Chinese vs Japanese: Which is More Difficult to learn? | Learn Languages 

Yes, the more your learn the more you see there is so much more you don't konw.

No it is quite the opposite. Once you are familiar with the grammar structure its easy to understand Japanese.

The steepest obstacles that seperate the beginners from those who learn beyond is the first set of Kanji and internalizing verb/adjective conjugations. Once the character salad a sentence is comprised of clicks by itself in your brain, you understand the complexity that is inherent to japanese

漢語母語的人學日語的順序這樣會很簡單：日語（掌握到初階後）➡️韓語（掌握到高階後）➡️日語（輕鬆高階）

Thank you so much for that comment. I strive to fill in the gaps in the information on RU-vid.

コメントありがとうございます！大学で中国語を学んでいたとのこと、とても興味深いですね。確かに、日本語と中国語は漢字を共有しているため、一部の語彙や表現が理解しやすいという利点がありますね。文法の違いにも触れていただき、ありがとうございます。中国語を学ぶ際に感じた体験談を共有してくださり、大変感謝しています。今後も言語学習に関する面白い情報や経験を共有できれば幸いです。

Right, I think the easiest part of Chinese is the grammar, and the hardest is probably the pronunciation, since it contains tones which doesn’t exist in most languages

台湾人です。私も大学で日本語を勉強して、あなたと同じ思いをしました。🤣

確かに中国語の発音は難しいけど、日本人にとって発音が難しいのはどの言語も一緒です。英語も難しい。なぜなら私たちは外来語をカタカナにあてはめたのと、最小の発音区分しか持っていないから(笑)。。文法は漢字が助けてくれる分、あきらかに簡単ですね。

中文语法本来就是世界上最简单的啊，基本可以说根本没有语法

I totally agree!

bro, it depends on your mother tongue and the languages ​​you speak. As a Brazilian speaker of Portuguese I still feel that Mandarin is more difficult, but even so I don't speak Mandarin or Japanese 😅

@@maca_atomica_animacoes For people who speak Germanic or Romantic languages, they are both still pretty difficult. It's like comparing if it's easier to lift a 115kg rock or a 120kg rock. One is slightly easier but both are difficult.

@@coolbrotherf127 concordo, os dois são difíceis, isso é verdade

@@coolbrotherf127 　Japanese grammar is much more straightforward than Chinese or even English. For this reason alone, Japanese should be easier to learn. Also, you don't need to learn all the Kanji to communicate in Japanese, whereas in Chinese, Kanji is essential and you also have different tones for each character, which represent different meanings. For example, "Konbanwa" means good evening in Japanese, whereas in Chinese, you could use "下午好" or "午安， 安means peaceful" to convey the same meaning. You can combine different characters to have the same meaning in Chinese.Some words could have 4 or 5 combinations which makes it much harder to become fluent because people would use them differently. But you can never misunderstand English words or Japanese words.

Thank you so much

Thanks so much for your support.

Thanks... I really appreciate it 🙏

Thank you so much for your support 🙏

Yes...

Kaname is the goat

THANKS

Wow, thank you! I appreciate the encouragement 🙏

Thanks for your input.

Awesome, thank you!

Thank you very much! I really appreciate your comment.

There are similarities with Turkish... I am starting to study your language now. Thanks for sharing your experiences in Japan.

@@polyglotdreams yes, the word order especially. BTW another experience regarding kanji readings. I once read Hitachi (日立) as “nichiritsu”, and the text was about companies too!

I found Chinese easier actually

@@hayabusa1329 grammatically yes, if you manage the kanji in Japanese you would manage the characters as well. However the tones…oh boy, my nightmare.

​@@yorgunsamurayyes

Much appreciated!

That is very kind. Thanks

I really appreciate your encouragement.

I think because he is an academic and not some poor youtube influencer wannabe! Good for him, god bless

You are so welcome. Thanks for your support 🙏

@@JoshPecksDad There is also a reason why the US foreign office ranks Japanese as the hardest language. I speak from my personal experience and not your opposite syndrome.

I am in agreement with the op, due to the reason the FSI also rated Japanese more difficult than Mandarin Chinese and even Cantonese Chinese. DLI has a similar listing. By the way you are literally stating to the op who is a speaker of Mandarin and Taiwanese, that he was wrong about his own experience about Japanese being more difficult, than Mandarin showed your own ignorance.@@JoshPecksDad

Both the FSI and DLI has the same type of rating. Proving you correct. I did contact the DLI and wanted to take one of their language course as a civilian, but it was a no go, as it was only for people who were going to work at the DLI.@@user-ho8zn9rd2n

The multiple readings can be difficult for Japanese native speakers too.

The Japanese just need to use hiragana and put spaces between the words and boom problems solved.

Thanks... welcome 🙏 to the community

Thanks, will do!

Definitely... language and culture are united.

Much appreciated!

有り難うございました、頑張って下さい

@@polyglotdreamsthe use of kanji in this sentence is rare to see and I think you made the point that having the kanji sometimes can obscure the reading and comprehension 😂. Thanks for sharing. Love the video.

Glad it was helpful! Thank for that feedback

Then we do agree... thanks for your input.

In English you can change the full stop , or period , into comma , in order to prolong your sentence .But this can not be done in Chinese .

@@tianz1993 example: I met her yesterday . → I met her yesterday , at the train station . 我昨天和她见面了。我昨天在车站和她见面了。我昨天和她在车站见面了。 “我昨天和她见面在车站” ？

Those who have the easiest time learning Japanese language are the ethnic Koreans, Mongols, and Turkic speakers from China. They already know most of the KANJI used in Japan, and they instinctively understand Japanese grammar structure because of its similarity to Korean, Mongolian, and Turkic languages. (Tibeto-Burmese, Hungarian, Finn/Estonian speakers may also have similar grammatical advantages.) Many of them are able to have basic conversations in 6 months, and some are reaching N1-level in 3 years. Pronunciation is interesting too. From what we can observe, not all Chinese, Vietnamese, or Koreans are able to pronounce Japanese with the correct phonetics and pitch accent (i.e. "intonation"). Yet, there are native-Russian/Slavic, Mongolian, and Turkic/Tatar speakers who have very little difficulty due to phonetic overlap. Spanish/Italian/Romanian speakers appear to have an easier time with Japanese phonetics and intonation as well. As for native English speakers, the US State Department classifies Japanese as Level 4, or the most difficult to learn along with Chinese, Korean, and Arabic. Due to the history of England/English, Germanic and Latin/Romance languages are classified as Level 1 or 2 for native English speakers. My impression is that Germanic/English-speakers generally have far more difficulty mastering Japanese than Slavic/Russian-speakers from Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia. People from Central Asia are language geniuses, because you will hear them speaking Japanese like a near-native but often times Japanese is their 3rd, 4th or 5th language after Turkic/Tajik, Russian, and English. It's true that Chinese grammar is SVO and is similar to English. Yet, I think you need to be raised and educated in East Asia to know why the word "contradiction" is written as 矛盾. (It's the same with words/concepts/idioms such as 約束, 背水の陣, 四面楚歌, 臥薪嘗胆 that derive from historical Chinese tales, texts and practices.) I'm sure you know that Vietnam is 越南. Hanoi was historically written as 河内, and Ho Chi Ming is written as 胡志明 in KANJI. For us, the name starts to make sense when we recognize the KANJI, otherwise it's just random combination of gibberish sounds. Hanoi still suffers from periodic flooding.

@papayongsarninei8133 ？这不是语序的问题吗，你也可以直接说“我昨天和她见面了，在车站那边。”是你自己想一句话说完吧。你加逗号呗，中文哪里加逗号都无所谓，不像英语有语法的作用。在口语里，就算你说：昨天，我和她，见面了，在车站。没人管你好吧。听得懂。

Cześć, Studiowałem na Uniwersytecie Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu. Bardzo dziękuję za Twój komentarz i podzielenie się doświadczeniami! Faktycznie, różnice między językiem chińskim a japońskim mogą być znaczące, zwłaszcza jeśli chodzi o aspekty takie jak ton, który, jak wspomniałeś, stanowi wyzwanie w nauce mandaryńskiego. Wielu Polaków rzeczywiście znajduje japońską wymowę stosunkowo łatwiejszą, co jest częściowo związane z większym podobieństwem do struktury fonetycznej polskiego. Trudności z opanowaniem dźwięków takich jak "ん" czy "r", a także akcentuacja wysokościowa są zrozumiałe, ale jak słusznie zauważyłeś, nawet nieperfekcyjna wymowa nie przeszkadza w zrozumieniu. Co do kanji, to zgadzam się, że różnorodność sposobów czytania może sprawiać trudności, ale umiejętność rozpoznawania znaczenia kanji na podstawie klucza jest bardzo przydatna. Keigo, czyli japoński język uprzejmości, faktycznie może być trudny do opanowania ze względu na jego złożoność i różnorodność form. Rozumiem Twoją decyzję o niekontynuowaniu nauki mandaryńskiego i skupieniu się na japońskim. Każdy język ma swoje unikalne wyzwania, ale pasja do nauki i zrozumienie kultury może znacznie ułatwić proces. Życzę Ci powodzenia w dalszej nauce japońskiego i mam nadzieję, że znajdziesz w tym procesie wiele satysfakcji!

@@polyglotdreams dziekuje za odpowiedz :) Ja studiowalam japonistyke w Krakowie 20 lat temu. Potem mialam dluzsza przerwe w kontakcie z jezykiem i okolo 2020 zaczelam lekcje online z naciskem na mowienie. Bylam z rodzina w Japonii w zeszlym roku i w sprawch codziennych porozumiewalam sie bez wiekszego klopotu - bardzo mnie to podbudowalo i zachecilo do dalszej nauki :) W tym roku znowu wybieram sie do Japonii, tym razem sama. Na pewno chetnie bede zagladac na pana kanal! Przepraszam za brak polskich znakow, mieszkam w Irlandii i nie mam ich na sluzbowym laptopie.

Thanks so much for your support!

I am a tutor in both Japanese and Mandarin in case you are interested 🙌

Glad you liked it! Thanks

有り難うございました

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Great... welcome to Asian languages.

Great... all the best in your studies! THANKS for the comment.

Very few achieve it.

Is pitch accent more difficult to learn than tones or stress?

It's interesting, I don't believe pitch accent (or "intonation") is taught in school in Japan, so they just gain an inherent understanding of it by virtue or being surrounded by the language growing up

Thanks for sharing!

我想学西班牙语

Thanks so much

頑張ってください

Thanks so much for your comment.

English is my first language, but I also speak Mandarin and Cantonese, and read Chinese (not very well, but enough to get by most of the time). I'm curious about what you mean about not being able to tell where a Chinese word begins and ends.

@@tinyRedLeaf Thank you for the question. In both Chinese and Japanese, characters can either stand alone or be part of a compound word. The challenge arises because sometimes it's unclear whether a character is forming a compound with the one before it or the one after it. Unlike in Japanese, where markers like particles or regular conjugations indicate word boundaries for multi-character words, Chinese lacks such clear indicators, making it more difficult to discern where one word ends and another begins solely based on the characters. Therefore, distinguishing between individual characters and compounds can be less straightforward in Chinese compared to Japanese.

Thank you for your explanation. That's quite novel to me, and I think it comes down to one's knowledge of Chinese vocabulary. As a native speaker of both Mandarin and Cantonese, I don't experience such difficulties: the greatest challenge of reading Chinese remains that of recognising the characters and remembering how the character is pronounced in that instance. The "words" aren't difficult to discern within a written sentence when one knows them from everyday speech. In my experience, Japanese is much harder to learn, due to how words and sentences are phrased differently because of tense and contextual conjugations - these don't exist in Chinese, as pointed out in the video.

This. I swear, the amount of gairaigo, sometimes even for words which already exist in tons of ways in Japanese is astounding. I feel like you can pretty much hold a conversation with a Japanese speaker with maybe just vocab for connectors and the inflections, etc. and pretty much substitute like, half the verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc. with Japanese pronunciations of English words. Some of them like yankee turning into delinquent or mansion becoming another term for apartment, etc. however do have different meanings from their English origins.

Thanks

Thank you so much!

Yes, we agree.

Glad you think so! THANKS

Thanks for sharing!

Yes. It is quite strange that pitch is not taught at an early stage.

It's a good idea to read the rules on pronunciation in the NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary. If you're serious about learning Japanese, I think having that dictionary is essential.

My Pleasure! Thank you for your kind comment.

Not so many different readings like Japanese

Even university graduates have to brush up on polite language.

Although Chinese pronunciation is difficult to practice, if you speak slowly, Chinese people can understand you even if the pronunciation is incorrect.

Yes... thanks for affirming what I said about Japanese and Korean

Korean has no kanji, so you say an obvious thing.

It really depends where you come from. Spanish or Italian would be easy for me, at least in the beginning, since I am French. While Norwegians or Germans might find it difficult.

he is talking about the grammar not the writing system. korean and japanese are similar in grammar. chinese is completely different@@yugiohfanatic1964

Modern korean doesn't use Chinese characters, but many korean words are chinese and japanese-based. So there are quite a few words that have similar pronunciation.

Thanks... coming soon.

Thanks so much... Cantonese helps with the readings of some Japanese characters. BTW Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese and Korean are head final left branching, the opposite of English. The person who came yesterday... 昨日来た人

Thanks so much!

Go for N1 ... you can do it

Even for native Japanese speakers, keigo is difficult. Many Japanese write/speak keigo incorrectly. Also, on these days, many people can read kanji but cannot write them correctly. We don’t do handwriting much anymore, just type words on the PC or phone instead, so we don’t need to remember detail forms of kanji. It’s similar for English speakers that they don’t need to remember correct spelling of words as they get automatically corrected on the PC/phone.

LOL, thanks ... yes 67, born in 1956.

My pleasure 🙏

Glad you think so!

Thanks for your input... all the best to uou Herr in Japan

I think once you overcome the difficulties of tonal Chinese, forming sentences in Chinese is easier in Japanese as Chinese has less grammatical rules as you can rearrange characters and still make sense. As Chinese I struggle to form sentences in Japanese

The vowels are the same...

@@polyglotdreams yes that helps a lot with a lot of pronunciation, whereas I see monolingual English speakers struggle a little more in that department.

Wow... great... thanks for joining us here.

Thanks so much...

that's also a reason why china never moved onto a phonetic based writing system since there hasn't been a unified spoken language across china until the past few decades.

Exactly... motivation and effort are key factors.

aint not way japanese is easy language to pronounce lol are you even aware of pitch accent

​@@charlesrodolf7309Pronunciation and intonation are two different things. Japanese pronunciation is incredibly easy to master for Non-English speakers, the intonation (including pitch) may be harder, but it's no way near the difficulty of tonal languages.

@@charlesrodolf7309 I majored in Japanese Linguistics, took Dogen's pitch accent course on Patreon, so I think I'm aware of it lol Every language has a form of pitch accent in the flow of a sentence or rises and changes in intonation of individual words (Japanese isn't completely flat, and some people might sound like a robot if they speak in monotone). To support your point: Japanese has way more variations of pitch-accent for dozens of dialects not including standard Japanese like if you were to learn Kansai ben, there's still subtle differences between Osaka, Kyoto, Hyougo, Wakayama and everything can be quite different in isolation (especially completely different from Standard dialect/Tokyo). But for the standard dialect, there are many resources nowadays for people that study it. 20 years ago it wasn't that popular to study. But let me ask you this question. If there are many regions in Japan with different forms of pitch accent, then are there many 'correct' ways to pronounce it in Japanese? And is it easy to be understood without pitch accent? How do Japanese people understand others from different regions? Basically, you can become fluent in the language without studying pitch accent in isolation (natives never do), and still be completely understood even if you don't sound like a standard speaker from Tokyo, sometimes people give off being raised in America or other country vibes when they are fluent but haven't mastered pitch-accent, but it doesn't change the fact that you are understood completely (and sometimes intuitively have a good pronunciation and natural flow in your pitch accent, from just being exposed to the language enough) . Try speaking Chinese without ever learning the tones...(maybe possible too with enough exposure, but seems a lot harder) Well, if you have like 10k,20k hours of listening to the language you absorb the flow and don't really need to study pitch-accent, it's only like a spice to improve your language ability closer to native-level language. Listening to the language is more important for the first year or two, and just knowing the pitch accent basic patterns, there's only like 4 main ones you need and it's only something I occasionally go back to if I feel off (or want to sound more native). Basically you will know when you are off if you have enough exposure to the language. I think people who are perfectionists like Dogen really zone in on pitch accent, and I do find other regions more challenging to study for pitch accent because lack of resources, but I can sometimes get Kansaiben pitch accent correct since I lived there and watch a lot of youtube videos with speakers from the region. But I don't really search for ways to study it in isolation or zone in on individual words. Overall sentence flow has always made more sense for me, since in a conversation you won't slowly pronounce individual words, but use them with surrounding words/sentence and context. Also pitch accent changes depending on what words follow, so you could sometimes sound unnatural if you study it too much in isolation. Much more useful to shadow a full sentence if you are at an advanced level or fluent. And occasionally look something up if you feel off.

@@charlesrodolf7309 　every region in Japan has a different pitch accent, and a japanese person can understand clearly absolutely any japanese person. And even if pitch was really that important, it would still be way easier than english

It is challenging, but I hope you succeed

How did you get interested in it? How long have you been learning?

@@sahasraillindra I have been learning Mandarin Chinese for almost 1.5 years now,and my interest in Mandarin Chinese developed because of the Chinese script as it looks so beautiful and appalling to me and also during my Chinese learning journey, I started watching C-Dramas and I realised a lot of similarities in Indian and Chinese culture which kept me motivated to learn Chinese.Also I saw vlogs of different Indian vloggers travelling to China which also made me wanting to travel to China at least once and experience it on my own. Edit: Apologies if my English is bad 🫠

​@@atharv_bajpai21Your English looks good to me, but I think you meant appealing instead of appalling, but the characters could be appealing because of their beauty and appalling because of their difficulty at the same time. :+)

English is dramatically similar to chinese, maybe for this reason is easier learning mandarin in terms of?speak ing as a Chinese, I speak Spanish and living Spain 16 years, then I found that the pronunciation of Japanese is similar to Spanish😂😂

Glad you enjoyed it. I really appreciate your support.

Thanks so much for appreciating my work

Thank you so much for the kind words and sharing your experiences.

Which language?

Thanks

Cebu.. Philippines 🇵🇭

I don't think you understand. Words come first, in any language. The vocabulary already exists and you designate written letters to represemt the words. The only thing that increases the number of words are loan words and fusions of existing words. The things you call pronounciations are seperate words that have been given the same letters for writing because the meaning of the letter is the same or similar.

@@vivida7160 Of course, you are correct in that a large number of words came even before the Japanese borrowed the Chinese characters. But the Japanese made these characters their own naturally creating the term kanji "漢字" to them. While languages like English that only use phonetic alphabets do use word roots to form new words, it is more common just to simply use two existing words to describe things. On the other hand, it is a natural progression was for the Japanese to mix these ‘Kanji’ into different combinations. They are used either one of many possible Japanese pronunciations, known as ‘Kun’yomi’, or adopted the Chinese pronunciations, known as ‘On’yomi’. This process formed new words that had not previously existed.” “They combined kanji with complementary meanings and desired sounds to create entirely new words.” I’ve heard Japanese people talking about the beauty and descriptiveness of the Japanese language saying that there are over 100 different words to describe rain. Here are just a few examples: Ame (雨): This is the basic word for rain. Kosame (小雨): This term is used to describe light rain. Ooame (大雨): This term is used to describe heavy rain. Niwaka Ame (にわか雨): This term is used to describe sudden rain. Yuudachi (夕立): This term is used to describe heavy evening rain. Touriame (通り雨): This term is used to describe rain that starts and stops suddenly. It is so easy and actually artistic to fit characters together in ways that seem so natural and retain their original meaning for a millennia. それが日本語の漢字です。

@@photon434 You've just told me you don't understand. The words were designated Chinese letters based on meaning. The words that are pronounced the Chinese way are Chinese loan words. Not inventive complucated ways of pronouncing Chinese letters.

The multiple pronunciations indicate different usage and meanings as you may have noticed

Yes... the cultural aspects are extremely important.

Yes... please watch this video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aOlHa9OZnxI.htmlsi=RFQHFMhWGfpYnS-_

Yes very interesting... thanks

thank you for sharing

It depends on your interests and the amount of time you can dedicate to learning. I see nothing negative about learning both at the same time. I learned Chinese here in Japan in Japanese as I was improving my ability in Japanese (which I first started studying in Poland in 1979 when I was studying Slavic languages in Poznan)... So I started with Japanese first. But I found it interesting to study both at the same time and learn all three types of characters. I think it helps you remember the differences in character pronunciation.

Yes. Certainly, motivation is a core factor.

I have no motivation to do anything 😢, I barely managed to learn hiragana and katakana, kanji is too much for me

I love traditional characters

That is a valid point... Nevertheless, there are other readings not given in the examples.

⁠​⁠Yeah, great point. I’m pretty sure there are other readings for obscure words in classical literature and in modern first names. I’ve stumbled upon lots of words with a reading not referenced in the kanji dictionary I use when reading novels.

​@@Raifu__How would you know a given word's reading in a book? Or do you mean audiobooks? - Adûnâi

@@angamaitesangahyando685 Simply by knowing the word. : If you learn kanji's, you'll have to make a guess that will prove wrong in a lot of cases. But when you know the word 年上 is pronounced "toshiue", you won't make the mistake of reading it "nenjou" (another reading of the same kanjis, which is wrong here). There are other cases where 2 readings are both okay, and you choose what you prefer (but those are low frequency words) Honestly, there are cases where you have to get some experience in listening to guess which reading a word has in a specific context. For example, 入る which can be both read "iru" or "hairu" depending on context. -> This is rare. Mostly, you can guess the reading when reading a book without audio input by knowing the word.

Thanks

Thank you!

I would advise getting good at Japanese first, and then you can study Korean and Chinese... at the same time if you wish.

​@@polyglotdreamsthank you for your advice. Much appreciated.

Fantastic... all the best to you!

Musical ability surely can help.

因为他们学习的教材是北京话的发音，很奇怪的发音，只有本人到了中国，才会发现，发音不重要，到了中国南方，根本不存在什么发音，都是一个音，

@@user-lg1zz4yd3k ...啥，都是一个音，你开玩笑吗

The vowels are similar...

In China you learn 2500 Chinese characters by the end of elementary school. For comparison's sake, the highest JPLT test, the N1, requires knowing "only" about 2,000.

Yeah , they have the same 5 vowels

頑張って下さい

あなたの文はカンペキですし正しい道をあゆんでいます。ちなみに「なさる」や「いたす」は古語にちかいです。陛下がこのことをなされた、「なさる」はこういう文でつかいます。

「なさる」「いたす」は古語ではありません。ごく当たり前に日常で使われていますよ！

Yes, it is complicated but worth the effort.

My pleasure! Thanks for your support.

One thing is being able to communicate in another thing is to exactly imitate a native speaker, and in that case, Japanese is very challenging, as you pointed out.

The short answer is learners of Japanese don’t pay enough attention to pitch accent. Sure, it’s not the be all and end all and pitch accent differs by region in Japan. However, taking Tokyo pitch accent as standard, imitating the correct pitch accent is absolutely fundamental to speaking Japanese well. Think about 花が versus 鼻が, or 端を versus 橋を

​@@polyglotdreams Yea and I guess Japanese is mora-timed which makes it extremely unique although vowels are super simple.

​@@polyglotdreams He asked you where you took that information from that there are fewer people good at speaking Japanese than Chinese. Show me your data, please. Mandarin is spoken in Mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore so I really doubt there are great casual Chinese speakers outside of this sinosphere. In fact most polyglots who claim to know Chinese are frauds, most of them can't even pass a HSK 3/4 exam, they just memorize common phrases and sentences. I've put some to the test and they all failed, they can't really type and handwrite coherent Chinese let alone read an intermediate/advanced Chinese text. I've been learning Chinese for 5 years and even so I don't even dare say I'm fluent or give the slightest impression I can compare to Chinese native speakers. I do know I could brag myself a lot about this knowledge I've built both in and outside China but I don't really feel I yet deserve such admiration, I would be misleading people and myself. As for Japanese, the hardest aspect within Japanese language is actually Chinese(the Kanjis originally called Hanzi), remove the Kanjis in Japanese and then Japanese becomes one of the easiest languages to master.

​​@@SK-so1ml Japanese is syllable-timed. There arent languages that are mora-timed actually. Mora-timing is way too robotic to exist in the real world languages

大変ですよ❗

謝謝你學中文❤ありがとうございます❤

日本人快向中国道歉

聞いていい? ↓ 伺ってもよろしいでしょうか。 の方がより自然です。 会社でもお客さんに使ってます。

Give Japanese a try.

All the best... thanks for sharing

。。。中国是文字为准的国家，发音不重要，汉字传播到日本韩国，汉字的含义也不变。差别就是语法，发音不同不用奇怪，那只是汉字的古音，日本韩国的汉字发音与中国的南方发音相似，日本人使用汉字偏向中国古代用字习惯。中国的南方也一样，日本人用汉字就如中国秦朝汉朝一样，而中国现代汉语用字是很多样的，都能表达同一个意思。

和製漢語

I like that... that's funny

How?

Yes...

Ever since I was 18 years old, I learned more than one language at the same time. I've even studied Portuguese in Spanish.

Can you read Japanese at a high level? Polite speech is not a random goal... it is an crucial part of learning to speak Japanese and cannot be compared to Chinese vs Thai... only Chinese vs. Korean.

@@polyglotdreams I am fluent in both Japanese and Chinese, and I fully undestand polite speech is an integral part of the language. My point is that it doesn't make a separate category when comparing two languages, but rather as a part contributing to the difficulty in Japanee grammer (or maybe count it as extra vocab). The other three main categories: grammer, pronounciation and writing(spelling) make a good framework for comparing languages in general.

Really depends on what your goal is for the language. If you just want to be able to minimally communicate by speaking and listening then I think Japanese is easier because it’s probably easier to hear and say. You could just learn phrases and vocabulary and they aren’t hard to pronounce. Being a foreigner, Japanese ppl with accommodate to your level and congratulate you on how great your Japanese is. But as OP says, this is not anywhere close to a fluent level of Japanese. To understand Japanese, learning kanji and its vocabulary is a must. As well as all the ways forms of verbs, politeness etc. If you can’t fluently use these effectively, you aren’t fluent in Japanese. Working in a Japanese environment, understanding the social situations going on around you, identifying how you should act to different people and how you are seen by different ppl is impossible if you can’t do this. But you won’t realize it if you aren’t from Japan because the concepts are so foreign, and nuances are masked by the indirectness of the language

@@4kOnix I'm kind of repeating myself by now but what I'm saying is that polite speech don't make sense as a standalone category in comparing languages, because if it does, it should appear in comparison of any and every language. Unlike grammar, which should be discussed no matter you're comparing English vs Russian or Arabic vs Spanish or whatever. I'm not even saying you shouldn't consider the difficulty brought by polite speech, it's just not a separate category.