Chinese AND Japanese?

[Strawberries513]

I have been studying only Chinese for about a year and I am about at a basic/low-intermediate stage. But recently I have been thinking of starting to learn Japanese. Do you think that i should wait until I reach a good, advanced level in Mandarin, or if it would work to study both at the same time? (note: I will not be taking classes in either, only self study) also, if I decide to study both, how do you recommend that I split my time between the two of them?

thanks for any help

[Xiao Kui]

I think it may be difficult to learn the kanji for Chinese and Japanese at the same time. I don't know - I guess it depends on your memory and learning capacity as well. I'm at an advanced stage of Chinese and have recently taken up Japanese, and I'm finding it quite easy to learn the kanji because I already know what they mean (or the similar Chinese meaning), and am so solid on the Chinese that I don't have to remember the Chinese pronunciations, so all I have to learn is the Japanese pronunciation. I think learning them simultaneously is doable, but would have slowed down my acquisition of Chinese. I am so obsessed with Chinese that even now it is difficult to find the time and discipline to study basic Japanese. The Chinese language seems infinite, so it also depends on what level of proficiency you are seeking to attain to. If it's just a basic conversational level in both languages that is a lot less to learn and it may be ok to study them both at once.Another big factor is whether you just want to learn to speak or read as well.

A recent post advised someone not to study Chinese and Russian simultaneously, and though I've never studied Russian, I assume Japanese has a bit more memorization associated with it, considering you have to learn the kanji, hiragana, and katakana to be able to read, as well as polite and informal forms of words and phrases. I have met a lot of people who have done Japanese first, then Chinese, and made a great transition between the two, and no one who has done them simultaneously.

[furrball]

it really depends of what you feel you're capable of.

half the japanese vocabulary (in writing) comes from chinese (but they hardly sound alike). you'll have to learn new forms for some of the kanji you know and several readings for each of the kanji used in different words. grammar and sentence-building is completely different and challenging. you have to learn conjugations, but at least there are only few exceptions. pronuncation is fairly easy and you have less syllables than chinese. every language has it's harder and easier points. learning chinese and japanese together will both help you and cause some confusion... if you think you can manage, then go for it.

[wushijiao]

I am so obsessed with Chinese that even now it is difficult to find the time and discipline to study basic Japanese. The Chinese language seems infinite, so it also depends on what level of proficiency you are seeking to attain to.

Hehe. That pretty much sums um my situation as well.

Can you learn Chinese and Japanese at the same time? It really depends on your goals for what you want to do with the languages.

I would say, that if you want to become conversational (say, to a level in which you could travel in the home country and make friends using their language), then, I think it is probably possible to learn both at the same time. In other words, if your main goals are to have fun and explore a new language and culture, then learning two is probably perfectly fine.

However, if your goals are set higher, then I would imagine that learning both to a high degree of competence at the same time isn’t really feasible. Personally, for the last three years I’ve had imminent plans to start a new language. But, I keep telling myself, “wait just a few more months, until your Mandarin is fluent and consolidated”. Yet, after every few months, I am still never quite happy with where I want my Mandarin to be. As Xiao Kui said, the language is basically infinite in its complexity and nuance (even if you understand the general idea), and so it’s not an easy language to really master. There’s just a huge difference in the skills needed to have basic discussions in a language and the skills needed to really understand academic papers, history books, sci-fi books, common colloquialisms, slang, regional accents…etc. Acquiring the vocab, listening practice and skills, reading speed, and “cultural literacy” of either Japanese or Chinese would take years of effort, I think, in part because their languages and cultural traditions share very little in common with those of English-speaking countries.

Of course, I could foresee some advantages in trying to learn both at one time. Maybe a year down the road you’ll find that you’ve fallen in love with one culture, and not the other, which could help spur on your studying. Some people start studying a language, and after thousands of frustrating hours invested in studying and hundreds of dollars invested in learning materials, they find they really don’t find the culture quite as appealing as it was when it was still exotic and mysterious. I suppose that studying two languages at the same time (or maybe three!) could help you narrow the process of selection down, so you end up studying a language that your really enjoy. .

[FadedStardust]

I have a very similar question and decided to ask it here instead of opening up a new thread; so sorry to anyone who may feel I'm hijacking this 2 year old thread.

My situation is different from the OP's, but similar enough that I felt it appropriate to post here. I tried self-learning Japanese as a teenager and failed miserably; I think it has more to do with my own lack of organization and seriousness then anything to do with the language though. Now I'm in college, and there is that two year language requirement to deal with.

I'm doing my first two years at community college as it's cheaper then a big university and my school, unfortunately doesn't have Chinese classes, but I'm sure that by the time I transfer over I could easily get a good enough HSK score to not need to take classes. BUT I've always promised myself that "eventually" I would come back to Japanese...

I'm thinking that right now would be a good opportunity because my school has a very well established Japanese department and since I'm paying to go to school anyways I might as well take the classes. My only worry is that taking on Japanese formally at school would cause my Mandarin level to stagnate; and, in all honesty, even if I took Japanese classes, Chinese would still be my main focus...

SO, my questions are: Would it be worth it to take the classes? Has anyone here done anything similar and has it affected your Chinese learning in any way (positive or negative)? Is it doable?

Sorry for the looooong post and thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to reply.

[renzhe]

I know plenty of people who have learned conversational Japanese without really knowing many kanji.

If you do that, I don't see why learning Japanese would be different from learning any other language at the same time as Chinese. Gramatically and phonetically, they are quite different.

[Areckx]

I'm hardly fluent in Japanese, but I have, however, been immersed in it for about 10 years now, with only the last two to three years spent seriously studying it.

It is helping me with Chinese in the sense that I already went through the hanzi(kanji) phase that I would like to call "tsukue de golpe" (...)

basically, whether you start Chinese or Japanese first, you're going to be drilling the characters into your skull so hard that you'll bang your head on the desk until they finally start looking like words instead of pictures.

Japanese is very unique, and like Chinese, has a seemingly infinite spectrum of cultural and language nuances. I think the two, even Korean, are perfect languages to study together. All of these languages share histories, and are connected in some form to old-Chinese.

I can't say how hard it will be learning both simultaneously, since I didn't start Chinese until about five months ago. There are so many differences in language and usage, but there are also so many things that are connected.

[5h09un]

Master one and then go for the other. You're going to mix things up a lot, otherwise.

[Hofmann]

I find it more efficient to learn one after the other (but learners differ), so it depends on whether or not you're OK with ignoring one for a while.

[Areckx]

Well, if you can ever consider a language to be "mastered." (I don't think so)

But if you, like most people, mean "reach a working fluency, comfortable with explaining and asking about a large variety of topics, can appreciate media and the arts made for native speakers, and can sit down and enjoy a book or learn from a textbook written in the language," then I guess yes, you should wait until you reach that level.

I think that my Japanese hit a hard plateau about a year back, however, and until I am able to live in the country, I decided to give Chinese a start.(A real start, since I have casually watched Chinese media in the past)

[denavious]

I know i am a bit late in replying, but i have been studying both Chinese and Japanese for the past 5 years at Uni. (so a bit different than your circumstances) But both definitely can be done together, and in my opinion compliment each other. However I will say that with Japanese I find that I can read many more things than I can with my Chinese. At this point the big difference between my usage abilities of the two is vocab and grammar. With my Chinese I often feel my vocab is not large enough, especially since the vocab. is more specialized and reliant on circumstance than Japanese. With Japanese I feel that the grammar is endless, although i find that i can read most publications and some books grammar can really get complicated. Even when all of the grammar patterns are known the way that authors decide to use them can really leave a non-native completely puzzled.

[Areckx]

I feel the same way, except with Japanese for me, it's more of an issue of ambiguity than grammar. Grammar becomes second nature after awhile, and you'll start to not even worry about how you say something, because people will usually get it. Once you get the different forms (te form, etc) and expose yourself to it enough, it becomes more of cadence and comfortability. (I don't think that's a word...)

There are a lot of grammar points I am missing, I know this. I think my biggest weakness is still vocabulary, so until I can sit down and be instructed in JAPANESE about grammar, I'm going to go with my instinct. (Like we did in American high school; we learned finer grammar points after a lot of practice in reading and writing)

[Varaus]

Isn't there anybody who studied / is studying Japanese in Chinese language in China? I'm currently in China, taking chinese language course in order to prepare for HSK exam and then enter a university. I have studied both japanese and chinese so I know their difficulty and differences. I plan to study japanese at Chinese university (I would like to save time studying two languages at once) but I really have no idea if it's doable, that's why I'm looking for someone to solve my doubts.

Thanks in advance!

[roddy]

Doable in what sense? I'm pretty sure if you pay the tuition fees they'll let you on to a degree course, but I don't have massive amounts of faith in Chinese university language teaching methods. I'd be more inclined to enrol on a Chinese course and do the Japanese self-study - availing yourself of your numerous Japanese classmates. Do you actually want to complete a degree?

Dalian might be a good place to look - does a lot of business with Japan, loads of Japanese speakers around (both Japanese and Chinese / foreign) and 大外 has I think a reasonable reputation.

[KingVietKong]

I'm coming at this from the opposite direction. I've lived in Japan for some time and studied Japanese, and while it's not perfect I'm at a decently fluent level. When I studied Chinese (for a very short time) in a course taught in Japanese early on, I found myself so devoted to figuring out the Japanese portion that the Chinese part was almost secondary. Now that I don't really need a dictionary to read a book or spend a lot of time figuring out new words from context or kanji meaning, I'm finding my return to elementary Chinese study much easier (though I've just started so for all I know I'm in for a storm in a few weeks). So in that sense if you don't have the time I would focus on your first chosen language, then move on to learning Japanese once you felt more confident.

As for similarities, there's not a whole lot of them. Yes there's a lot of Japanese words which are derived from Chinese, but keep in mind that the Chinese reading of any given character is whatever the Japanese person heard a thousand years ago and then adapted to the Japanese syllabary. All of the characters retained their individual meanings but because they were adapted for use in a language that was already basically fully developed, you can't rely 100% on your knowledge of Hanzi to assist your vocab acquisition, and may have to flat out ignore what you already know to make headway. I find myself overwriting Hanzi readings with Kanji ones on accident. Grammatically, Chinese is far more similar to English than Japanese. From my peers I've heard the transition between Korean and Japanese is easier in terms of grammar due to their parallels, though I know nothing of it personally. There's some similar particle usage between Chinese and Japanese, but it's nothing huge as far as I'm aware.

If you have the time I'd say go for it though. It's always more efficient to do things one at a time but if you got time to kill why not? If you do both, here's the resources I use when teaching:

Elementary Text Books - Genki I and II, Yokoso (unfortunately out of print)

Kanji - Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, Kanji Kentei (漢字検定）prep books. There's a ton of them, they follow the Japanese grade school system, so while not the most efficient method they are great measurement tools for your progress, and good sources of words and drills.

Flash card software - Anki (has awesome plugins for both Japanese and Chinese which save immense amounts of time, also free), Mnemosyne (good, but not as good as anki)

Literature - Kitchen by Yoshimoto Banana (after about 8-10 months of dedicated study [ie know your hiragana/katakana and some kanji] if you were to start reading this book and mining it for words and real usage you'd be at the top of the class), A Wild Sheep Chase by Murakami Haruki (harder than Kitchen, but still approachable after a year and half or so, if you're willing to sink the time)

Dictionaries - Sanseido Pocket Dictionary

Dictionary of Basic Grammar (also intermediate and advanced versions, steep at 40 bucks a pop though and can be daunting to use without direction)