There is no absolutely difficult language compared to all others. After all, children have no problem learning their native language, whatever it may be. However, adults who speak one or more languages find it easier to speak a language that is closer in relation to their native language. For example, for a Russian speaker, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian will be the least difficult.
In terms of writing, Chinese and Japanese are difficult languages to learn even for native speakers.
Every language is a challenge in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, spelling, etc. The more similar these problems are to those you solved when you were learning your native language, the less difficult it will be language to learn.
An interesting study was done by the Institute for the Protection of Languages in Monterey, California. All foreign languages taught here were divided into groups according to degree of difficulty. There were four groups: from “ himself lung" before " the most difficult» depending on how many hours of teaching students (mostly English-speaking) need to be devoted to in order for them to reach a certain level.
Below is the comparison: 1 = least complex, 4 = the most difficult.
- Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Haitian Creole, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish.
- Bulgarian, Dari, Farsi (Persian), German, Modern Greek, Hindi-Urdu, Indonesian, Malay
- Amharic, Bengali, Burmese, Czech, Finnish, Modern Hebrew, Hungarian, Khmer (Cambodian), Lao, Nepali, Pilipino (Tagalog), Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhalese, Thai, Tamil, Turkish, Vietnamese.
- Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean
Chinese is harder to learn than English – officially proven
According to recent scientific research, it has been found that the human brain processes information differently depending on the language. The study looked at the brain activity of native English speakers and native Chinese speakers while they listened to speech in their native language. It was found that the Chinese use both hemispheres, while the British use only the left. Conclusion: understand and speak Chinese more difficult than in English.
Which language is more difficult to learn, Chinese or Japanese?
I would like to immediately note that we are talking about the Mandarin dialect of the Chinese language. Other dialects of the Chinese language have similar features, although they differ in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.
Learning to read and write in Japanese is possible and more difficult than in Chinese, because most Japanese characters (Kanji) have two or more pronunciations, while the vast majority of Chinese characters (Hanzi) have only one pronunciation. Also keep in mind that Japanese has two syllabaries (hiragana and katakana). On the other hand, some Japanese words and endings are easier to read than Chinese ones, since in the first case they are written phonetically using hiragana and katakana, while all Chinese words are written using Hanzi. If you don't know how to read Hanzi, you can only guess based on what you know.
The word order in Chinese is more or less close to the word order in English or other European languages, while the word order in Japanese is similar to Korean, Mongolian and Turkic. Therefore, for a native English speaker, Chinese is easier in this regard than Japanese.
Chinese grammar is considered easier to learn than Japanese. Chinese is an even more isolated language than English, lacking verb conjugation, cases, and grammatical gender. Moreover, the use of the plural in Chinese is limited and selective. Japanese is an agglutinative language and has many different endings for verbs, nouns and adjectives.
Japanese pronunciation is perhaps easier than Chinese. Japanese has a small number of sounds and no tones. However, Japanese words have different intonation contours that need to be learned in order to be understood. Although only a few Japanese words differ in intonation, so if you pronounce it incorrectly, you will most likely be understood. Chinese has a large range of sounds, and each syllable has its own tone. Incorrect use of tone can affect meaning. Most Chinese dialects have even more tones - 6 or 7 in Cantonese and 8 in Taiwanese, for example.
How long does it take to learn a language?
It all depends on what level you want to achieve and how much time you are willing to devote to studying. Some manage to acquire practical knowledge in a few months or even weeks, while others struggle for years and do not get any noticeable results.
If you use the methods described on our website, you will be able to master basic language skills in a period of several weeks to several months; 6-12 months are needed to learn to understand and participate in everyday conversation, and in 10 years you can learn to speak, understand, read and write fluently, at the level of a native speaker.
If you live in a country or area where a foreign language is spoken, you will be able to achieve success faster, especially if the locals do not know your language.
What is the most common language?
Below is a list of languages with the largest number of native speakers. If you choose one of them, you will have someone to talk to!
These are approximate figures showing the total number of native speakers, including those for whom these languages are a second language after their mother tongue. But this does not include the number of people who study these languages as a foreign language.
How difficult is Chinese?
Difficult:
- In Chinese almost no words common to European languages, so a Chinese student has to study a lot (in European languages we can find many common words). But even though some Chinese words share common roots with a number of Asian languages (especially Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese), they are difficult to recognize.
- Writing system It’s quite difficult to learn, although in theory there’s nothing complicated about it: you just need to memorize a lot.
- Chinese - tone, i.e., various syntagmas in speech not only add an emotional connotation, as, for example, in English; they serve to distinguish the meaning of words. How difficult it is depends on the student himself: students with good hearing can easily learn this.
Easily:
- Unlike many European languages, Chinese no irregular verbs or plural nouns, which have to be memorized, since the word has only one single form, without suffixes to denote time, number, case, etc. (there are a number of particles that serve to denote time, but they are unchanged and do not depend on those words , which they join.)
- The Chinese are always tolerant refer to the mistakes of foreigners - perhaps due to the fact that for many Chinese themselves the generally accepted state language is a second language.
In this article I want to discuss which language is better to learn:
Some of you are learning these two languages at once, others are just looking closely and choosing.
I don’t know Chinese myself, but I’ve talked a lot with people who teach or are learning Chinese. Therefore, I have my own point of view on this matter and will share it with you.
Let's, Firstly, let's look at these two languages in terms of benefits. Who learns Chinese and who learns Japanese and for what reasons?
Japanese Most often they are taught by people who are very passionate about Japanese culture and want to know it more and get to know it better. It is also taught by people who already live or plan to live in Japan. Having Japanese friends and a desire to communicate with them is another reason to learn Japanese.
Thus, if we take the total mass of people studying Japanese, then among them there are a lot of people who learn it at the call of their souls.
Studying the same Chinese language more like learning English. Chinese is mostly learned from a practical point of view, for example to get a good job. The Chinese economy is now developing very strongly. Russia has more ties with China than with Japan. Many rationally choose to study Chinese.
This doesn't mean you can't make money using Japanese, but it will be more difficult. You need not only to know the language, but also to be a professional in your field. It is also worth considering that Japan is not as open a country as China.
So if you're wondering, With which language are there more opportunities to earn money?, I would say that with Chinese. With the Japanese language there are also such opportunities, but you need to look for them, you need to make more efforts.
The second aspect is pronunciation. Let's compare pronunciation in Japanese and Chinese - which is easier and which is more difficult. Chinese has 4 tones, but Japanese does not. Japanese has tone accents, but no 4 tones.
Accordingly, in this regard, Chinese is much more difficult. There you can pronounce the same syllable in 4 different ways. It can be difficult to understand exactly what word is being spoken. Chinese is more difficult to understand by ear. The Japanese language is much simpler in this regard. Its pronunciation is easy for Russian people, and reading Japanese texts is also much easier.
And the third aspect is writing. It is known that the Japanese borrowed characters from China several thousand years ago. After this, the Japanese also invented 2 syllabic alphabet: hiragana and katakana, which were originally intended to sign the reading of Chinese characters.
If you visually compare Japanese text and Chinese, then Chinese will be written entirely using hieroglyphs, and Japanese text will be a mixture of hieroglyphs and syllabary symbols. In addition, reading characters in Japanese is often signed with hiragana at the top.
In this plan Japanese is easier to learn, the number of characters studied in it is smaller. You can not know them at all and read texts written on top of the hieroglyphs in hiragana. In Chinese, you need to know a lot of characters.
The main difficulty in learning Chinese is the amount of information which needs to be learned.
I told you my own opinion. Choose for yourself: what is closer to you, what culture is closer to you, what goals in learning the language you pursue.
And if you still decide to learn Japanese, sign up for our main course.
From year to year, knowledge of oriental languages is becoming more and more in demand, many people sign up for courses every month. Chinese can be called the most popular language, Korean and Japanese are slightly behind it. Many people who want to join Eastern culture are faced with the question: which of the three languages to choose?
If you…
... have nothing against metal chopsticks, easily put up with the lack of pillowcases and duvet covers, love spicy food, ultra-modern transport and unusual clothes, your choice is courses Korean language. In addition, you will have to take off your shoes at the doorstep of the house (not a centimeter beyond the outlined zone!), eat rice at every meal, go hiking and not smile in vain on the streets.
...tolerate the dirt on the streets, widespread smoking and noise, admire the ancient culture, are delighted with tea ceremonies and respect for elders - this course is for you Chinese language. In addition, you will see an incredible love for children, a free attitude towards punctuality and an ineradicable desire to deceive your partner at least a little in trading operations.
... value sophistication and silence, are ready to respect other people's traditions, even strange ones, are fans of raw fish, courses will be ideal for you Japanese language. Ikebana, origami, geisha art, haiku tercet, anime and manga, kabuki theater - you will learn all this by getting to know the culture of Japan better. Do not think that these are some complex matters - basic knowledge about, for example, calligraphy will be given to you by courses.
Chinese language: reasons for popularity
As mentioned above, Korean language courses attract far fewer applicants than Chinese courses. This is due to the fact that the Chinese language is much more widespread in the world, and even its complexity for the European mind does not deter determined listeners. In addition, business with China is very developed today, and the main purpose of training is usually work necessity.
On the other hand, there are much fewer specialists in Japan and Korea, so there will be little competition in the profession. Russia has stable ties with both of these countries. If you live in the Far East, then you will find a good job in any case - if, of course, you become a successful specialist in your field based on your studies.
When choosing an Eastern language to study, listen to your feelings: do you like the speech, writing, culture of the country; whether you can devote enough time to studying; How did you cope with pronunciation in other languages? Evaluate all aspects, and the right decision will appear in your head!
