Would Russian be harder than German for Chinese?

Lee+   Thu Nov 01, 2007 6:57 am GMT
Would Russian be harder than German for Chinese?
Guest   Thu Nov 01, 2007 7:03 am GMT
no
Guest   Thu Nov 01, 2007 7:31 am GMT
For Chinese every language would be difficult, even English or Swedish
Lee+   Thu Nov 01, 2007 7:45 am GMT
But I only ask about Russian and German, please.
petja   Thu Nov 01, 2007 8:34 pm GMT
Huj, znajet! ;)))
K. T.   Fri Nov 02, 2007 2:50 am GMT
This is actually the toughest question I've seen on antimoon (lol). My questions would be these: Is Lee+ Chinese? Has Lee+ mastered English? What other languages does Lee+ know?

English has about 60% lexical similarity with German. Russian and English have fewer words in common imo, but maybe that's not important.

I think German would be easier for a Chinese person who is competent in English (including speaking), but I think Russian has beautiful sounds and is also very useful.
Lee+   Fri Nov 02, 2007 3:12 am GMT
I'm a Taiwanese, I've mastered basic English, I know English and Japanese.

Russian alphabet is a little strange to people who always used Latin alphabet , we can study German, French, Italian based on Latin writing system, but not Russian, due to its special writing system, Russian alphabet isn't similar to either Latin alphabet or Kanji system, I think that, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, & etc, are all very different from main writing systems in the world.
Guest   Fri Nov 02, 2007 3:58 am GMT
If the reason you don't want to learn Russian is the alphabet, you are mad.

The alphabet will take you 1 day to learn. And if you learned Japanese alphabet you learned twice as many symbols.

Russian alphabet is very easy.
K. T.   Fri Nov 02, 2007 4:12 am GMT
Okay...

It sounds like you are leaning toward German.

If you've learned Japanese and are a pretty good scholar of your own language, you won't find it difficult to learn the shapes of Russian or Hebrew.

Remember Chinese and Japanese have the most complicated writing systems in the world. Having conquered these languages, the other ones shouldn't be too bad.
K. T.   Fri Nov 02, 2007 4:17 am GMT
I agree with Guest, but of course, I won't say you are mad...

I didn't see Guest's post until I posted mine.


A lot of foreign writing looks "exotic", maybe even (lol) "evil"; however, you can get through this by working steadily. If it takes you a week instead of a day, still this is nothing.
Lee+   Fri Nov 02, 2007 4:43 am GMT
I'm very accomplished in Mandarin Chinese, and also familiar with Ancient Chinese and Traditional Character, only because I'm a native Chinese, perhaps I can master Chinese exquisitely than other Chinese who're at my age. So, this would probably help me with my Japanese study (KANJI), and in fact, Japanese pronunciation sounds just like Italian or Spanish, full of dulcet vowels. I try to mean that, I'm very good at Chinese, and I'm fairly well at Japanese, all mainly because I'm a native Chinese, (of course, other factors are also required, such as studying hard, lanuguage ability, and so on). But I feel that Arabic and Hebrew, just as people usually described, (apart from Chinese) are the most difficult languages for both Westerners and Asian (of course, Arabic world and Israel Excluded), if compared with Arabic or Hebrew, Russian absolutely would be easier or much easier for me. Thanks, everybody who replied to my posts.
Guest   Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:19 am GMT
"just like Italian or Spanish"

This is not completely true. Japanese has just 5 vowel sounds as Spanish and Modern greek. Standard Italian has 7 vowels, e and o can be pronounced open or closed, hence phonetically they stand for four sounds not two.
Xie   Fri Nov 02, 2007 11:10 am GMT
Only two factors really count when determining which is harder: 1) access to learning materials/opportunities and 2) to native speakers.

Russian should, then, be somewhat more difficult. When your English is good enough for you to use any English language books with ease, most european languages should be easy enough; and for me, it would be the <<easiest>> to go for French and German before getting to know Russian. For me, learning european languages is just an almost unending experience, because, if you want to learn one after another, you are simply going on a trip of the same theme, all indo-european (linguistically) or all european (culturally). In the language book market, led by the English language, books about european languages have always been the most readily accessible and thus "learnable" (of course, more popular ones are also easier). Only time investment really matters much...

and of course, the ones you don't like are the toughest to learn.
Lim   Fri Nov 02, 2007 11:54 am GMT
From 1950S to 1960S, Chinese were crazy about learning Russian, and Russian even replaced the situation of English for a long time, perhaps because of the relationship of politics (socialism). Unfortunately, after 1990S, less and less Chinese people would like to learn Russian due to the declining tendency of Russia, the resplendence of Russia has already ended, although Putin (President of Russia) has been really a good president. And only speaking of Russian Pronunciation, it sounds not very beautiful, even a bit worse than German does. And it would be of little help if you don't live at the boundary between China and Russia. All in all, I won't recommend Russian, unless you have to learn it.
Guest   Fri Nov 02, 2007 1:25 pm GMT
"speaking of Russian Pronunciation, it sounds not very beautiful, even a bit worse than German does. And it would be of little help if you "

I'm not russian but I have to say that Russian sounds wonderfully