Languages

[goat]

OK forumites, I need your help. As a part of my curriculum I need to take two semesters of a foreign language. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time making a decision. I've narrowed down the running to 3 choices: Chinese, Japanese, and Russian.

Ultimately, I'm considering 4 factors in deciding.

1) Professional useful-ness: It's pretty equal footing here, really, so you don't need to worry about this so much

2) Personal usefulness: how often I can use this in day to day settings. Currently I think Japanese has a slight edge, thanks to video games and anime, but I don't know how practical it will be having only two semesters.

3) Ease of use: none of these are particularly easy languages, but I don't know if there is something absolutely ridiculous lurking in the depths of the grammar of these languages, beyond the obvious difficulties.

4) Scheduling: I'll worry about this one, too.

So, a few extra bits you should probably know:
-These are 100-level university classes (supposedly 2 semesters being equivalent to 4 years of US High School language)
-I've already done 4 years of HS Spanish, that I don't particularly think I can make myself re-study. I've got a good handle on it, it's just that I don't have confidence in my ability to not approach things from a "pssht, I've already learned this" position (which is a really bad habit of mine)
-I've got friends that speak Japanese (one native, and one secondary and a few who know a smattering of it)
-Classes meet 5 days a week (which is why I'm so worried about liking the language)
-I'll be taking a full class-load in addition to the language
-I've pretty much got until tomorrow afternoon to make a decision (not an absolute deadline, but things will become progressively more difficult thereafter)

So, do any of you have experience with these you think would be particularly enlightening? Is there something I should particularly beware of? How much practical vocabulary would I pick up (I could see getting more vocab out of Russian than, say, Chinese due to the complexities of the language)?

[zqfmbg]

I'm not sure what to vote for, since I don't completely go for this, but I'm having echoes of my mom's voice in my mind: "Learn Chinese! More than a billion people speak it, and as China grows in world power, it'll be an advantage in business dealings later on in life!"

(I still haven't.)

[Master Gunner]

Cantonese or Manderine Chinese? From what I understand, they share the same (or similar) written language, but they're completely different when spoken.

As much as I think learning Russian would be awesome, and that would be my personal choice, from a geek perspective there may be more advantages to Japanese, especially if you do enjoy anime. So that's what I voted for, especially since you have people you can practice against outside of class.

[Matt]

Chinese will be progressively more useful for business over the next 20 years, but Japanese is VASTLY easier to learn.

-m

[Dutch guy]

I voted Russian because it's just bad-ass.

But for usefullness, mandarin Chinese is probably going to be a much better choice (in terms of future business needs. Although my view on the matter is, if a company doesn't have people speaking proper English they're not interesting to do international business with )

[goat]

Cantonese or Manderine Chinese? From what I understand, they share the same (or similar) written language, but they're completely different when spoken.

As much as I think learning Russian would be awesome, and that would be my personal choice, from a geek perspective there may be more advantages to Japanese, especially if you do enjoy anime. So that's what I voted for, especially since you have people you can practice against outside of class.

I don't know which dialect. The course description doesn't specify, which means it's likely that they just won't bother us with those facts.

As far as the anime is concerned, I don't know how much slang they use, or how much I would be able to pick up after 2 semesters, though it still would be a bit of an advantage.

[gcninja]

I voted chinese to make the transition to japanese MUCH easier if you choose later on.

[Bob The Magic Camel]

Russian: they have a letter that looks like a space-invaders ship.
Д

[InsaneFool]

I vote Russian, because it is a fantastic sounding language. I wanted to learn it myself for a while, but gave up when I realized their alphabet had 33 letters in it, and that totally blew my mind at the time.

Plus with the way the Russians are rapidly returning to their Soviet roots, you can easily get a job as a spy!

[Metcarfre]

I don't know which dialect.

That seems quite odd to me. They are very different languages, to my understanding. If it's Mandarin, go for Chinese. If not, go for Russian, because awesome.

[goat]

I don't know which dialect.

That seems quite odd to me. They are very different languages, to my understanding. If it's Mandarin, go for Chinese. If not, go for Russian, because awesome.

Ok, on closer examination of some student reviews it appears that it is Mandarin.

[Elomin Sha]

I'd say Japanese, I've tried learning some Russian but I found it harder than Japanese...but I had been listening to Japanese music for 5 years before I tried Russian.

[spartanhelmet]

Anyone who says these three are easy is crazy. I did Mandarin in school for nearly three years, and remembering characters was hard. The grammar is nice and easy compared to the other two, since it's closer to English than Ruskii. I've tried a heap of languages, and got bored of them like so many people do. Chose the one that you'll not hate from bordom and/or frustration after a couple of months. GL with your choice.

[Brad]

Japanese is a tourist's universal language (behind English, that is). I got through Greece (Greek, fwi, I am convinced is not a language at all but a string of blubbery sounds randomly cast out, Merlock-like at foreigners to frighten them off) with Japanese. There aren't that many Japanese speakers living outside of Japan compared to Chinese, but they travel everywhere. If you're ever lost in a heathen non-English speaking country, you can usually find a Japanese tour group before long to get whatever assistance you need.

If you want a useful day-to-day language, Chinese. Doesn't matter which one. People from Hong Kong will tell you one, Mainlanders another, but the fact is they both speak a bit of both and if you include immigrated Chinese folk in other countries, I believe they represent about 180% of the world's population. Check your skin tone, you MIGHT BE CHINESE.

Russian? Nobody speaks Russian. Hell, I speak some latin and I have more use for that than Russian.

[Ergo]

I've put some time into all three of these.

The main thing that got me with Mandarin is that it's a tonal language - meaning the specific variations in the pitch of your voice is the only difference between saying something mundane and something profoundly embarrassing. I'd say it's definitely the most difficult of the three, both in spoken and written form. It is perhaps the most potentially useful, however, depending on what line of work you're looking to get into.

I like Russian, but I find it pretty tough going (Slavic languages in general don't seem to share much in common with English). The written form would be the easiest of the three to learn, though.

Japanese is definitely the easiest of the three in my opinion. Learning the basics of the written forms isn't too bad (as far as Hiragana and Katakana go at least).

Personally I'd go with Japanese.

[Bananafish]

I like Russian, but I find it pretty tough going (Slavic languages in general don't seem to share much in common with English). The written form would be the easiest of the three to learn, though.

Being from Bosnia, I far more easily understood the slang used in "A Clockwork Orange."

I guess thats a positive?

[goat]

I was already aware of the tonal thing, but that just makes me more wary that it was brought up as somewhat of a warning. I'm not so good at intonations, even in English.

Japanese and Russian are sounding better and better (and they're in the lead at the moment in the poll). Russian would be kinda useful as far as my professional career is concerned. Being in the sciences there is a large body of Russian scientists and literature. Japanese would probably be even more useful having both the professional and personal uses.

Great input, keep it coming.

[Mortis]

I voted for Russian because its rather bad ass.... admit it, it is....
Japanese is also very good, though.
Knowing Japanese can open you up to many things. Like Brad said, Japanese tour everywhere. Also, if a company is known for their prolonged times for translating games (a year or two later), you can find the Japanese version and play it.
However, one of my friends learn Japanese and then people tried to befriend her just so she would translate anime and manga. That will be were it gets annoying. People believe that those who speak English and Japanese have an obligation to translate for others.

In short, Russian = cool. Japanese = cool, just stay away from the Japanese Nerds.

[MarkVI]

I'd choose Chinese. 1/5 the world's population speaks it (and growing), which is more than the number of English speakers. Plus China is a huge country with so many great places to visit (there's also Taiwan and places like Singapore with a lot of Chinese speakers). Also, the language itself is very musical in my opinion, since it has 5 tones (Cantonese has 9 which probably makes it much more difficult to learn).

I'm trying to learn myself, and I'll just say that one of the hardest parts is probably learning to recognize and speak the different tones/sounds correctly. But the grammar is much simpler than in English.

Personally, I also like the sound of Mandarin.

[Tim]

If you learn Japanese you can do scanlations of manga, host them on a website, and beg for PayPal donations, just like all the cool kids!

[Nevrmore]

Stay away from Asia.

[Telaril]

1. Professional Usefulness. Short answer: Chinese hands down. Long answer: Japanese has a much higher popularity than the other two so the competition for Japanese Language jobs is pretty high. Also, english language is decently prevalent in Japan so while it is moderately useful to have some when traveling it doesn't make that big of a difference. China and Russia are less English-language accessible by default and are a less popular area of study.

2. Personal Usefulness: I only have experience in Japanese here. Depending on the structure of the course there's a good chance you'll be able to at least pick out words, read some signs when watching anime, etc. If you play import games, deciphering menus (for instance) will probably be within your grasp. That said, Japanese is hard to master. I had five years of Japanese Language study and could barely slowly struggle through reading a light novel in the end, looking up a lots of words every page. My friend who had four years of study and then two years living and working in Japan worked harder on everyday use. He's able to play untranslated Japanese RPGs with only moderate effort. Our two friends who only had a year of Japanese each still recognize a word from time to time, but never really developed a level of skill that allowed them to use it effectively.

3 Objective studies have shown that Russian is much easier to learn than Chinese and Japanese. Chinese and Japanese are both in the "most difficult to learn" tier in the US Government's difficulty rating link. Japanese is difficult partially because it has really complicated grammar and a writing system that is uniquely unsuited to its structure. When I was in college Japanese was considered to be objectively the most difficult language, but there is more disagreement now as to whether Chinese or Japanese is more difficult. From the two or three people I know who have studied both, all of them claim Chinese is easier, however two of those people also say that Japanese was more fun.

All that said, having a friend who is a native speaker is a huge plus if you're planning on getting serious about a language. And hobbyist interest in a language and culture is a really good motivational tactic. That said, a single year of either Japanese or Chinese is unlikely to get you to any level of real functionality, whereas you'd get a lot farther if you went with Russian.

So I don't have an answer for you, just a lot of input. I had a lot of fun with Japanese myself and used it to get my first job, but I don't use it anymore and I've sadly lost a lot of it. Let us know what you decide.

[Jillers]

Cantonese or Manderine Chinese? From what I understand, they share the same (or similar) written language, but they're completely different when spoken.

As much as I think learning Russian would be awesome, and that would be my personal choice, from a geek perspective there may be more advantages to Japanese, especially if you do enjoy anime. So that's what I voted for, especially since you have people you can practice against outside of class.

I don't know which dialect. The course description doesn't specify, which means it's likely that they just won't bother us with those facts.

You'll probably be learning Mandarin, which is the official language of China.

I'd say learn Chinese because it will be more useful, unless you intend to live in/ travel to Japan or Russia.

[Faenel]

I only study Japanese of those three, so I can only really help you with that. There are a few things to consider.

The grammatical structure is entirely different. And I mean *entirely* different. For one, English has the sentence structure Subject-Verb-Object, whereas Japanese is Subject-Object-Verb. You will also have particles to deal with in Japanese, not to mention verb conjugation, which gives you the tense and modifies the whole sentence. A lot of the time, you also conjugate nouns and adjectives.

There are only two irregular verbs in Japanese - kuru and suru. You can make a large number of amalgams with other words when using suru, but it won't change the conjugation. The other verbs all come under two categories - regular I or regular II (which will possibly be called ichidan and godan, depending on your teacher).

Japanese has three alphabets (although they would more correctly be called syllabaries), hiragana for Japanese words, katakana for foreign words and kanji, which are the Chinese characters. The first two each have forty-six letters. Start learning them IMMEDIATELY. I've been studying Japanese for four years now, and I still occasionally trip up on katakana.

It will take you a while before you can understand anime, I'll be honest. You might pick up words here and there, but if you've never studied Japanese before (and I hate to disillusion anyone here ^^; ) you're going to need to put a lot of work in before you get used to the speed and the intonation of native Japanese. I worked in Japan for a few months, and it was quite a shock to the system - you'll learn the language MUCH more slowly than it would be spoken naturally.

All of that aside, I've been studying for four years, and I'm still going. It *is* fun, and the longer you do it, the easier it gets.

Edit: Just realised that I implied above that you *don't* have verb conjugation to deal with in English. It's really quite different - especially when you get to the point of adding things like 'nakuchaikemasen' to the root of the verb, and trying to remember what for you're using.

[Evil Jim]

An example on the funky grammar of Japanese.

A while back I asked a friend of mine who is studying the language to translate a certain phrase into Japanese so I could memorize it phonetically & be obnoxious to native speakers.

The phrase in English is: "I am very sorry. I do not speak any Japanese whatsoever."

The phrase in Japanese is: "Gomenasai. Watashi wa Nihongo o zenzen hanashima sen."

However, tho' grammatically correct in Japanese, that phrase in literal English is: "I am very sorry. I, Japanese, none, not speak."


(Apologies to Jon if I have misremembered any of what he taught me.)