"Japanese and Korean have both obtained large portions of their vocabularies from Chinese, so it's not like learning one of the 3 provides absolutely no advantage in learning the others."
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
some questions to all speakers of Asian languages
My solid knowledge of Chinese as a native speaker did not help as much in my Japanese learning back in Uni two years ago. I learnt the romanised version of Japanese, which means it was only conversational, and yet I was already pretty frustrated. I found the grammar to be crazy, and I could not do the pronunciation right. My teacher, who was Caucasian Australian, corrected me saying Japanese was not like Chinese, which is tonal. However when it comes to pure reading, I sometimes browse through Japanese web sites, having a reasonable understanding of what it is being said.
Khmer and Vietnamese are not related. Some Cambodian people actually take it as an offend if you say they are.
Khmer and Vietnamese are not related. Some Cambodian people actually take it as an offend if you say they are.
I would ask Stuart Jay Raj about this. He is deeply interested in Asian languages.
There are connections between languages, but they are not always the kind that linguists want to tell you and of course, you'll always find people who DENY that Korean and Japanese are alike. That's bunk.
Learn Chinese, Mandarin, and then go for the other ones. If you are "young", that is.
If you are an older learner and starting out from a European language, you are probably not going to master many Asian languages unless you have a remarkable gift.
If you learn Mandarin you'll get:
The Hanzi/Chinese characters and that will help you with Japanese and to a lesser extent with Korean (there are Chinese origin words in both languages) and you'll see some Chinese origin words in Vietnamese.
Learning Asian languages are not for very lazy people (slightly lazy people, okay, lol).
There are connections between languages, but they are not always the kind that linguists want to tell you and of course, you'll always find people who DENY that Korean and Japanese are alike. That's bunk.
Learn Chinese, Mandarin, and then go for the other ones. If you are "young", that is.
If you are an older learner and starting out from a European language, you are probably not going to master many Asian languages unless you have a remarkable gift.
If you learn Mandarin you'll get:
The Hanzi/Chinese characters and that will help you with Japanese and to a lesser extent with Korean (there are Chinese origin words in both languages) and you'll see some Chinese origin words in Vietnamese.
Learning Asian languages are not for very lazy people (slightly lazy people, okay, lol).
<< you'll always find people who DENY that Korean and Japanese are alike. >>
They're alike in terms of grammar. But everything else is totally different.
They're alike in terms of grammar. But everything else is totally different.
Well, they share some vocabulary, probably of Chinese origin, but I can't say in every case because I am just "dabble" in "asian" languages other than Japanese.
Japanese: Yakusoku (promise)
Korean: Yaksok (promise)
Japanese: uma (horse)
Chinese: Ma
Korean: mar
I failed to mention that it's also good training to get some experience in tonal languages by going for a tonal language like Mandarin.
Japanese: Yakusoku (promise)
Korean: Yaksok (promise)
Japanese: uma (horse)
Chinese: Ma
Korean: mar
I failed to mention that it's also good training to get some experience in tonal languages by going for a tonal language like Mandarin.
<<"Japanese and Korean have both obtained large portions of their vocabularies from Chinese, so it's not like learning one of the 3 provides absolutely no advantage in learning the others."
I don't think so. >>
Why don't you think so?
Japanese:
"According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (新選国語辞典), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%.[6]"
Korean:
"The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Likewise Japanese and Vietnamese, more than 50% of the vocabulary (up to 60% by some estimates), however, especially scholarly terminology, are Sino-Korean words[citation needed], either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters"
I don't think so. >>
Why don't you think so?
Japanese:
"According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (新選国語辞典), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%.[6]"
Korean:
"The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Likewise Japanese and Vietnamese, more than 50% of the vocabulary (up to 60% by some estimates), however, especially scholarly terminology, are Sino-Korean words[citation needed], either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters"
<<Japanese and Korean have both obtained large portions of their vocabularies from Chinese, so it's not like learning one of the 3 provides absolutely no advantage in learning the others. >>
Yes, but this was ancient/Classical Chinese. There is so little similarity between current Sino-Korean words and their modern Chinese counterparts that one can scarcely even detect any relationship between them at all. Same for Sino-Japanese words. For instance,
Chinese 'yi' = Korean 'il' = Japanese 'ichi' ("one")
<<<< you'll always find people who DENY that Korean and Japanese are alike. >> >>
Yes, they are "alike", but they are not necessarily *related*.
It's called "Sprachbunding"
Yes, but this was ancient/Classical Chinese. There is so little similarity between current Sino-Korean words and their modern Chinese counterparts that one can scarcely even detect any relationship between them at all. Same for Sino-Japanese words. For instance,
Chinese 'yi' = Korean 'il' = Japanese 'ichi' ("one")
<<<< you'll always find people who DENY that Korean and Japanese are alike. >> >>
Yes, they are "alike", but they are not necessarily *related*.
It's called "Sprachbunding"
<<Yes, but this was ancient/Classical Chinese. There is so little similarity between current Sino-Korean words and their modern Chinese counterparts that one can scarcely even detect any relationship between them at all. Same for Sino-Japanese words.>>
In their written form, you can see the relationship.
In their written form, you can see the relationship.
Knowing Turkish, an Asian language, won't help you in learning Chinese, another Asian language.
Some major Asian languages:
Indonesian-Malaysian
Tagalog
Bengali
Thai-Lao
Vietnamese
Khmer
Chinese
Burmese
Malayalam
Japanese
Hindi-Urdu
Persian
Turkish
Hebrew
Korean
Tamil
Mongolian
Some major Asian languages:
Indonesian-Malaysian
Tagalog
Bengali
Thai-Lao
Vietnamese
Khmer
Chinese
Burmese
Malayalam
Japanese
Hindi-Urdu
Persian
Turkish
Hebrew
Korean
Tamil
Mongolian
<<,In their written form, you can see the relationship. >>
Not if you're using hangul
Not if you're using hangul
I haven't really studied many asian languages so I can't give an overall view on the matter but when it comes to Japanese, Korean and Chinese one can have an advantage. I started first with Japanese and then studied Chinese, which was easier for me because vocabulary increases fast for people who know "kanjis". Of course one must also deal with characters which have different meanings such as 去，说，吃，走，念， or characters that are only used in Chinese such as 躺，碰，甩，掉, etc...
I read one posting about one native Chinese speaker with difficulties learning Japanese but what I've seen in Japan is the opposite: People studying Japanese learn real fast and pass the JLPT much faster than most westerners I've met (Most people applying for the level 1 of JLPT are either Koreans or Chinese.I think that's not by chance).
After learning Chinese and going for Korean one can clearly see similarities in vocabulary (Which doesn't mean they are related just because of this) such as pyo （票）for ticket, cha（车）for vehicle among others. When it comes to Japanese and Korean, not only vocabulary is similar but also grammar and it is much easier to learn.I guess the biggest advantage is to deal with the SOV structure pretty naturally. I can't affirm that Japanese and Korean belong to the same linguistic family but they are VERY SIMILAR.
I read one posting about one native Chinese speaker with difficulties learning Japanese but what I've seen in Japan is the opposite: People studying Japanese learn real fast and pass the JLPT much faster than most westerners I've met (Most people applying for the level 1 of JLPT are either Koreans or Chinese.I think that's not by chance).
After learning Chinese and going for Korean one can clearly see similarities in vocabulary (Which doesn't mean they are related just because of this) such as pyo （票）for ticket, cha（车）for vehicle among others. When it comes to Japanese and Korean, not only vocabulary is similar but also grammar and it is much easier to learn.I guess the biggest advantage is to deal with the SOV structure pretty naturally. I can't affirm that Japanese and Korean belong to the same linguistic family but they are VERY SIMILAR.
Knowing Hebrew, an Asian language, won't help you in learning Chinese, another Asian language.
Some major Asian languages:
Indonesian-Malaysian
Tagalog
Bengali
Thai-Lao
Vietnamese
Khmer
Chinese
Burmese
Malayalam
Japanese
Hindi-Urdu
Persian
Turkish
Hebrew
Korean
Tamil
Mongolian
Some major Asian languages:
Indonesian-Malaysian
Tagalog
Bengali
Thai-Lao
Vietnamese
Khmer
Chinese
Burmese
Malayalam
Japanese
Hindi-Urdu
Persian
Turkish
Hebrew
Korean
Tamil
Mongolian
How hard/easy is it for a native speaker of one Asian language to learn another?
>>This continent is too big for me to learn one after another. As I wrote a long time ago, the only discount I get would be not having to learn the Japanese scripts at all. The only thing I have to do is to learn the right stroke order. But even so, scripts is only the first part of the story. I guess practically most of the native Japanese words (NJW) are completely alien without conscious study.
How can you compare that to the Slavic/Romance/Germanic languages?
>>I could learn something of another Chinese within seconds, but Japanese probably a great challenge already, not to mention Korean (a bit more than Japanese, without a transparent script) and Tagalog (I guess practically no one except domestic helper agents and people of its descent know it).
For example, if a Chinese learns Japanese, is that like an English speaker learning German, or more like learning Spanish, or Russian, or Greek?
>>Should be both German or Spanish, but not probably the others.
Does learning one Asian languange help at all to learn another Asian language later?
>>See above. But even so, Japanese scripts aren't completely transparent to someone who never tries to learn. The kanas they use are .... aesthetically, hardly like anything I write every day.
>>This continent is too big for me to learn one after another. As I wrote a long time ago, the only discount I get would be not having to learn the Japanese scripts at all. The only thing I have to do is to learn the right stroke order. But even so, scripts is only the first part of the story. I guess practically most of the native Japanese words (NJW) are completely alien without conscious study.
How can you compare that to the Slavic/Romance/Germanic languages?
>>I could learn something of another Chinese within seconds, but Japanese probably a great challenge already, not to mention Korean (a bit more than Japanese, without a transparent script) and Tagalog (I guess practically no one except domestic helper agents and people of its descent know it).
For example, if a Chinese learns Japanese, is that like an English speaker learning German, or more like learning Spanish, or Russian, or Greek?
>>Should be both German or Spanish, but not probably the others.
Does learning one Asian languange help at all to learn another Asian language later?
>>See above. But even so, Japanese scripts aren't completely transparent to someone who never tries to learn. The kanas they use are .... aesthetically, hardly like anything I write every day.
Knowing Persian, an Asian language, won't help you in learning Japanese, another Asian language.
Some major Asian languages:
Indonesian-Malaysian
Tagalog
Bengali
Thai-Lao
Vietnamese
Khmer
Chinese
Burmese
Malayalam
Japanese
Hindi-Urdu
Persian
Turkish
Hebrew
Korean
Tamil
Mongolian
Some major Asian languages:
Indonesian-Malaysian
Tagalog
Bengali
Thai-Lao
Vietnamese
Khmer
Chinese
Burmese
Malayalam
Japanese
Hindi-Urdu
Persian
Turkish
Hebrew
Korean
Tamil
Mongolian