I’ve been taking Japanese for 1.5 years now, and I’m at an intermediate level. I can write kana, and most importantly, some kanji. I want to tackle another language, as I simply love language-learning and I might be going into linguistics, but I’m not sure which language I should choose. I’ve heard that Korean has a very similar grammar system, but of course, knowing Kanji will help with Chinese.
Which should I choose? I don’t care which is “easier,” but I will definitely take that into account as well as how often I might mix up the languages. Thank you!
Kanji definitely would help some with learning Chinese, but Hangul is not difficult to learn and Korean is a beautiful language too. But it all comes down to the fact that you should study the language and culture that interests you the most.
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I have studied Chinese for 3 years, so I’m going to be a bit biased. But Chinese grammar is actually very easy and there’s very little focus on tones at the beginner level. When I studied it at school, there were A LOT of Japanese students in my classes, and they said that knowing Japanese did make it easier in the beginning, but as you continue learning Chinese, any advantage you have WILL go away. It only helps to understand the meanings of characters and how to write them; it won’t help with pronunciation in any way.
Learning how to read and write in Chinese is not impossible though. Whether you choose to learn simplified or traditional (traditional is harder, but FAR more useful), you need to stick with one in order to avoid confusion. After you learn some basic radicals and characters, it becomes much easier to memorize how to read and write characters and to even know what new characters mean! With time and practice, they will no longer look like random lines and squiggles. Instead, you will notice how each character is rich with meaning, history, and purpose. It is a beautiful language and I highly encourage you to try it out.