get your tones under control and can string a coherent sentence together, Chinese people will often assume you’re a native speaker in telephone conversations.
Chinese grammar starts out fairly simple for English speakers. Some find it so simplistic that they say things like, “Chinese has no grammar.” This is not true, of course, and there are a few difficult points to master (like 了, which probably occupies a good chunk of the red area in the middle of the grammar graph), but overall, the grammar is not too rough. If you want true mastery of the language, however, you will also eventually have to study 古文 (ancient Chinese), and that’s quite a bit more work.
Japanese grammar starts out seeming like some bizarre alien code. However, through hard work and determination, the persistent can eventually crack it. Once you get over the grammar hump, and verb conjugations, causative-passive, は and が, and keigo are no longer a big deal, you’re in a pretty comfortable place. But it sure is rough at first.
Just to be clear, this is all based on my personal experiences as a very acquisition-conscious language learner, not on scientific research. Please feel free to add your own experiences with these two languages in the comments.
I don’t really know anything about Japanese, but I’ve always summed up the difference between studying English and Chinese like this. English is relatively simple, but gets more and more complicated the more you get into it. Chinese is a big clusterfuck at first (especially tones, and characters), but just gets simpler and more logical the deeper you get into it. I think this is why many people think Chinese is so difficult–because the hard part is all at the beginning. Once you get over the initial hump, everything starts to make a lot more sense.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:25 pmI’m just starting off studying Japanese, having studied Chinese for the past few years. Your graphs are pretty much spot on, and it’s a lot easier getting a basic repetoire of Japanese sentences than it was for me to do the same in Mandarin.
Any Japanese study resources to recommend?
June 25th, 2008 at 11:32 pmI can offer an observation by proxy.
A work colleague spent a three week holiday in China last year and a three week holiday in Japan this year. He spent a fairly diligent and equivalent few months on each language before each holiday, with no real expectations of continuing after the holidays.
Verdict, although he felt he had learned an equivalent amount of language in each the Chinese he learned was next to useless on the ground, but he had real fun with the Japanese (people understood what he was saying). This would seem to agree with your feelings.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:54 pmI had the same feelings about Japanese grammar. At the very beginning, it was terrible. After a while, though, it helped me a lot. When hearing unfamiliar words in a conversation, I often realized immediately whether if they were verbs (う行), gerunds (ている), adjectives (な or い), or some other part of speech. That sped up the process of figuring out what those words meant. With Chinese on the other hand, new words often come in the form a random syllable or two that could mean just about anything.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:21 amJohn, what struck me in your post was that mean, little 古文-inset. When will you start teaching us some 古文-basics over at CPod? Level #7?
June 26th, 2008 at 12:42 amMy colleagues and I were just having this discussion and we came to a similar conclusion - that Chinese pronunciation is killer and Japanese keigo and grammar are brutal. I would add one more thing that makes Japanese really difficult - the difference in men’s and women’s language. I learned Japanese the way I learn all languages, by living in the country, listening to people and imitating what they say. But with Japanese I had to tag things in my brain like “heard a man say this, haven’t heard a woman say it yet so I can’t use it myself yet”. It was maddening.
Oh, and would you agree that it’s easier for Japanese and Chinese people to learn each other’s languages than it is for a native English speaker to learn either language?
June 26th, 2008 at 8:14 amIf you want a really quick start in Chinese grammar, just remember all the Chinglish you’ve heard. It worked for me!
June 26th, 2008 at 8:52 amThis seems to back up what I thought. I am amazed you find time to even carry on learning Japanese, you definitely seem like you have a full schedule with chinesepod, blogging and mastering Chinese. Very impressive!
June 26th, 2008 at 9:33 amnice graphics. my friends back home keep asking me how chinese compares to arabic. if chinese has no grammar*, arabic is all grammar.
- (chinese people tell me this too. i keep trying to get them to understand, but they won’t listen. probably because they can’t understand my poor grammar)
June 26th, 2008 at 9:36 am[...] Sinosplice, John has produced a couple of nifty charts analyzing acquisition of pronunciation and grammar within the languages. His conclusions seem to [...]
June 26th, 2008 at 10:10 amI agree, although not entirely on the Japanese grammar bit. Like you said, initial Japanese grammar is a big hump to get over and of course, it does get easier as you move along. However, it doesn’t get easier like pronunciation does. High level Japanese grammar becomes complicated on new levels just like Chinese grammar. So, even though you’ve got that initial hump, if you’re trying to master Japanese, the curve of ‘grammar difficulty’ will drop, but it won’t go all that low.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:15 amTo me, the “gets harder as you go along” part of Chinese is word choice. Lots of very near synonyms, often sharing a character, with slightly different meanings or use cases. Massive input is slowly smoothing this curve out for me, but it seems the further I dig into the language the more I find words that are used in a very limited range of contexts, but which shouldn’t be substituted for simpler words unless you want to sound like a little kid.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:19 pmJohn B,
I don’t think Chinese is different from any other language in that respect. You just have very few cognates to help you find your way.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:41 pmOne of the hardest parts of Chinese is its lack of redundancy.
Japanese and English have a lot of redundant structure that can help learners figure out the grammatic context of new words. On the other hand, Chinese appears to have no such redundancy which makes parsing sentences a lot more difficult.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:48 pmHenning,
There is no real line between “modern Chinese” and 古文. There are traces of 古文 everywhere. While we haven’t focused much on 古文 on ChinesePod, you can definitely find traces of it in lessons. The one that comes to mind immediately is the relatively recent SBTG: Confucius lesson.
We may treat 古文 more in the advanced lessons in the future.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:50 pmOn the whole, I agree with you.
Personally, I find Chinese grammar and the lack of consistency incredibly difficult. I’m still trying to get a handle on it mentally. I would raise the right part of the graph quite a bit because I think it’s just as hard if not harder than Japanese grammar. Though I admit Japanese grammar in the beginning is very difficult to digest, once you’ve got the framework down, it feels very structured and safe.
As for pronunciation, as you mention both are difficult but for different reasons. The tones (at least in Mandarin) are manageable and pretty straightforward but does require more work upfront. But I think Japanese is just as tonal as Chinese. While not as critical for comprehension, sounding natural requires a lot of mimicking and practice.
In the end, I think it’s pretty equal for pronunciation. Both requires a lot of audio input and being consciously aware of pitches.
I wonder if slang in Chinese is as difficult as Japanese?
June 26th, 2008 at 12:59 pmI totally agree with both graphs !
By the way, which software did you use to draw the graphs?
Thanks in advance for any reply!
PE
June 26th, 2008 at 5:26 pmNice graphs!
From what colleagues have told me about writing systems, it is easier for a Japanese person to read Chinese and understand it than it is for a Chinese person to read Japanese and understand. You probably know more about why than I do though.
I’ve run into a lot of the same stuff you’ve been experiencing (Especially condescending foreigners, I get snubbed all the time). Started a blog too at http://greendragon-redchina.blogspot.com/ after I started reading yours!
June 26th, 2008 at 7:44 pmHi Rick,
Here is the links to Japanese learning sites.
NHK Japan Broadcasting Company http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/learn/story/index.html http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/
Tokyo University of Foreign Languages http://www.coelang.tufs.ac.jp/modules/ja/index.html
June 26th, 2008 at 7:53 pmAfter I was transferred from Japan to China, and got over my anger at having spent so much time on a cool language, I at least took solace in the fact that every character in Chinese has one and only one pronounciation. And Japanese grammar gets hideously complex after the intermediate level. It’s referred to as ‘hitting the wall’ among my foreign buddies in the land of cool stuff.
Let’s face it, Japanese just sounds cooler than Chinese. Hearing an attractive young lady speak Japanese is as pleasing to the ears as her face is to the eyes.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:30 pmFor me, a native Japanese guy, learning Chinese characters is just a piece of cake (except for their pronunciations), and the same could be said of Chinese people who learn Japanese. Simplified Chinese characters are slightly different from Japanese kanji, but this is not a serious problem when learning.
On the other hand, Chinese grammar and pronunciation are completely different from Japanese ones. There is no advantage anymore. I have the same difficulty learning them as most of you have, but fortunately Chinese grammar is not so complicated, a bit confusing though, compared to European languages.
As for pitch-accents in Japanese, it’s very important if you want to make your Japanese sound more natural. I always wonder why Japanese dictionaries, including ones edited for foreign learners, usually don’t show word accents or tones. I’m a little dissatisfied with Korean dictionaries for the same reason.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:57 pmTae,
Good points, but I really can’t agree that Chinese grammar is as difficult as Japanese grammar. I think you’ve been too good at Japanese for too long. :)
I can remember quite clearly the absolute torture of trying to unravel Natsume Souseki’s or Shiga Naoya’s sentences in class. Sure, Chinese can be difficult as well, but often the hardest part is just parsing out the words (Japanese tends to make that part much easier).
June 26th, 2008 at 11:23 pmP-E,
I just used regular old Photoshop. My brain is still incapable of comprehending the pen tool, so I managed to do all those curves by carving chunks out of blocks of color with oval selections and creative manipulation of the selections.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:26 pmchangye,
Some Japanese dictionaries in China have the pitch accents for every single word Japanese word. I’ve actually been meaning to blog about that for a long time (and still plan to!).
June 26th, 2008 at 11:27 pmI guess it all depends on your personal experience. For me Japanese wasn´t that difficult to master. Pronuntiation wasn´t a big deal (maybe my Spanish background helped) and working at a Japanese company from the very first day i arrived in Japan made it quite easier for me to get the essence of Keigo. I must admit, though, that after teaching Japanese to foreign students for some years, i realized how difficult it can be to learn the proper use of Keigo if you haven´t been living (and working!!) in Japan.
My experience with Chinese is much harder. I came to Shanghai last September, and i still can´t get right neither the tones, nor the sounds ch, zh, j, g etc. So I find Chinese pronuntiation far more difficult to master, and don´t even dream of been taken by a native speaker on the phone…i just hope to be understood. Anyway i want to thank you, John, because comments like “If you keep at it, though, things get waaayyy easier. And in the later stages, accent isn’t as big a deal in Chinese” are a great help to people like me, who are still struggling with the Chinese language.
….(hope my English is understandable)
June 26th, 2008 at 11:53 pmJapanese is definitely easier if you are just going to be in one of the two countries for a couple of weeks. I think though that Korean is the most difficult of all. In China, when I mispronounce a word, I am usually understood. China has so many different accents and foreigners and regions, etc. that the people there are used to imperfect pronunciations. Koreans are not and if you get the littlest thing wrong, you are just not understood.
June 27th, 2008 at 12:50 amAgree with most of the graphs - but I do think that there is an easy spot for Japanese grammar - one that I got stuck in.
I got a grip on everyday conversational grammar, and then found that more complex grammar was difficult. So I can converse, and read, but wouldn’t dream of writing.
Chinese is just hell - the pronunciation is one huge mountain that I haven’t yet managed to climb over, 4 years on.
Being able to communicate from the very start in a language certainly makes it easier to be motivated to study.
June 27th, 2008 at 12:54 amThe most striking thing about your graph (to me) is that Chinese starts off so easy, but Japanese so hard. Did you learn Japanese before Chinese? Did your language skills in learning Japanese make picking up Chinese easier?
June 27th, 2008 at 8:32 amThey are both a bitch and a half!
June 27th, 2008 at 11:12 ammaxiewawa,
Only for grammar, though. It’s the opposite for pronunciation.
Here’s a good example: How do you say “I love you”?
Chinese: Easy. 我爱你。 The characters mean “I - love - you,” respectively. Grammar-wise, you’re done.
Japanese: Not so easy. 愛している。 In this simple example we have an unstated subject and object, a conjugated verb (which is also a する verb), and a politeness level. And this isn’t even that hard.
Yes, I did learn Japanese before Chinese (and Spanish before Japanese), but I don’t think it helped me much in the realm of either pronunciation or grammar (with a few small exceptions). I took this into account when I made the graphs.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:15 pmKrovvy, I think that for each language, the coolness of words spoke depends on the speaker, what they say, and how they emphasise it.
Watch the movie “The Emperor and the Assassin” if you haven’t. That might open your eyes.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:52 pmIn Japanese, you could say “I need to defecate” in the rudest form of the language, and it would still sound cool. Just the sound of the ka-ku-ko and so on. In Chinese, you could come out with some totally badass idiom, and it would still put the ear off. That’s the horrible Beijing Mandarin…other Chinese Mandarin accents aren’t nearly as offensive, they just sound like “generic foreign language” to the untrained ear.
June 27th, 2008 at 6:41 pmHi John,
Thanks for the info. I’ll try to find such a clever Japanese dictionaries at a bookstore here in China. I think the reason why they show pitch-tones for words is very simple. Chinese people instinctively know the importance of tones, even in Japanese, from their own experience, and they are absolutely right on that point! I wonder if there are similar Korean dictionaries sold in China.
June 28th, 2008 at 12:02 pmPiggybacking off krovvy on the idea of languages sounding cool, this is why I always enjoyed listening to Brazilian Portuguese. It’s one sound that I love, the “zh” sound, or is it a rolled “j”? Something about it sounds great to my ear.
I feel the same way about Vietnamese also, or the little I’ve been exposed to. Just sounds SO interesting, the sounds and tones.
Anybody have any other examples? John, any personal examples of languages that just sound cool to you?
June 30th, 2008 at 10:17 amThe only downside to learning a language because it sounds “cool” is once you get good at it, you can’t really tell anymore.
I must admit, Japanese grammar is not easy. But if you think Japanese is hard, try Korean! Dan, I totally know what you mean. When beginners try to speak Korean, it really does sound like gibberish a lot of times. I can’t explain what the difference is.
The problem with Chinese grammar is it’s easy to understand on a case-by-case basis. But there’s too many cases! And all the stuff implied and dropped entirely can really mess you up.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:22 amI think that having a Spanish or French background helps with Japanese vowels; French especially seems to help for that accent-less Japanese tone that is so difficult for some. In that regard I think Japanese is challenging to sound native, but Chinese tones are probably more difficult.
Also, while it’s obvious that languages are best learned in the country they are spoken, somehow Japanese seems especially so. For me personally Japanese’s use of transitive and intransitive verbs (for example する and される) to express an idea without clearly stating the subject and direct object leads to a lot of ambiguity. Throw in the fact that keigo likes to use the される form even when not speaking in passive voice makes it even more difficult. And while I could say that I understood the concept from reading a textbook, I couldn’t actually use them effectively in my own sentences before moving to Japan.
I don’t think spoken keigo is that difficult, but struggle writing formal Japanese with making sure that fundamental words I use, such as もっと are appropriate (my coworkers tell me to use 更に instead). It is encouraging that my other Japanese coworkers also struggle with this and have to consult business writing books regularly.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:27 pmGreat incites, I found your discussion on Japanese to be very much inline with my own experience. I haven’t studied Chinese with any seriousness, but I have taken up Korean and I am very interested in comparisons of the three languages.
July 5th, 2008 at 3:28 amSo, after you can read 文言文, have you mastered Chinese? Or is it a necessary but insufficient condition…
I have a roommate (老外族) that studies Japanese. Besides being literate, he can speak kogei and imitate popular male accents, like yakuza. He didn’t take that long to do it either.
With the right help, the right methods, and time to really apply oneself, it does not take that long to get a firm grip on these languages.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:36 pm[...] how learning to speak Chinese and learning to speak Indonesian like a native are equally difficult. In this post Chinesepod’s John Pasden compares and contrasts learning Japanese and Chinese and how they [...]
July 20th, 2008 at 12:52 pm[...] every sound, and Japanese is the exact opposite. This is a response to comments on blog post Chinese vs Japanese at sinosplice. I thought my comment was a bit off-topic and decided to just post it into my own [...]
July 30th, 2008 at 6:46 pmI wonder if it has anything to do with which of the two languages you speak better. Many languages, when you get to advanced level, take an upturn on the grammar difficulty graph. Of course a language would feel more difficult if you have put more time into it and speak it at a higher level. I feel my Japanese to be at a slightly higher level than my Chinese, and I have come to the opposite conclusion – I find advanced Japanese grammar to be much harder than Chinese. Japanese feels very nuanced and subtle, whereas Chinese seems much more straightforward. Maybe, because I speak and write Japanese slightly better than Chinese, I haven’t hit the really difficult part of Chinese grammar yet. Or maybe if you were to advance to a higher level in Japanese you would find that the grammar difficulty graph would take an upturn, and you just haven’t hit it yet
August 8th, 2008 at 6:27 amWOW. It is surprising to find so many people with language ability in Japanese and Chinese. I studied Japanese in university and studied/worked in Japan for a few years. Now I am trying to teach myself Chinese. Just from looking at some textbooks for Chinese it looks like my knowledge of Japanese is going to give me a big headstart (reminds me of the Chinese students in my Japanese class who didn’t have to study for Kanji tests. Jerks :-)
This brings up a question though. What is the best (or fastest) way for someone with Japanese ability to start tackling Chinese?
It seems like maybe reading Chinese and understanding it would be rather easy (at the beginning anyway). Just like your “I Love you” example.
August 26th, 2008 at 2:48 am[...] found a little article comparing the learning curves for Japanese and Chinese (the comments are full of thoughts from people experienced in Jpn/Chn. Smart [...]
September 1st, 2008 at 7:36 amI speak both japanese chinese fluently, and I think it’s pretty easy to say that japanese is, far and away, the more difficult language. The different character readings (averaging 5 per character) are absurdly confusing to non-native speakers. Even more confusing than the readings are when to use each reading; in fact, there aren’t any rules dictating when to use a reading-you just have to memorize when to use a particular one for every single word. The passive, formality levels, transitive/intransitive, etc. in Japanese are far more difficult than anything in Chinese. The tones in chinese are tough, no doubt, and the characters aren’t easy either. But as far as comparing the two to each other goes, I don’t think many non-native speakers of either language who went through the trouble of learning both languages would sincerely/credibly state that chinese is more difficult than japanese. Nice graphs tho..
September 4th, 2008 at 10:36 am