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Which is the best language to take?

No one else has been any help so why not take the advice of strangers.



Edit: I'm majoring in international affiars and as well as being helpfull, a language is neccesary to graduate. I quit spanish because I didn't pass last year and I've taken it so long I'm sick of it. Why asian? I'm looking for a language spoken within several developing countries which would provide business opportunities. And thee women.

 

[Coin Return]

Chinese.

 

[Makura]

It would help to know why you want to learn a new language.

 

[AeroGod]

If you're going into Business then probably Japanese or Chinese. PLus, both of those countries are awesome and worth multiple visits whenever you get some vacation time and knowing the language helps alot. Vietnamese and Korean are entirly uselss

Difficulty wise, id imagine they all be about the same.

 

[sc0la]

Japanes sounds cool to me personally (and I mean sounds cool like aurally)

But if you want to be practical about it you would take Chinese, There are a lot more people who speak Chinese in the world. And that is only going to increase in coming years in business, the internet and around the world.

 

[darscot]

The Japanese have the best women I would use that for a tie breaker.

 

[videogamer]

IMHO, Vietnamese would be easier because they already use the roman alphabet. It's also a phonetic language.

 

[Koshiro]

Vote for Chinese here, so many people in the world speak it, you'd be guarunteed a use for it.

Difficulty wise, id imagine they all be about the same.

Do not listen to this man.

 

[way more]

I'm majoring in international affiars and as well as being helpfull, a language is neccesary to graduate. I quit spanish because I didn't pass last year and I've taken it so long I'm sick of it. Why asian? I'm looking for a language spoken within several developing countries which would provide business opportunities.

 

[retardboy]

Chinese... Simply because if you learn chinese, you'll be able to read many Japanese characters also and it'll make learning Japanese easier later. Chinese is tougher though, so you better be commited.

 

[mrklaw]

Japanese.

For practical reasons, it'd be down to chinese or Japanese, and Japanese should be way easier to learn (its phonetic, there is an alphabet of sorts to fall back on and help you in the early days).

Chinese is all chinese characters, so while grammatically it might be the same (don't know), it will most likely be much more difficult to get going, so you might be put off.

 

[mrklaw]

Chinese... Simply because if you learn chinese, you'll be able to read many Japanese characters also and it'll make learning Japanese easier later

Except while they might be pronounced the same, they often have different meanings, so its just as likely to confuse you as help you..

 

[cvxfreak]

Learning to write Chinese will take years of mastery, while Vietnamese and Korean are almost immediate. Japanese is somewhere in the middle. Japanese and Korean arguably also have much easier pronunciation, while Chinese has tons of dialects. I'd go with Japanese, but that's just me.

 

[IAmtheFMan]

Practically speaking, Japanese or Chinese would be the most useful.

In terms of ease, Korean's easy to read (24 letter alphabet) and the grammar structure isn't too hard.

Don't really know about Vietnamese.

 

[retardboy]

Chinese does have a sort of alphabet. (There are also different ways to learn it with different things to fall back on) For instance, you can learn ping ying which is phonetic and uses english letters. (You're still going to have to memorize characters though, but it's easier to get started this way) You're better of learning Zhu Ying though. True that the characters in chinese don't always mean the same thing, but they also do a lot of times. When me and my parents went to Japan, we could actually get by half way decently.

 

[RevenantKioku]

From my understanding, each chinese character has only one pronunciation, whereas kanji (Japanese version of the chinese characters) can have many. That facet of Japanese adds on quite a bit of difficulty, but thanks to Doraemon, I'm coming along okay. I'm almost a second grade kanji reader!
Anyway you go though (and I'd recommend Chinese or Japanese, I'm doing Japanese myself) you have to dedicate a lot of time. I'm cutting back on my gaming just to study Japanese, or I play some Japanese games just for that "extra practice". May sound lame, but it helps. Wind Waker was a great game to play in Japanese for me because of the furigana.
Anyway, you'll hear it again and again, but its true. It takes a lot of dedication. But don't forget, its not impossible, I mean there are people in the world who speak the languages.

 

[AeroGod]

Do not listen to this man.

Sorry i dont speak all 4 of the fucking languages. Obviously you do, so you're so awesome. Like i said, Vietnamese and Korean are uselss so im not even going to bother with them.

 

[Hournda]

Chinese, definately. China has over a billion people. Japan is just about 125 million. Also in terms of business, within the next 50 years Japan is supposed to have its population contract which should soon make it irrelevant in terms of international business, while China's markets are slowly but surely opening and they won't stay communist forever. However, if you want to go to Japan and like video games, anime, manga, Japanese women, etc. then you could probably argue that Japanese would be more prudent.

 

[tigerfan12345]

if you want the easiest, i can tell you that vietnamese is pretty easy. Especially pronuciation. For instance, there are never any instances like the "ea" in meat and head sounding different. Once you learn the prononciation rules, they're the same. In vietnames "uy" will always sound the same. Reading and writing isnt too hard either.

 

[way more]

When you guys say so much of the world speaks Chinese, don't you just mean the Chinese? I had hoped the surronding languages would speak Chinese, or at least that it would be popular but Loas, Thialand, Indonesia, Burma, Vietnam and Mongolia all have their own languages.

 

[EarthStormFire]

For difficulty. Writting Chinese and Janpanese would be the hardest, Korean the next hardest, and Vietanemse the easiest. For pronounciation Vietnamese would be the hardest, next would be Chinese, and Korean and Japanese should be much easier to learn to pronounce than either Chinese or Vietnamese.

To give you an idea of how difficult vietnamese is to learn to pronounce. In Vietnamese there are 12 vowles, and each of those 12 vowles has 6 possible tones. We also have dozens of triphthongs and diphthongs vowles. So we have over 100 distinct vowel sounds in vietnamese and when you say a word you have to use the correct one. You can't substitute one of those over 100 vowel sounds for another. Substituting any of the vowel sounds for another will CHANGE the meaning of the word.

 

[demon]

A few weeks ago I was talking to someone who's taken vietnamese for a couple years and he said that the meaning of certain words changes based on phonetic differences that were so subtle that I couldn't even discern them. It sounded complicated as almighty fuck.

I personally would go with Japanese, probably, because for some reason I have a lot of interest in their culture (and I took a few Japanese art history courses in college and really liked them). But Chinese might be more practical if you're going into it for business reasons. If I were to actually take up one of these languages, I'd put a hell of a lot more research into it before hand, though.

 

[videogamer]

For difficulty. Writting Chinese and Janpanese would be the hardest, Korean the next hardest, and Vietanemse the easiest. For pronounciation Vietnamese would be the hardest, next would be Chinese, and Korean and Japanese should be much easier to learn to pronounce than either Chinese or Vietnamese.

To give you an idea of how difficult vietnamese is to learn to pronounce. In Vietnamese there are 12 vowles, and each of those 12 vowles has 6 possible tones. We also have dozens of triphthongs and diphthongs vowles. So we have over 100 distinct vowel sounds in vietnamese and when you say a word you have to use the correct one. You can't substitute one of those over 100 vowel sounds for another. Substituting any of the vowel sounds for another will CHANGE the meaning of the word.

Yeah that's probably the most difficult part of Vietnamese. The grammer and sentence structure are very easy. From what I understand, Chinese and Vietnamese are both tonal languages, so little accents here and there make a big difference in meaning. IIRC, Chinese and Vietnamese are about the same difficulty speaking-wise, but the Vietnamese writing system is considerably more easy.

 

[jiggle]

I'd say Chinese, or more specifically, Mandarin.

It'll be increasingly useful, depending on what field of work you get into of course.

Mandarin can be used in alot of regions of China and in Taiwan.

You can branch out to other dialects, such as Cantonese, from it.

The writing is the same no matter what dialects you choose.

Mandarin speaking and writing structures are the same.

And if you decide to learn Japanese later, you'll already have the kanji part down.



Only problem I see is that I think foreign language classes are teaching chinese courses with traditional forms of Chinese characters. But from what I understand, with the exception of Hong Kong and Taiwan, traditional characters are being phased out for simplified ones.

 

[Koshiro]

Sorry i dont speak all 4 of the fucking languages. Obviously you do, so you're so awesome. Like i said, Vietnamese and Korean are uselss so im not even going to bother with them.

Didn't mean it in an offensive way, and I certainly don't know all four languages, I just know that difficulty wise it goes like thus:

Chinese - Japanese - Korean - Vietnamese.

 

[EarthStormFire]

Didn't mean it in an offensive way, and I certainly don't know all four languages, I just know that difficulty wise it goes like thus:

Chinese - Japanese - Korean - Vietnamese.

I disagree. For writing yes, but for pronunciation no. Vietnamese is much more difficult than either Japanese and Korean to correctly pronounce. Most non-Vietnamese can't distinguish between most of the vowel sounds. There are even more vowel sounds and tones in Vietnamese than Chinese.

 

[NotMSRP]

I picked Japanese because of the added bonus of being able to play more games while being one of the business languages in electronics/technology/consumer areas.

 

[DJ Demon J]

Sorry i dont speak all 4 of the fucking languages. Obviously you do, so you're so awesome. Like i said, Vietnamese and Korean are uselss so im not even going to bother with them.

Off topic, but are you Asian? I had a feeling when you made that topic about white socks with black shoes, as it's a common Asian ailment.

 

[MrPing1000]

Off topic, but are you Asian? I had a feeling when you made that topic about white socks with black shoes, as it's a common Asian ailment.

lol! :lol

 

[DaveH]

When you guys say so much of the world speaks Chinese, don't you just mean the Chinese? I had hoped the surronding languages would speak Chinese, or at least that it would be popular but Loas, Thialand, Indonesia, Burma, Vietnam and Mongolia all have their own languages.

Well if you learn Cantonese and can wrap your tongue around the language (unlikely as you lose syllables you don't use early in life), you'll be able to get around more (including some of the above; you can get around Malyasia entirely on Cantonese):

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/essays/cantonese_around_the_world.htm

But Madarin is the the "educated" language and the official business Chinese language.

Offensive remarks to follow: If you're hot, learn Korean for the women... but they're unlikely to marry you. Japanese girls are rebellious sluts these days, so you can bag one without knowing Japanese. For a long term relationship, most likely she'll know and perfect her English. Chinese women want green cards. It takes little effort... but you'll want to understand Chinese so you can tell what she's saying behind your back (heck, or openly to your face) when you bring her stateside.

 

[BugCatcher]

Since you don't seem to have any predisposition towards any of these languages, difficulty and practicality are probably the most important factors you should consider. I'm completely ignorant about Vietnamese, so I won't comment on that. As far as difficulty is concerned though, Chinese and Japanese are the hardest, with Chinese marginally being the more difficult of the two.

One of the hardest aspects of Chinese is the writing system (obviously). I can't say how difficult it is to master pronounciation, but it seems like an intimidating challenge. Despite these challenges, I have been told the grammar is similar to English, or at least far more similar than Japanese or Korean, which may make it easier to pick up than the others. It's also easier for Chinese to guess the meaning of things written in Japanese than the other way around.

Japanese uses both Chinese characters and two syllabaries, but thankfully you don't need to learn as many total characters as Chinese for mastery of the language. The difficult aspect is the grammar, which is completely unlike English. As a beginner, this, more than pronounciation or vocabulary, is what will limit what you can say.

Korean has a simple writing system that can be learned in just a few days, saving you the headaches of the Chinese and Japanese writing systems. The grammar is very similar to Japanese, which is what would make it difficult, but otherwise it is the easiest.


Economically, Chinese is your best bet. It is spoken by more people than any other language, and the business opportunities should be fantastic in the future as China modernizes. It is the only country with a larger GDP than the United States, so even now I would wager you would have better luck making money with Chinese than any other Asian language. The economy is growing at a good clip too, which is only making Chinese more and more attractive for business.

Japan has a large economy, but there is virtually no growth. Also, as Hournda mentioned, the population will contract in the future as the birthrate is extremely low. When the top-heavy population starts to retire, the shit is really going to hit the fan, and it is hard to predict how this will affect the relevancy of learning Japanese. IIRC the Japanese government already wants to see more (tax paying) foreigners working in Japan to prevent impending disaster, so it may work in your favor, or it may not.

Korea has the smallest economy of the three, but it's still larger than that of Mexico, Canada, or Austrailia, and it is growing at a steady rate. It can be useful if you are interested in technology/electronics. I think it is worthwhile to pay attention to this country and see how its economy develops.

How long do you need to study a foreign language for your major? It will take a long time for you to become good enough at CJK to apply it to a job, so if you are only taking it for one or two years, it's probably best to just take the easiest one instead of the most useful.

 

[tenchir]

As a vietnamese, there is a lot of vowels. I used to go to sunday schools to learn how to read vietnamese...... those classes are completely useless. I learn more in 1 month of forced self study(by my dad) than I ever did in a year in Sunday vietnamese school. I stopped going after 1 1/2 year and now I can barely read it. I took introductory and immediate Japanese in college, after not practicing it for a couple of years, I nearly forgotten everything I learn. If you are going to learn a language, practice speaking/reading often or you will just end up forgetting them quickly.

As for chinese, if you are going to choose it, make sure you learn mandarin since that is the most common dialect.

 

[NotMSRP]

It's very much the same for any learning subject; it's a use(keep) it or lose(forget) it thing. Your brain throws away stuff you're not going to use; it does its routine garbage collection.

 

[0wn3d]

Actually, I'm in a very similiar situation. Right now, I'm signed up for Japanese, but I'm considering taking either Chinese or Hmong. I'm afraid (outside of videogames and Jpop) that I'll never use it, while Chinese might be more helpful in my future, but Hmong might be the most practical as there are many Hmong people around where I live...

 

[Lyte Edge]

I've taken four years of Japanese myself, plan to do JET in Japan next year, etc, etc. But right now, the language to take is going to be Chinese. Lots of oppurtunities will be emerging for foreigners with Chinese language skills in the future.

 

[Great King Bowser]

Go Vietnam.

I'm Vietnamese and yet I really need to learn the language. My understanding is like 75%+ yet my speaking sucks. Went back there for the summer, which has now motivated me to speak more Vietnamese at home.

But yeah, Vietnamese isn't really practical if you want some practical use out of a language.

 

[firex]

This is hardly objective, but I think Mandarin Chinese sounds a million times more pleasant than Korean, Vietnamese or Japanese when spoken. And I at least didn't find it hard at all to do the intro courses. The writing is difficult, but it's more a matter of practice than anything else. Speaking it is pretty easy, even with the four tones and double meanings of some words.

Also, even though Chinese characters are more complex and there are over 10000, you only need to know 2500 to be considered fluent, and the hanzi are the only writing system (unlike Japan's multiple systems of kanji, katakana and hiragana). Unless you want to count pinyin, but that's more of a teaching tool for younger students/people who are learning the language and need it romanized for pronunciation.

 

[Stele]

Except while they might be pronounced the same, they often have different meanings, so its just as likely to confuse you as help you..

They're not pronounced the same, nor used the same syntaxically, and only have the same meanings in some contexts. The Japanese applied the Chinese script to their own spoken language (a separately developed language in another superfamily), and then went on to mutate it.

---
Oh, and Japanese women are overrated, especially the normal chicks which you actually have a chance with. People here simply think they're the best in Asia because they have the most over-exposed celebrities.

 

[Great King Bowser]

Oh, and Japanese women are overrated, especially the normal chicks which you actually have a chance with. People here simply think they're the best in Asia because they have the most over-exposed celebrities.

IAWTP

Vietnamese mail-order brides > *

 

[-=DoAvl=-]

IMO, if it's possible to learn all 4, then do it. The most useful things u can learn in life are languages.

I'm one of those chinese looking ppl who don't speak or write it But i can speak australian, english, american and 1337.

 

[WasabiKing]

Mandarin, and learn Simplified Chinese for writing, reading, etc... Count the number of memory and chip companies in China, then compare it to the other countries. That's how I would justify choosing a language for business purposes.

Otherwise, go with the country that interests you to visit.

 

[Matlock]

China is becoming the economic hotspot now. If you plan on working abroad, or at all internationally, you need to learn Chinese.

 

[videogamer]

China is becoming the economic hotspot now. If you plan on working abroad, or at all internationally, you need to learn Chinese.

What about Hindi guys?

 

[mint]

If you know korean, vietnamese is not so hard to learn, their words are so similar.

That said, if you know chinese, korean isn't so hard to learn

If you're into business, definately look into China.

But hmm, if you want fashion, go into korea

 

[Stele]

What about Hindi guys?

India needs to improve its infrastructure.

 

[way more]

India needs to improve its infrastructure.

Thats the sort of job I would have. They actually offer a Hindi class but the department is a little shakey.

 

[videogamer]

If you know korean, vietnamese is not so hard to learn, their words are so similar.

That said, if you know chinese, korean isn't so hard to learn

If you're into business, definately look into China.

But hmm, if you want fashion, go into korea

Vietnamese words are similar to Korean?!? Chinese is already pretty different from Vietnamese... I'd expect Korean to be even more so.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Oh, and Japanese women are overrated, especially the normal chicks which you actually have a chance with. People here simply think they're the best in Asia because they have the most over-exposed celebrities.

I strongly disagree with this assessment, and I don't even consider myself the hottest of guys.

 

[Stele]

I don't know what you being not among the hottest guys have to do with my assessment. I'm saying normal Japanese chicks look rather...normal. Of course, there's hot ones running around, but not more than any other place. I doubt any of us is going fuck their top-brand celebrities.

 

[RevenantKioku]

I don't know what you being not among the hottest guys have to do with my assessment. I'm saying normal Japanese chicks look rather...normal. Of course, there's hot ones running around, but not more than any other place. I doubt any of us is going fuck their top-brand celebrities.

The general thinking is hot guys get hot girls.
I had no problem with women I found very attractive over there, that's my point.
But then again I'm considering more than just looks, so, forget it my point is null I think.