<p>I start freshman year in the fall, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be a Biology major. However, I'm really interested in learning Chinese or Japanese.</p>
<p>I've taken four years of Spanish, and I am fluent in Spanish and Bengali (language spoken in Bengal/Bangladesh). My SAT II in Spanish places me out of the foreign language requirement, but I still want to try at least an introductory class. My dad, who had a bad experience trying to take French in college, tells me that starting foreign languages are incredibly hard in college if you are not a native speaker, because native speakers and kids that took the language in high school ruin test curves. Not to mention that you have to put a lot of work into introductory language classes (most are MTWRF).</p>
<p>Anyone have any advice on the matter? What's the workload like in an introductory foreign language class? And is it too much of a hassle for just being an interest?</p>
<p>Chinese is more practical. Japanese tends to be more interesting, due to its associated contemporary culture.</p>
<p>Depends on what your priorities are.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that by 2050, China’s economy will greatly overshadow the US’s (who will then be roughly tied with India), and Japan’s economy will slip from third largest to 8th. Japan’s decline in population will be drastic as well, while China’s will remain fairly level.</p>
<p>I learned Chinese, so I’m biased towards that. I loved learning it and the number of outside resources for learning it, and many other foreign languages, is huge. However, if you have a fear of work, then you should avoid taking either Chinese or Japanese.</p>
<p>At my college, an intro Mandarin class is worth 5 credits. So there is a decent amount of work being done.</p>
<p>Well I have a love for Japan so I’ll be taking Japanese so there’s my vote. It depends on which one you’re more interested in. It will easier for me to learn Japanese since I already listen to Japanese music daily, and watch a lot of shows in Japanese. It depends on easy you make one of the subjects for yourself.</p>
<p>My kids took 8 years of chinese language classes - there are many weekend chinese schools around certain major metros in the US. Many of them have parents that are native speakers. It was a massive amount of memorization. They’ve also spent time in asian countries. You may be competing against these kids in some colleges but I think that more and more students without asian language experience want that experience for the cultural and monetary benefits down the road.</p>
<p>Knowing spanish doesn’t help that much with chinese. I learned spanish in high-school and it has been useless to me for trying to learn chinese.</p>
<p>I prefer Japanese over Chinese (I’ve taken both). Japanese is far more interesting to me, linguistically and culturally. </p>
<p>However, Mandarin usually holds more merit when it comes to international relations, unless you’re aiming for a company/industry with close ties to Japan. </p>
<p>However (again), you’re an intended Biology major, so language is (apparently) just a strong side interest for you.</p>
<p>If you’re not intending to use a language for career purposes, I strongly suggest Japanese over Chinese. I just enjoy it a lot more.</p>
<p>If you plan on doing something with biology upon graduation you should see which country produces more research and has more job opportunities (if only to travel/work overseas temporarily).</p>
<p>Japanese is linguistically interesting, alright… it’s like the ■■■■■■■ child of Chinese and pure strangeness. Chinese feels much more coherent to me.</p>
<p>If you like manga/anime and dressing up gothic-lolita style, japanese is cool. If you prefer more classical culture I feel China is far more interesting. And really, I find Japanese poetry can’t hold a candle to Chinese poetry, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>Both languages are useful depending on your major. I took Japanese in middle school, high school, and a little in college (I’m not a manga/anime fan, I just thought it would be more interesting than Spanish, my only other choice). I’m probably biased, but I think Japanese is more interesting. It’s probably a little easier to learn too, at least in the written form because they use both an alphabet (well, 2 alphabets technically) and the kanji symbols, whereas Chinese uses only the symbols. Too much memorization for me…</p>
<p>Have taken Chinese 5 years middle school and HS. The Chinese government wants to promote Chinese literacy among foreigners and offers numerous educational and travel opportunities for little or no money. Check out Hanban website. I like it, if you are good at memorization and have a good ear for accents and dialect, you might like it. There are a billion Chinese so it should be useful.</p>
<p>Chinese is completely worthless. It’s my first language, and I know from experience, the more Chinese you know, the crappier all your other languages become. It’s incompatible with other languages, almost impossible to learn even if its your first language, and uses the most god-awful writing system ever invented.</p>
<p>Japanese is useful for entertainment purposes. If you like getting manga, anime, and video games before all of your friends (or getting to play the ones that never translated), Japanese is for you. The problem is that it’s almost as hard as Chinese.</p>
<p>Of course, neither of them will really be as useful as Spanish.</p>