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[mint]

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

Yup..although our linguistics are not the same, half of our vocab and characters are from Chinese. And actually, viet also has many chinese words. I am actually trying to learn viet, and am surprised..alot of the pronounciation (and meaning) are similar to korean.

 

[Stele]

Terrific, and way to miss the point then. And no, your general thinking is off by quite a bit, especially in Japan.

 

[videogamer]

Yup..although our linguistics are not the same, half of our vocab and characters are from Chinese. And actually, viet also has many chinese words. I am actually trying to learn viet, and am surprised..alot of the pronounciation (and meaning) are similar to korean.

Eh, that's really strange. I know some people who know Vietnamese and Cantonese, and they tell me it's not at all that similar. I'm assuming that you are learning Mandarin and that Cantonese is closer to Vietnamese than Mandarin.

 

[WasabiKing]

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

It's actually been a hot spot for the last 3 years in the semiconductor industry. While everyone else struggles to keep their costs down, China's got so many semiconductor companies and plants that they have to basically flood the market with their chips. Similiar to what Japan did with RAM in the late 90s.

And for India, it's becoming a player, but there's too much risk involved for some firms to expand operations. India's going to have to grow internally, and somehow prove to other firms that they're either worth the risk, or they smooth over relations with neighbor Pakistan.

EDIT: Cantonese is one of the dialects running in my family, but I would avoid learning it. It's going to get phased out, since more people in China speak Mandarin, and with Hong Kong returning back to China 7 years ago, much of the Cantonese will likely be lost in 20 years. Mandarin, phonetically, is much easier to English speakers than Cantonese. (Incidentally, Mandarin is one of the other dialects in my family, as well as a less common one...)

 

[EarthStormFire]

Yup..although our linguistics are not the same, half of our vocab and characters are from Chinese. And actually, viet also has many chinese words. I am actually trying to learn viet, and am surprised..alot of the pronounciation (and meaning) are similar to korean.

Yes vietnamese has thousands of chinese words in its language, however most of those words have been slightly modified in its pronounciation. For example the chinese word Won Ton for the food, is pronounced Won Ton in chinese but in vietnamese Hoanh Thanh, which sounds very similar to how the chinese would say Won Ton.

Also remember unlike Korean, Vietnamese is tonal and has many many more vowel sounds than korean does. While you think many of them sound the same are in fact subtle differences.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Terrific, and way to miss the point then. And no, your general thinking is off by quite a bit, especially in Japan.

Yeah, but I'm not from Japan, so my natural instinct is to go with what I know, which is what skews it.

Wait, I think I'm approaching this from the wrong angle. You're saying normal Japanese chicks are more average looking than that of other countries?
I don't agree with that.

 

[videogamer]

Yes vietnamese has thousands of chinese words in its language, however most of those words have been slightly modified in its pronounciation. For example the chinese word Won Ton for the food, is pronounced Won Ton in chinese but in vietnamese Hoanh Thanh, which sounds very similar to how the chinese would say Won Ton.

Also remember unlike Korean, Vietnamese is tonal and has many many more vowel sounds than korean does. While you think many of them sound the same are in fact subtle differences.

Won ton is a food item that came from China, so it's kind of expected that the names are the same. Also, some of the borrowed words that came from Chinese have been phased out. They've been likened to "old vietnamese"... fancy words not many people use anymore.

 

[Stele]

Cantonese is one of the dialects running in my family, but I would avoid learning it. It's going to get phased out, since more people in China speak Mandarin, and with Hong Kong returning back to China 7 years ago, much of the Cantonese will likely be lost in 20 years. Mandarin, phonetically, is much easier to English speakers than Cantonese. (Incidentally, Mandarin is one of the other dialects in my family, as well as a less common one...)

More people speak Mandarin, because it is China's lingua franca, not because it is their native tongue. Most people in China *don't* speak Mandarin as their first tongue, and many times only do so for perfunctory purposes or at a working or school environment. There is no way Cantonese (which is not so much a single dialect, but a dialect family all by itself), or hundreds of other Chinese dialects will be phased out. That's like saying English will phase out French. Some of China's regionalism has roots all the way back to the Warring States.

---

You're saying normal Japanese chicks are more average looking than that of other countries?

...
No, I'm saying they're about the same.

 

[videogamer]

China Fears Once and Future Kingdom

EOUL, South Korea, Aug. 24 - Highlighting history's weight in modern Asia, China and South Korea, two of the region's closest economic partners, tried to patch over the sharpest crisis in 12 years of diplomatic relations by agreeing Tuesday to discuss calmly the boundaries of a kingdom that disappeared from maps 1,300 years ago.

China may be South Korea's largest trading partner and South Korea may be China's largest source of new foreign investment, but that did not prevent South Koreans from taking on their huge neighbor this summer over the boundaries of Koguryo, a kingdom of hunting tribes that ruled much of modern-day North Korea and northeastern China from 37 B.C. to A.D. 668, when it was conquered by China's Tang dynasty.

Koreans see the kingdom as the forerunner of their nation, a flourishing civilization that bequeathed to modern Korea its name. In July, Koguryo tombs and murals in North Korea were given World Heritage status, the first such listing by Unesco for the Communist country.

But while protesters dressed as ancient Koguryo horsemen picketed the Chinese Embassy here, China's state-controlled New China News Agency recently called the kingdom a "subordinate state that fell under the jurisdiction of the Chinese dynasties and was under the great influence of China's politics, culture and other areas."

Earlier this year, the Chinese Foreign Ministry deleted references to Koguryo from the Korean history section on its Web site. For two years, a Chinese government study group, the Northeast Project, has been issuing academic papers bolstering the position that the ancient kingdom was merely a Chinese vassal state. Behind the campaign, China fears that one day the two million ethnic Koreans in northeastern China will support a "greater Korea" that will spill over modern borders.

"The history of Koguryo is related to Korea's politics, society, diplomacy and security today and in the future," Kim Woo Jun, a diplomatic history professor at Yonsei University, said in an interview on Tuesday. "Fundamentally, China wants to have complete control over the areas where ethnic Koreans reside. They are getting ready for the future."

Suddenly, this summer, South Korea's love affair with China soured.

In a survey early this year, 80 percent of South Korean parliamentarians said China was South Korea's most important economic partner. By contrast, in a survey of lawmakers this month, only 6 percent of the respondents showed a similar esteem for China.

Now, editorialists routinely warn South Koreans about "Sinocentrism," the rise of "Chinese nationalism" and the return of a Middle Kingdom to dominate Asia.

"The anti-U.S., pro-China atmosphere has changed recently as we saw the hegemonic side of China," Professor Kim said. "China has tried to conclude the issue as quickly as possible because they were concerned they would be surrounded by anti-China sentiments. Anti-China sentiments could quickly lead Korea to take a pro-U.S. stance and cooperate more with Japan."

rest of article
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/international/asia/25korea.html?pagewanted=2

 

[Stele]

Behind the campaign, China fears that one day the two million ethnic Koreans in northeastern China will support a "greater Korea" that will spill over modern borders.

Laughable. CCP creates special economic incentives and builds up infrastructure in the Liaoning and Jilin provinces (where the Korean minorities are) attracting migrant workers in the process. Han Chinese saturation increases. Boom, problem solved. It works impeccably. In a couple more years, it'll render the Uighurs and Tibetans powerless even if they had increased autonomy. It may not even come to that, because the Korean minority is miniscule to begin with, not to mention poor and tame.

 

[jiggle]

EDIT: Cantonese is one of the dialects running in my family, but I would avoid learning it. It's going to get phased out, since more people in China speak Mandarin, and with Hong Kong returning back to China 7 years ago, much of the Cantonese will likely be lost in 20 years. Mandarin, phonetically, is much easier to English speakers than Cantonese. (Incidentally, Mandarin is one of the other dialects in my family, as well as a less common one...)

Cantonese is not going to be phased out from Hong Kong, just like all the dialects are still spoken in their respective region. There's a lot of pride there to let it be phased out. Canton's been part of China for how long? And it's still the primary spoken language there, for obvious reason hehe. I don't even think traditional form of the characters will be naturally phased out from HK either, not anytime soon anyway.

It's a norm to speak whatever dialects, but also know Mandarin. So it's definitely the one to learn if you choose Chinese.

 

[videogamer]

Laughable. CCP creates special economic incentives and builds up infrastructure in the Liaoning and Jilin provinces (where the Korean minorities are) attracting migrant workers in the process. Han Chinese saturation increases. Boom, problem solved. It works impeccably. In a couple more years, it'll render the Uighurs and Tibetans powerless even if they had increased autonomy. It may not even come to that, because the Korean minority is miniscule to begin with.

Aren't these provinces in the northwest? I thought that these areas were like the "rust-belt" of China... in decline economically. However, it seems like China is trying to fix up its problems there. Anyways, the reason why I posted that article was because it had some interesting tidbits on how China is treating its neighbors (in addition to the usual Taiwan stuff).


http://english.people.com.cn/200310/09/eng20031009_125609.shtml
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/FH19Dg01.html

 

[WasabiKing]

Cantonese is not going to be phased out from Hong Kong, just like all the dialects are still spoken in their respective region. There's a lot of pride there to let it be phased out. Canton's been part of China for how long? And it's still the primary spoken language there, for obvious reason hehe. I don't even think traditional form of the characters will be naturally phased out from HK either, not anytime soon anyway.

I hope you're right, but I really feel as China begins to increase its presence, you're going to find that less people speaking Cantonese and more Mandarin. It won't be a dead language, but less people will speak it. That's really what I meant by phasing out.

 

[Bizarro Sun Yat-sen]

Chinese is all chinese characters, so while grammatically it might be the same (don't know)

Grammatically Chinese and Japanese are about as different as you can get (and neither are anything like English). I guess Chinese grammar is much simpler and easier in terms of rules you have to learn, although this might actually make it harder to understand in the long run due to subtle ambiguities, etc. (haven't gotten far enough with Chinese to know for sure, but it's been my experience with other things)

 

[fennec fox]

Japanese grammar is dead simple too IMO.

If I had college to take all over again I'd probably take Chinese this time. Especially if you're getting into business, for heaven's sake. I enjoy Japanese culture enough that I certainly don't regret learning it, but hell, the country's going to lose 25% of its population by the time I die.

 

[BastardSamurai]

What I think is particularly amusing is that it's hard to get the proper pronunciations of Vietnamese down, despite the fact that there are no multi-syllable words in Vietnamese. I've yet to find a Vietnamese word (that's not a compound word) that's more than one syllable.

 

[Great King Bowser]

Yes vietnamese has thousands of chinese words in its language, however most of those words have been slightly modified in its pronounciation. For example the chinese word Won Ton for the food, is pronounced Won Ton in chinese but in vietnamese Hoanh Thanh, which sounds very similar to how the chinese would say Won Ton.

Also remember unlike Korean, Vietnamese is tonal and has many many more vowel sounds than korean does. While you think many of them sound the same are in fact subtle differences.

Excellently put. Really should stop replying to my mum in English when she's speaking to me in Vietnamese. If only I'd started doing that 16 years ago... sigh.