In this video I compare learning Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Korean from a variety of points of view. --- FREE Language Learning Resources 10 Secrets of Language Learning ⇢ www.thelinguist.com LingQ Grammar Guides ⇢ www.lingq.com/en/grammar-resource/ My blog ⇢ blog.thelinguist.com/ The LingQ blog ⇢ www.lingq.com/blog/ My Podcast ⇢ soundcloud.com/lingosteve podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learn-languages-with-steve-kaufmann/id1437851870 --- Social Media Instagram ⇢ instagram.com/lingosteve_/ TikTok ⇢ www.tiktok.com/@lingosteve Facebook ⇢ facebook.com/lingosteve Twitter ⇢ twitter.com/lingosteve LingQ Discord ⇢ discord.gg/ShPTjyhwTN
Hi Steve, I think you should include Vietnamese. I know Vietnam doesn't in East Asia but Vietnam it's part of Sinosphere, which culture related and was use Chinese characters before romanization the writing system.
Steve, you've got to learn the pitch accents in order to pronounce Japanese nicely sounding like a native Japanese speaker, or you'll be forever treated as a foreigner.
For Korean I like to use Talk To Me In Korean. The teachers have nice voices, there is a course divided in ten levels, and they have "natural conversations" about topics of everyday life.
In a nutshell: Easiest pronunciation: Japanese Easiest writing system: Korean Easiest grammar (relative to English): Mandarin Hardest pronunciation: Mandarin (because tones) Hardest writing system: Japanese (kanji with multiple pronuncations+two syllabaries) Hardest grammar: Not sure if Japanese or Korean is harder, but I've heard Korean is Japanese and Korean do not have tones, but they do have pitch accent instead of the common stress accent. Japanese and the Chinese languages have the most similar writing systems although Japan and China simplified certain characters differently, and the old Chinese pronunciations used in Japanese have far diverged from the modern ones. Japanese and Korean have the most similar grammar, although I can't say how similar because I'm not learning Korean.
Grammar is almost identical between Japanese and Korean, if you know Japanese then understanding Korean grammar is easy except Korean use extra subject marker and sentence ending and also Korean use mix between formal & informal depending on situation and mix native Korean and Sino-Korean or even loan words from other cultures. Just stick to formal form and use Sino-Korean words rather than these native words then it becomes easy or same level as Japanese.
For me as a kazakh native speaker korean/japanese would be easier to learn due to kind of similar grammar I guess, cause I see obvious similarity in grammar than russian/english which is grammar completely different, maybe
This video could not have come at a better time! My partner is starting her Master's in Global Asian studies and has to pick what language she wants to focus on, well at least at first, and these are three of her four options. Thank you!
I understand 6 foreign languages : English, German, French, Arabic, Russian, and Mandarin with different levels of abilities. I'm a 50 year-old Indonesian... I speak German pretty well, and been to Munich to learn German. It was long time ago that I reached B2 level, nearly C1. But it seems that my German deteriorates. I also learned French and Russian, but I don't speak those languages very well like my German, and of course, my fluent English. Now I'm learning Mandarin, and I believe my Mandarin reached A2 or B1 level, because I got Hsk-3 in October 2019. I want to participate Hsk-4, but the Confucius Institute in Jakarta closed down due to the pandemi ; open only with appointments. The problem is maintaining the ability. Once you get the B level, you start to be fed up with the language you have learned, unless you have a very high motivation and specific purpose to learn the language. And after that the next question is whether you can maintain the level that has been attained. I reached B2 or even almost C1 in German long time ago, but now it seems that I can only answer relatively correct the B1 level. My German deteriorates. Language is a matter of habits and habitation....
Maybe reading some things in the languages u learnt will help to maintain it ? I found it terribly interesting when i could read English. I now keep use it and i never loose my level thanks to it
@@kunokoaeri3505 If you learn something when you are still very young : swimming, riding bikes, sports, martial arts, etc. including foreign lamguages, then your skills will linger on. I learned English long long time ago, maybe even befote you were born, when US President was late Ronald Reagan. I started to learn German when George Bush, sr. attacked Sadfam Husein that day 1990. Later on I learned French and Russian when I already got married. Russian itself is a difficult language. When Steve speaks Russian, I can still understand what he's talking about, but not when natives speaker speak. Now I learned Chinese when already 50 years old. I take 10 - 30 minutes every day to memorize Chinese vocabularies, but limityed on Hsk-4 and Hsk-5 standards. It's a bit hard for me to intensify 2000 - 3000 words, I mean to keep remembering them with the scratches. It is as difficult as memorizing complicated grammatical structure of Russian language. When I feel bored to memorize Chinese vocabularies, which I have limitted to about 3000 words, I turn to read Russian grammar. I hope someday I can take Hsk-4 or even Hsk-5... I don't study German and French anymore. I'm finished with them. I sometimes watch DW Channels to enjoy German news, not to hope to increase my listening skills like when I listen to Chinese-speaking channels. Thankyou....
Steve, I am super impressed with your Japanese skills. I have lived in Japan for 30 years and I now taking a crack at Korean and Japanese sign language.
Appreciate the note on Japanese pitch accent. It seems the JP language learning Internet community is obsessed with that. More power to whoever manages to perfect it, but they react too negatively when people (rightly so) deem it not as important as them.
here is an interesting article on Japanese pitch accent from Wikipedia. The nature of the pitch accent varies from region to region in Japan and it would appear that some regions have no pitch accent. what's more many languages exhibit this feature, ranging from Swedish to Persian and many more. There is pitch in English. To me this is an unnecessary complication in learning Japanese. Apparently the Japanese only worry about it if they're going to be announcing on NHK. It's nowhere near as fundamental to communication as tones in Mandarin Chinese. I'll stay with that opinion.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pitch_accent
@@Thelinguist In the end, the goal of any language is to communicate, not to pretend you are a native speaker. For sure it is a nice goal, but it's not the only one and not for everyone.
@@arishiasol I agree, but how natural you sound does make a difference in how people see you and treat you. If your goal is to fit into Japanese society in the long term (maybe you're settling down there and having kids), it might be worthwhile. Additionally, having horrible pitch accent would probably be similar to, if not worse than an English learner who keeps messing up the stress in English words. It won't ruin your ability to communicate, but it make it harder for you to be understood. That said, for most people's purposes, mastering pitch accent in Japanese is probably completely unnecessary.
Great video, Steve! I have to disagree about Korean pronunciation though - I think it's much more difficult than Japanese pronunciation. The consonants assimilate, you have aspirated consonants and double consonants (which are sometimes pronounced in words written with single consonants), and my personal experience is that many Koreans will not understand you at all if you don't have good pronunciation. Pronunciation is definitely one of the things which makes Korean difficult for a lot of people I know
Often. Whether people can understand a foreign accent depends not on the language itself but those peoples familiarity with the foreign accent. Australians could not understand American movies when speaking movies were first invented, they had to subtitle the whole movie. But now Australians have a lot of exposure to American accents and can understand them. Korean people in some parts of Korea and/or with a are less used to foreign accents than Japanese people. I’m not actually disagreeing that Korean pronunciation is harder though. But people not understanding accents is relative.
If you think Japanese pronunciation is harder, there's something wrong lmao Korean is definitely the harder one especially for English speakers that don't usually distinguish aspiration. Wrong Japanese pitch accent or wrong vowel length is understandable by the listener from context (usually).
@@M_SC It's not just relative: for example, if your only problem were to be differentiating the 오 from the 어, listeners can get used to that. However, if someone were to speak Chinese without any tones, the listener would be left with a lot more guesswork to do. That aside, it is important to remember that intelligibility is not absolute. (And, as such, there is no definitive method of measuring it.) Thank you for pointing that out.
"my personal experience is that many Koreans will not understand you at all if you don't have good pronunciation." it's not better with japanese and chinese with their tongues, in general asians who correct prononciations and grammar are rare
My new favourite channel - I love your infectious enthusiasm for language learning and understanding - its such a positive human thing - thank you for sharing
@@kevinhandy1926 in most Chinese languages, including Mandarin, all characters are pronounced with exactly one syllable. Most Chinese characters are pronounced only one way in Mandarin. Conversely, in Japanese, most characters have at least two different contextual pronunciations, and one of them is more often two mora, sometimes three, four, on even more: for example 鉄 is くろがね, that's four mora for one character. In Mandarin, generally if you've learned a character, and you know what spoken syllable it maps to, you never have to learn it again.
@@microcolonel wait until you encounter tones that change depending on how its used. 互相 ， 相声 for example. Also I could mention many characters that have multiple meanings/pronunciations for example 还，行 but I don't want to make my comment any longer.
@@AliviasNook🤝🤝🤝btw , as a nonnative English speaker , I wanna say that your comment reminds me of the different usage between 'can' and' am able to ',hahahahaha
@@tea-bag7030 the book tells a story about the unusual and impressive life of a Japanese little girl （called totto chan）in a nontraditional primary school . lt 's really an illuminating book for both parents and educators in my view . and l don't talk too much about the detail here to be a spoiler . hope you 'll find the beauty of this book yourself :）
Yesterday I was uncertain about which one of these three languages I should learn first and this morning this video is uploaded. Thank you Sir! Greetings from Indonesia 🇮🇩
@@janvdb9258 Depends on what she's interested in. If it's culture, then learn the language of the culture you like the most. If it's usefulness, Mandarin Chinese might be the most useful since it's the most spoken language in the world.
Hey steve. I wanted to ask how much people should “think” in a language. So maybe after doing a bunch of reading/listening on lingq, to try and form sentences in your head?
There are 4 levels of learning a foreign language. 1. to know / to understand the language. 2. to use the language more or less correctly. 3. to feel the language. This will appear when the learner reaches B2 level, like I used to as for my German long time ago. 4. the language is no longer a foreign language to you. Language is a matter of habits... The more you get exposed to the language, the higher level you reach....
I am more motivated to listen and read and then speak when I have the opportunity. I don't consciously try to think in the language or talk to myself in the language, but it does happen from time to time.
Hi Mr. Kaufman, thank you very much for sharing the experience of learning Asian languages with comparison of so many details. I appreciate it if you could share more in the future. There's only one thing that I'm afraid there can be a misunderstanding. Most academic vocabulary of Mandarin such as science 科学, are from Japanese rather than the opposite way(once it was called 赛先生 in Chinese). Japan accepted modernized civilization from Europe in about 19 century and many vocabulary were translated to Kanji words at that time, and then they were introduced to China in the form of Chinese character exactly the same. As a result, most traditional vocabulary of Japanese are from Mandarin while modern vocabulary like democracy, science, police etc are mostly created and come from Japanese. I'm from mainland China and proud of my ancient created the most beautiful and important language in the world, but I hope everything is going in the correct way. I wish you all the best and good luck in the future.
Generally speaking, Korean is the hardest one. The use of an alphabet makes it seem easier, but it has the most complex grammar and pronunciation of the three. And the hanzi actually helps to disambiguate meaning and build vocab efficiently
I disagree haha but I learned Japanese fluently first and then learned some Chinese and then became fluent in Korean. Korean is easier when you understand the hanja/kanji but it’s also soo much faster to learn when you can read everything by learning hangul. The grammar is very similar to Japanese, but there are a lot less concepts to learn than for Japanese in my opinion. However, Japanese has a LOT of phrases that are repeated over and over in certain situations, so it’s easy to get by with a little Japanese if you learn what you use in your daily life and don’t need to go much more beyond that. Korean is a little trickier in the beginning because there’s more variation and less standard phrases that you need. The pronunciation of Japanese is slightly “easier” because there are less vowel sounds, but Korean has more sounds that native English speakers use that Japanese speakers don’t. I think pronunciation of the two are fairly similar in “difficulty” to learn.
@@monicastamantWhat about the writing system for both Japanese and Korean? I know someone who learned the Korean's writing system in one week, but I find it hard to believe.
@@Oberstien17 Yes, you can learn the Korean “alphabet” called hangul really quickly. It’s was created in order to be accessible to everyone (as opposed to the Chinese characters). Once you learn it, you can read everything, even if you don’t necessarily understand it. It makes it quicker to look up words in the dictionary, etc. Japanese has three writing systems: Kanji, katakana, and hiragana. The last two are the same sounds but look different and are used differently. Kanji takes YEARS to learn and even most Japanese people can’t remember all of them all the time or write them by hand. You can’t look up a word that you can’t even enter into the computer because you can’t read it. It takes hours and hours of rigorous study to learn basic written Japanese that little kids learn in school. So when you learn Korean, you’re saving a lot of time in the reading/writing areas which can be used to learn vocab, grammar, etc. Japanese just requires a lot more time and dedication to learn in the reading/writing department.
@@monicastamant In regard to the grammar, some people are saying that Korean is much harder than Japanese, is that accurately true or it differs from one to another?
Korean and Japanese pronunciation is COMPLETELY different. Japanese is one of the easiest languages for English speakers to pronounce, even easier than most European languages. The major differences I can think of are that Japanese has double vowels and consonants. But these are easy to pronounce because they just involve small changes in timing, not entirely new sounds. Korean, on the other hand, has devilishly difficult pronunciation. It has far more vowels than English and the difference between these vowels is often imperceptible to English speakers. The tiniest movements of the lips or tongue are perceived as entirety different vowels by Korean speakers. Tbe consonants are also very challenging for two reasons. First, many basic Korean consonants fall in between English consonants. For example, ㅂ falls in between "b" and "p", whereas ㅍ is almost equivalent to "p". Thus, English speakers have great difficulty distinguishing between ㅂ and ㅍ. Then there are the double consonants, to which there is no analogy in English. Imagine trying to distinguish between a "stressed" k and a normal "k". Well, that's the gist of the differences I'm aware of. To be honest, Steve, I have heard you speaking Korean and your pronunciation is quite poor. Perhaps it is because you have not spent much time on Korean that you think the pronunciation is similar to Japanese.
Though not having tried to learn Korean, as I don't need it, this sounds like my experience. Not a native English speaker I learned some Japanese on my own as I like video games, anime etc. I (very briefly) studied Mandarin in school and found it to be a breeze (maybe because I've played instruments or because my language/dialect has minute pitch accents so I'm accustomed to small differences in tone. Grammar was easy). I can somewhat follow conversations in both languages. Japanese seemd a LOT more difficult thanks to the grammar. Korean though... Korean to me sounds like some weird alien language where every single word ends with differing lengths of OOoOOoOoO or sumida and everyone mumbles as fast as they can in between those sounds. I straight up can't wrap my ears around it. Easy writing system apparently but that doesn't matter when I can't hear shit anyone says...
I agree that there can be an issue of content when learning. I faced this problem when i was learning japanese and trying to go from begginer to intermediate. I didn't find content that i enjoyed and that was close to my level at that time. I was also self-studying and had to do everything on my own.
Yes! Finding content can be so tricky and can really take a blow to your motivation if you can't find something you're interested in. I recently started playing my video games in Japanese and really enjoying it!
I’m chinese and a mandarin speaker, so I don’t know how hard Chinese is to a Chinese learner …..to me I think it’s not hard. Maybe because I’m a native speaker. But anyway, I personally think Japanese sounds so cute and nice, it doesn’t sound as melody and harsh as chinese. But I think no matter which language you decide to learn, I think it’s essential to learn chinese characters at least, or for to begin with. Because ancient history and most of the culture are written and recorded in chinese characters, regardless of where you go, japan, Korea, Vietnam etc, those countries ancient stories are all written in chinese characters ( at least to a large extent). So it’s useful to learn it if you want to know more about east Asia. Pronunciation and grammar and proficiency and all the rest of things, you can worry about those regards the next.
Pitch accent is most definitely a thing in Japanese, but it's like the final level of fluency and the last thing you should GENERALLY focus on, but it can have real affects verbally. Take for example "Rain" and "Candy". Both written as "あめ" in Hiragana but have unique Kanji, the only verbal difference between the 2 is the pitch of the 2 syllables. Rain going high to low (A-me) and Candy going low to high (a-ME). Sure the other person might understand you meant the other one if you stress it wrong, but you still stressed it wrong and the wrong word came out as a result. The regional differences like Osaka or Tokyo are more akin to regional accents in the US, replacing some words entirely, than pitch accents although I'm sure pitches also differ between regions, that's just how languages are. Speaking with natives you can definitely hear the stress and pitches put on certain words and syllables (Not as much as in broadcasting though) and is generally how you tell a native from a fluent foreigner, as learning pitch accent seems to be the hardest part for most learners. But again, this is high tier "I want to sound like a native" level of speaking and definitely should NOT be a focus until you're either fluent or close to it, but some words like above can make a difference. It's not even comparable to tonal languages, it's simply not as important, but it IS there for those who want to up their game once they're close to fluency. Without it, you'll always have that "foreign" accent to native ears One thing I'd love to have been in this video is the level of difficulty in reading a language with no spaces like Japanese and how to differentiate where words start and stop!
It is usually the perfectionists who refuse to quit until they sound like a native, and while it's an individual decision, there's still a reason behind that goal, so what is it? Bragging rights? If you don't look like a native, there's no use pretending you are one and expect to be treated like one. In some countries you won't be no matter how native you sound. Speaking a language is not an automatic pass to get people to accept you. It's being respectable, not just towards the culture and people, but to everyone. If you respect other cultures besides Japanese, learn other languages to prove it and open more doors of opportunities. If somebody from America, Britain, Australia, Ireland, and Scotland were all speaking English to each other, who sounds the most like a native? All of them! In a local setting, they sound normal but in this case, all their accents sound foreign to each other. The way they speak is not wrong but not the one true way to speak English despite having different pronunciations and accents. They're all natives and they certainly don't need to sound like each other. Excluding slang, they can understand each other just fine, so if there's mutual understanding, there's no barrier to communication. Who cares if you don't sound like a local/native? Why does it matter so much? Many Europeans are non-native speakers of English and it's clear from their accents but so what? They can still communicate just fine. Condemning them for their accents and not sounding like a local is stupid, unfair, disrespectful, and ultimately not a big deal. If it is for you, then you really are a perfectionist who takes "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" too seriously. Just keep it to yourself instead of stirring up the pro-pitch accent cult and imposing its supposed importance on those don't care and will never be convinced that it is. Same holds true for all the varieties of Spanish and Arabic. Mexicans and Spaniards sound "foreign" to each other, just as Saudi Arabians and Egyptians sound "foreign" to each other. The fact is they're all natives of their own varieties of the same language, not "fluent foreigners". Your argument seems to assume only one correct way to speak a language if everything "should be this way " or "should be like that". It implies that a language SHOULD adhere to rules and by not following them makes you a foreigner (again, who cares?), and that language SHOULDN'T change overtime when in fact they can which is why language varieties exist. Why do you think Castillian is different from Mexican Spanish? Why is Gulf Arabic different from Egyptian? They just are, and neither is more correct than the other. So what counts as sounding like a native in Spanish or Arabic? Another example is that Finnish is spoken differently than it's written. Why they're not the same, no idea. Using the standard language in conversation is a surefire way to get natives to instantly switch to English no matter how fluent you are in standard Finnish. In the end, nobody cares if you sound like a native. It may be impressive for like 5 seconds, but then realize it was a pointless obsession if you don't look the part. Afterwards, they care more that you're able to communicate AND if you're a pleasant person than if you sound like a native. Sorry to burst your delusional dreamland bubble but that's how it is and you just need to live with the fact that you were never a native, never born into the culture, and never raised with their traditions and values.
@@michaelrespicio5683 You seem to be making assumptions and hard leaning into the fact that people into learning proper pitch are obsessed with being accepted by natives. Wanting to sound native and wanting to be accepted are not the same thing. You will never be accepted as Japanese if you look foreign regardless if you have nationality or not, I'm not arguing that point it's just how things are. But what IS being accepted? Because that doesn't REALLY mean anything unless you have an obsession with being Japanese and not whatever you're born as, which is real delusion and borderline fetish. Half-Japanese natives even deal with not being accepted despite literally BEING Japanese. "Hafu" bullying is a huge issue still. Entirely a separate discussion, but culture and tradition are not race dependent and you're not locked to the culture you were born in. These things are geographically dependent on where you spend most of your time, not even entirely where you were raised. People immigrate and assimilate all the time, you learn culture and tradition over time and that includes as an adult moving to a new country. The literal only advantage a Japanese person has over an American is that they have extra time in that culture and it comes more natural because they were raised in it. Everything, including language learning, is easier when its ingrained at a young age and becomes harder once you become an adult but that doesn't mean you can't learn and assimilate. Overtime a foreigner can easily learn every tradition and cultural nuance of Japan, it's totally dependent on how much they care to learn and the effort they put in. The entire point of this isn't that you have to learn pitch to be accepted, it's that pitch IS a part of the language and those that write it off because "context exists" are taking very defeatist attitudes towards the language and just saying "Well I can communicate that's good enough. I don't need this aspect". Cool, you don't need it, but it's still THERE and people still use it. Striving for native level language isn't about being accepted, it's about learning your chosen language in and out and using it properly. Most people simply do not care to learn 5+ languages, that is not common. If you're goal is to be a polyglot then by all means take shortcuts and cut out things you feel like you don't need but if your goal is to be fluent or sound native in 1 single language, there is no point in taking shortcuts. Even if context corrects you in 99% of cases, you're still saying the wrong word so why would you NOT want to learn how to not make those mistakes? Being PERCEIVED as a native is the ultimate compliment, I don't know why you would not strive for that if you love the language. There's seems to be GENUINE hostility between the pro and anti pitch communities, it's not that serious. Pitch isn't not a requirement, it's the cherry on top. The final level of the language for those who want to go the extra mile
I can speak 日本語, 中文, and 한국말. While I understand 한국말 in any parts of South Korea, Japanese gets quite difficult when talking with people in Aomori, Akita, and other semi-rural parts of Japan (I myself can speak the normal way of speaking, as well as Osaka dialect). For Chinese, oh man, I don't understand a thing depending on where I am in China (even if the people are speaking Mandarin).
I heard that only about 400-500 millions of Chinese population understand Putonghua correctly and precisely, and speak it with standard pronunciation... CMIIW.....
I wanted to learn a few basic phrases in Korean, which I found easily on the Internet. However, in all cases, the romanization of those expressions were often nothing like what I heard from the native speaker. So you make a good point about the shortcomings of transliteration.
Hi Mr. Kauffman. I have been learning Korean for almost 3 years now and I am still struggling with my listening comprehension. I know you emphasize listening and reading, but I was wondering if you had a particular strategy that you use while trying to understand spoken dialogue. By that I mean do you try to visualize the meaning of the words in your head as you hear them or do you try to "see the words" in your head as if it's text coming up on a screen? I know it's a weird question, but I really want to improve my comprehension, especially my listening.
Look-up Anki listening comprehension; in short, you need to drill commonly used verbs and verb phrasings, at varrying speeds, overtime your comprehension will improve!
For me in English, i used to translate each times until i could remember the sound. I think if u watch enough shows and try to perceive the sound out of it, it can help you.
And I try to listen to and read content of interest. I listen to it and if I don't understand very well I read it, and save words and phrases and then listen again until I'm tired of it. Then I go on to something else. I learn about things of interest and my listening skills improve.
As for ta chi tsu te to of Japanese, there are some odd cases where chi is written as ti and tsu is written as tu. The measurement instrument company Mitutoyo is an example. I pronounce it as Mitsutoyo, but all my co-workers pronounce it like Mitootoyo.
King Sejong created Hangul to enable everyone from all classes to be able to read and write. It is so easy to learn that he said, “a wise man can acquaint himself with them [the characters] before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days.” Japanese can pronounce about 1k sounds, Chinese about 3k sounds, Korean 3000k+. Is this right?
@@geanhenrique6982 quando vc estiver assistindo tv, nós estaremos lá. Quando vc estiver assistindo vídeos, no CZcams , nós estaremos lá. Até mesmo quando vc estiver tomando banho, nós estaremos lá.
Bonsoir monsieur. J'apprécie énormément ce que vous faites pour nous. La méthode que vous enseigner est basé sur l'écoute et la lecture, mais surtout l'écoute. Alors, comment je peux savoir que j'ai validé un cours ? C'est à dire, quand je prends un audio et que je l'écoute plusieurs fois pendant plusieurs jours, quand est-ce que je pourrais le changer et passé à un autre ? Comment je saurais que je l'ai validé, c'est à dire comprise ?
c'est difficile pour moi de dire puisque je n'apprend pas les langues pour quelque validation que ce soit. J'écoute et je lis un contenu donné jusqu'à ce que cela ne m'intéresse plus, et là je prends quelque chose de nouveau. Petit à petit je comprends de plus en plus.
Love how he rips into pitch accents. I never studied them specifically, nor did I know what they were. But I started to pick them up as I became advanced as people started to correct my accent. They are not something a beginner needs to study.
Trying to learn pitch accent is a waste of time while learning Japanese. Most of the time it will be obvious if you're talking about rain/candy or bridge/chopsticks etc. I think starting with plain form and soon enough learn polite form is good. But no need to delve too soon into honorific/humble speech. I started learning Korean since last month and I think you should abandon the romanization asap since hangul is easy enough and way more helpful.
I mostly agree about learning Japanese pitch accents. We are dealing with all those differences about different regions daily, and you can guess which one is meant from the lines of conversations most of the time. (Though sometimes you might stand out or make the others smile.)
Haha. As someone raised bilingual I always hated the infamous "what language do you think in?" question. It just never made any sense to me. As far as I can tell I don't think in any language, except in very specific cases where language itself is the focus of the thought, or where it's somehow relevant. It did make me wonder about how some other people are learning languages. I mean, are there really people out there who are thinking "I want to say X" in their native tongue, and then consciously translating it to the language they're learning? Dunno. When I'm speaking a language it's just straight from thought to that language. Tbh I think that question is just the byproduct of the fairly recent phenomenon of monolingualism.
@@bofbob1 Not thinking in any language is actually the exception, most people have sentences in their head, monolingual or not. And people don't translate, or at least they try not to, you just do the same you do in your native language and automatically turn your ideas into words in whatever language you want. "I should check on my sister" "¿Qué quería decir con eso?" "Quel cazzo di merda..." "Gostava de viajar ao Brasil...."
Excellent video. Just one correction about Hangul. Hangul was invented 400 years ago, but Hanja (Korean writing based on Chinese characters) was still standard. In North Korea the switch to Hangul completed by 1949. In South Korea it was later and much more gradual. Even today Hanja is used for many place names, personal names, to distinguish between homonyms (Hangul is phonetic), and in some other places. Some things (dictionaries, birth certificates) use both Hangul and Hanja, next to each other.
There is plenty of Chinese dramas available on CZcams for free, often with English subs. Definitely the availability of software such as OCR tools makes it much easier with that language now. I can't even imagine back in the day when you had to use paper dictionaries.
Everybody(including Korean) says Korean is easy to write. But although my friends, relatives, and even I are Korean there are very very few people can writing in a right way. Writing Korean is more difficult than you can imagine.
Absolutely, most people got confused where to put the 받침. Example, 말이야 sometimes got mistaken as 마리야. 못해 mistaken as 모태(in term of writing). I’m as a korean learner, this thing really screwed my brain plus the pronunciation twisted my tongue more than i would imagine due to consonant assimilation
Glad you mentioned pitch accent! It's a fascinating topic, although a bit polarising at times 😅 A lot of people seem to view it as either essential or totally pointless. Personally I fall somewhere in the middle, as I feel like it's not remotely necessary (as you've proven first-hand), but can have various benefits. Whether it's worth pursuing those benefits depends largely on the goals and priorities of the learner
Hi guys, I'm study English right now , but there no English-speaking people around me , so if you want study Chinese and you have time , we can study together, contact use Chinese/Engish .
I'm Korean. I have worked in Japanese company and I was an exchange student in Japan. I have studied in China. Many of Korean and Japanese vocabularies come from Chinese. Korean and Japanese have the almost same grammar system but Chinese doesn't.
I have hsk 4 level (more or less, but rather less). Oh well, i work in the nuclear industry (in germany) and somehow now the learning contents of hsk is boring. So I just took some Chinese nuclear regulations and now learn the serious academic vocabulary....like radioactive substance...discharge, nuclear power plant...etc. Now that’s fun. It’s better to learn things with interesting contents than some boring beginners stuff, although the latter makes also sense.
Koreans were also using a Chinese writing system up until about 500 years ago when King Sejong and a group of scholars created Hanguel in an attempt to raise literacy levels. But Hanja (what Koreans call Chinese characters) are still used today in academic papers and newspapers but increasingly less than the past. Regardless, this suggests to me that Korean was also influenced by Chinese. In fact, Koreans even use a Sino-Korean number system to count in some cases. So there's definitely some Chinese influence there.
You said syrrabres lmao also I'm learning Mandarin right now, I've been before to China in 2016. I LOVE history so I love your channel and I'm glad I found it recently
I think Korean is the hardest asian language in my opinion because it's the not the alphabet. It's the phrases and sentence structures that confuse a lot of English speakers including myself. Mandarin Chinese and Japanese wasn't too hard
I'm a native Russian speaker so Korean wasn't hard for me because in Russian we have 2 politeness levels and both SOV and SVO sentence structures are used. So it's fine for me learning Korean.
Michael Ewing, what planet are you from? It took my cousin and I an hour to learn to read Korean. The king who invented hangul designed it so that even an imbecile would be able to read in a day. It is a simple alphabet system. Japanese and Chinese took me 5 years because of the Chinese characters involved.
Could you make a comparison between Tagalog and Indonesian? That would be interesting to hear. For example, that they have some words that sound the same meaning the same things, some words sounding the same but mean different things, and yet a different word order in general.
Steve, suppose you already know Japanese up to a relatively high level, a level where Chinese characters aren't a problem. How would you go about using that to your advantage when starting to learn Chinese? Would you still resort to pinyin even though you are quite confortable with Chinese characters? Don't you think going straight for basic grammar then moving on to reading is a better way to go about it given the circumstances?
The issue in my opinion isnt just knowing the characters (which are also different in chinese and japanese) but also knowing their pronunciation. So without pinyin you can't know how the character is pronounced just by looking at it. Also japanese pronunciation and mandarin chinese for example are vastly different from one another
@@sumbunny2009 I don't think you got what I meant. Well for starters the characters do have the same meaning, it's just a matter of getting used to the simplified/traditional form, not that much of a problem. And regarding the readings, there is the option to just hear them being said instead of relying on pinyin.
@@chicoti3 Natives use pinyin, Taiwanese people use other system. I'm you can learn the words directly but you need a phonetical system to know how the words are pronounced and to write on computers and phones.
Yes I would use the Pinyin in order to get used to the new pronunciation. Just hearing it is not as effective as hearing it and seeing the phonetic script in my experience.
That thumbnail of the Rock Paper Scissors hands coded with the ROK, PRC and Japanese flags looks like some sort of geopolitics cartoon you’d see on the cover of a policy magazine lol
Hi sir...This is Prakash Peter from Chennai City, Tamil Nadu State, in India. Hats off to you that you learnt three asian languages. Pl try to think of one more Language TAMIL. This Tamil language is mother of languages. Chinese and Japanese and Korean has lots of Tamil words too. In Tamil we call Dad as APPA, and we call Mom as AMMA. same sound comes in Chinese n Korean too You are such an inspirational role model for us sir. I started learning Chinese n Japanese since 2020. Love you sir
Learning intonation by doing a lot of listening is the same as learning pitch accent of all the words, it’s just a different way of achieving the same thing. One is a wholistic way and the other is a systematic way. It really depends on your learning style
Pitch accent becomes more and more popular, and Westerners (外人） are trying to sell it (literally) like its something so so important, and as you said, even if one says 雨 and 飴 with the same accent they will understand through context. Vocabulary and grammar and comprehensible input are way way more important. これはありがとうございました。
I find it hard to do other languages since laoshu died, he was the only reason I got into it now when I see or hear another language I only think of him
Hey Steve, I have the goal of learning Japanese and Korean. I've started Japanese, but I'd like to get started on Korean as well. Can I learn two languages at the same time?
Hey! Thought I'd give my two cents since I tried learning Spanish at the same time as Japanese, but later focused on only Japanese. Of course, you can study both at the same time, but I think it will come down to your goals and priorities. If you wanted to learn either or both to high levels, I think you will find focusing on one to be easier. But if you're just learning for fun and aren't concerned about how fast you progress, go for both!
@@AliviasNook Thanks so much! If my first goal is to be able to travel and converse regularly with little difficulty, is that too lofty? I've already been doing Japanese for a bit, but I'm not fluent. I think eventually I'd like to get to a high level but I'm not particularly concerned at the moment.
@@UnagiMonk I think that's a great goal, I really want to be able to do that too! I think if most of your time is going towards Japanese you'll be able to reach it, and then you could do Korean more casually on the side whenever you feel like switching it up!
Hello Mr Kaufmann I learn English and German simultaneously. To date it was enough for me using flashcards but it is extremely boring and it takes a lot of times. In addition now when I'm learning also German I would have to spend to much time creating flashcards. Following your advice I started reading more and more but I'm afraid if I don't repeat my flashcards I will forget a lot of words. I don't have any alternative method to enrich vocabulary beyond using flashcards. What should I do to maintain and still increase my knowledge of words?
If you are learning european languages then flashcards are unnecessary (not useless though). Reading > flashcards. Don't worry about forgetting words. it is an unavoidable part of language learning. if you run into them often enough they will stick with you eventually.
@@suras8849 Yes I use flashcards after I read or listen to something. But using flashcards with stray words, it is pointless. I listen to some podcast and after that I review flashcards, once I listen to without transcript and once with transcript but each times I review flashcards alternately.
I made the experience that flashcards are very useful for studying Chinese characters. But since the European script is 'readable from the start' I think flashcards are optional here. Constant exposure by itself is like a srs system:) Best of luck und auch viel Erfolg beim deutsch lernen:)
Actually and historically，tone is not alway a typical character of sino-tibetan family，some nowadays dialects (both from Chinese and Tibetan，but for different reasons or route) without tones，and the ancient Chinese (perhaps before Qin dynasty)，the ancient Tibetan (the time when Songtsen Gampo roled the plateau) thought to be the same--without tones. But some Korean dialect do have tones now, like the Gyeongsang dialect, which is thought to keep the ancient Korean‘s tradition (back to the era of Silla).
If u do not try u can't know. That's all i can say. Try one language, learn it with someone or in classes, it can help you to get a 'better' understanding of it and then u can apply it to other language. Ofc it will be hard if not similar to ur own language, but u can do it for sure
@@mysopeworld You're not going to be able to learn a Category 5 Asian language without thousands of hours and a significant emotional reason to do so. You'll quit well before getting any traction. This isn't like learning Spanish 30 minutes a day.
Is the LingQ team actually making progress getting new languages onto LingQ? Seems like stalling, and some people are eager to start Thai, Vietnamese, Tagalog and whatever else is coming. When was the last time a new language was added? It's the middle of March for goodness sake. How much longer must people wait?
I can understand that there are many Mandarin words in Japanese and Korean - it was the prestige language and culture there for millenia. However, as Mandarin and Cantonese are (from what I understand) made of monosyllabic words, how are these adapted into Korean and Japanese which don't have tone and so need more polysyllabic words to difine different words?
Why does Pinyin do such a sloppy job? Changes in tones for 不, 一 & Sandhi r sometimes stated & sometimes not. Separation of syllables, capitalization, 2nd syllable (not) neutral tone vary depending on the source. Yet I don't wanna deal with Bopomofo & Wide-Gales is so archaic now.
Japanese isn't tonal but does have pitch stress which when omitted makes the speaker sound "awkward". Dogen's YT channel covers this in depth. Once the Japanese stress system is mastered, then your Japanese sounds so much more authentic. Swedish has a dual pitch stress, Danish has its "stød" for stress, and even English has its own pitch stress system: e.g. "produce", stress on 1st syllable means "fruits and veggies", and on the 2nd means the verb "to make something."
@@osamahabbas3443 It s important if fluency is a goal. Speaking sloppily ignoring proper word stress is distracting for the listener and can result in misunderstandings. Missing the stress can change the meaning of the word entirely.
@@lohphat no its not,Steve did business in Japanese without it ,and he is fluent in it.I think you have never spoken with someone who speaks your native language ,you don't care about pronunciation errors
@@osamahabbas3443 I've studied Japanese and have been there many times. Missing stress accent can cause confusion. czcams.com/video/O6AoilGEers/video.html Dogen explains this in his Japanese pitch accent series.
@@lohphat sorry I don't agree you can communicate without studying it ,Steve explains in many videos that it doesn't matter and he lived there for 9 nine years
I was looking at which one I should learn either Chinese or Japanese. This video made me consider that Chinese would be the starting point as I’m simultaneously studying Vietnamese (and I can speak in all different tones in different accents; north, south and southwest) thus I feel like the tonal part wouldn’t bother me too much and learning Chinese seems to be the way to go 😊 Thanks a bunch for all the information so far! If I may ask: Could you perhaps tag some books? (Like which one you used when you started studying or any other relatable books)
In this video I compare learning Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Korean from a variety of points of view.
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Hi Steve, I think you should include Vietnamese.
I know Vietnam doesn't in East Asia but Vietnam it's part of Sinosphere, which culture related and was use Chinese characters before romanization the writing system.
Steve, you've got to learn the pitch accents in order to pronounce Japanese nicely sounding like a native Japanese speaker, or you'll be forever treated as a foreigner.
For Korean I like to use Talk To Me In Korean. The teachers have nice voices, there is a course divided in ten levels, and they have "natural conversations" about topics of everyday life.
Good to know. Thanks.
In a nutshell:
Easiest pronunciation: Japanese
Easiest writing system: Korean
Easiest grammar (relative to English): Mandarin
Hardest pronunciation: Mandarin (because tones)
Hardest writing system: Japanese (kanji with multiple pronuncations+two syllabaries)
Hardest grammar: Not sure if Japanese or Korean is harder, but I've heard Korean is
Japanese and Korean do not have tones, but they do have pitch accent instead of the common stress accent.
Japanese and the Chinese languages have the most similar writing systems although Japan and China simplified certain characters differently, and the old Chinese pronunciations used in Japanese have far diverged from the modern ones.
Japanese and Korean have the most similar grammar, although I can't say how similar because I'm not learning Korean.
Korean grammar is more difficult for me than Japanese
@@sofiabotteron2074 Yeah I wasn't sure. I just knew they had a lot of similarities
Grammar is almost identical between Japanese and Korean, if you know Japanese then understanding Korean grammar is easy except Korean use extra subject marker and sentence ending and also Korean use mix between formal & informal depending on situation and mix native Korean and Sino-Korean or even loan words from other cultures. Just stick to formal form and use Sino-Korean words rather than these native words then it becomes easy or same level as Japanese.
For me as a kazakh native speaker korean/japanese would be easier to learn due to kind of similar grammar I guess, cause I see obvious similarity in grammar than russian/english which is grammar completely different, maybe
@@darassylmoniakam It's hard to say. They are all going to be hard/easy in different ways. It depends on what you are good at.
I'm gonna try to learn chinese in this year and your videos are so useful to motivate myself
Good luck!!!
GL, I'm returning to korean.
This video could not have come at a better time! My partner is starting her Master's in Global Asian studies and has to pick what language she wants to focus on, well at least at first, and these are three of her four options. Thank you!
Steve it would be interesting to see you speak with Oriental Peal. She speaks Chinese and Japanese very well. Lives in Japan and China.
sure
Thank you for explaining that well I’m currently learning Japanese Korean and Mandarin Chinese, information will be useful!!😁
nice edits steve
I understand 6 foreign languages : English, German, French, Arabic, Russian, and Mandarin with different levels of abilities.
I'm a 50 year-old Indonesian...
I speak German pretty well, and been to Munich to learn German.
It was long time ago that I reached B2 level, nearly C1.
But it seems that my German deteriorates.
I also learned French and Russian, but I don't speak those languages very well like my German, and of course, my fluent English.
Now I'm learning Mandarin, and I believe my Mandarin reached A2 or B1 level, because I got Hsk-3 in October 2019.
I want to participate Hsk-4, but the Confucius Institute in Jakarta closed down due to the pandemi ; open only with appointments.
The problem is maintaining the ability.
Once you get the B level, you start to be fed up with the language you have learned, unless you have a very high motivation and specific purpose to learn the language.
And after that the next question is whether you can maintain the level that has been attained.
I reached B2 or even almost C1 in German long time ago, but now it seems that I can only answer relatively correct the B1 level.
My German deteriorates.
Language is a matter of habits and habitation....
Ja genau.
@@IKEMENOsakaman
Danke....!!
Maybe reading some things in the languages u learnt will help to maintain it ? I found it terribly interesting when i could read English. I now keep use it and i never loose my level thanks to it
@@kunokoaeri3505
If you learn something when you are still very young : swimming, riding bikes, sports, martial arts, etc. including foreign lamguages, then your skills will linger on.
I learned English long long time ago, maybe even befote you were born, when US President was late Ronald Reagan.
I started to learn German when George Bush, sr. attacked Sadfam Husein that day 1990.
Later on I learned French and Russian when I already got married.
Russian itself is a difficult language.
When Steve speaks Russian, I can still understand what he's talking about, but not when natives speaker speak.
Now I learned Chinese when already 50 years old.
I take 10 - 30 minutes every day to memorize Chinese vocabularies, but limityed on Hsk-4 and Hsk-5 standards.
It's a bit hard for me to intensify 2000 - 3000 words, I mean to keep remembering them with the scratches.
It is as difficult as memorizing complicated grammatical structure of Russian language.
When I feel bored to memorize Chinese vocabularies, which I have limitted to about 3000 words, I turn to read Russian grammar.
I hope someday I can take Hsk-4 or even Hsk-5...
I don't study German and French anymore.
I'm finished with them.
I sometimes watch DW Channels to enjoy German news, not to hope to increase my listening skills like when I listen to Chinese-speaking channels.
Thankyou....
Молодец !
Steve, I am super impressed with your Japanese skills. I have lived in Japan for 30 years and I now taking a crack at Korean and Japanese sign language.
Appreciate the note on Japanese pitch accent. It seems the JP language learning Internet community is obsessed with that.
More power to whoever manages to perfect it, but they react too negatively when people (rightly so) deem it not as important as them.
here is an interesting article on Japanese pitch accent from Wikipedia. The nature of the pitch accent varies from region to region in Japan and it would appear that some regions have no pitch accent. what's more many languages exhibit this feature, ranging from Swedish to Persian and many more. There is pitch in English. To me this is an unnecessary complication in learning Japanese. Apparently the Japanese only worry about it if they're going to be announcing on NHK. It's nowhere near as fundamental to communication as tones in Mandarin Chinese. I'll stay with that opinion.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pitch_accent
@@Thelinguist In the end, the goal of any language is to communicate, not to pretend you are a native speaker. For sure it is a nice goal, but it's not the only one and not for everyone.
@@arishiasol I agree, but how natural you sound does make a difference in how people see you and treat you. If your goal is to fit into Japanese society in the long term (maybe you're settling down there and having kids), it might be worthwhile. Additionally, having horrible pitch accent would probably be similar to, if not worse than an English learner who keeps messing up the stress in English words. It won't ruin your ability to communicate, but it make it harder for you to be understood. That said, for most people's purposes, mastering pitch accent in Japanese is probably completely unnecessary.
japanese is the hardest language of them all. i am french. And the grammar is complicated , impossible on japanese.
Great video, Steve! I have to disagree about Korean pronunciation though - I think it's much more difficult than Japanese pronunciation. The consonants assimilate, you have aspirated consonants and double consonants (which are sometimes pronounced in words written with single consonants), and my personal experience is that many Koreans will not understand you at all if you don't have good pronunciation. Pronunciation is definitely one of the things which makes Korean difficult for a lot of people I know
Often. Whether people can understand a foreign accent depends not on the language itself but those peoples familiarity with the foreign accent. Australians could not understand American movies when speaking movies were first invented, they had to subtitle the whole movie. But now Australians have a lot of exposure to American accents and can understand them. Korean people in some parts of Korea and/or with a are less used to foreign accents than Japanese people. I’m not actually disagreeing that Korean pronunciation is harder though. But people not understanding accents is relative.
If you think Japanese pronunciation is harder, there's something wrong lmao
Korean is definitely the harder one especially for English speakers that don't usually distinguish aspiration.
Wrong Japanese pitch accent or wrong vowel length is understandable by the listener from context (usually).
@@M_SC It's not just relative: for example, if your only problem were to be differentiating the 오 from the 어, listeners can get used to that. However, if someone were to speak Chinese without any tones, the listener would be left with a lot more guesswork to do. That aside, it is important to remember that intelligibility is not absolute. (And, as such, there is no definitive method of measuring it.) Thank you for pointing that out.
"my personal experience is that many Koreans will not understand you at all if you don't have good pronunciation." it's not better with japanese and chinese with their tongues, in general asians who correct prononciations and grammar are rare
My new favourite channel - I love your infectious enthusiasm for language learning and understanding - its such a positive human thing - thank you for sharing
As a long time Japanese learner, Mandarin is a breath of fresh air.
Can you explain why? I always wanted to learn one of them but I can't really decide which one should I learn first.
@@kevinhandy1926 in most Chinese languages, including Mandarin, all characters are pronounced with exactly one syllable. Most Chinese characters are pronounced only one way in Mandarin. Conversely, in Japanese, most characters have at least two different contextual pronunciations, and one of them is more often two mora, sometimes three, four, on even more: for example 鉄 is くろがね, that's four mora for one character.
In Mandarin, generally if you've learned a character, and you know what spoken syllable it maps to, you never have to learn it again.
@@microcolonel wait until you encounter tones that change depending on how its used. 互相 ， 相声 for example. Also I could mention many characters that have multiple meanings/pronunciations for example 还，行 but I don't want to make my comment any longer.
@@mandarinjourneyswithnanno it's not that I've not encountered them, it's that it is much nicer.
@@microcolonel I’ve been finding Chinese considerably harder, I’ll take more pronunciations over having so many words sounding pretty much the same.
i just started learning Japanese recently ,hoping l can read the original version of Totto chan next year
That's awesome! I just looked up the book and it sounds really interesting, I hope to be able to read it one day too!
What is about
@@AliviasNook🤝🤝🤝btw , as a nonnative English speaker , I wanna say that your comment reminds me of the different usage between 'can' and' am able to ',hahahahaha
@@tea-bag7030 the book tells a story about the unusual and impressive life of a Japanese little girl （called totto chan）in a nontraditional primary school . lt 's really an illuminating book for both parents and educators in my view . and l don't talk too much about the detail here to be a spoiler . hope you 'll find the beauty of this book yourself :）
I want to learn Japanese and Chinese, Thanks to the valuable tips Steve !!
Yesterday I was uncertain about which one of these three languages I should learn first and this morning this video is uploaded. Thank you Sir! Greetings from Indonesia 🇮🇩
Have you decided on a plan? My girlfriend is also deciding for her studies
@@janvdb9258 not really but I think I will learn Chinese first 😁
Saya sedang belajar bahasa indonesia
@@mattiapicchi275 wah keren! Semangat ya! 😁👍🏼
@@janvdb9258 Depends on what she's interested in. If it's culture, then learn the language of the culture you like the most. If it's usefulness, Mandarin Chinese might be the most useful since it's the most spoken language in the world.
Hey steve. I wanted to ask how much people should “think” in a language. So maybe after doing a bunch of reading/listening on lingq, to try and form sentences in your head?
There are 4 levels of learning a foreign language.
1. to know / to understand the language.
2. to use the language more or less correctly.
3. to feel the language. This will appear when the learner reaches B2 level, like I used to as for my German long time ago.
4. the language is no longer a foreign language to you.
Language is a matter of habits...
The more you get exposed to the language, the higher level you reach....
@@ayi3455 totally agree with you, it happened to me in english.
I agree. Please do check mine czcams.com/video/T6ctHIZ1wHM/video.html 👍🏻
Man I do it all the time. Thinking in japanese has become the first thing I do when I wake up and last thing I do at night
I am more motivated to listen and read and then speak when I have the opportunity. I don't consciously try to think in the language or talk to myself in the language, but it does happen from time to time.
Awesome!!
As someone who is learning these 3 languages this was really interesting!!
Thanks for always bringing us your insightful perspectives!
Which one you think is the hardest? In term of writing, pronunciation and grammar
Hi Mr. Kaufman, thank you very much for sharing the experience of learning Asian languages with comparison of so many details. I appreciate it if you could share more in the future.
There's only one thing that I'm afraid there can be a misunderstanding. Most academic vocabulary of Mandarin such as science 科学, are from Japanese rather than the opposite way(once it was called 赛先生 in Chinese). Japan accepted modernized civilization from Europe in about 19 century and many vocabulary were translated to Kanji words at that time, and then they were introduced to China in the form of Chinese character exactly the same. As a result, most traditional vocabulary of Japanese are from Mandarin while modern vocabulary like democracy, science, police etc are mostly created and come from Japanese. I'm from mainland China and proud of my ancient created the most beautiful and important language in the world, but I hope everything is going in the correct way.
I wish you all the best and good luck in the future.
放苟皮，少在着造摇
Generally speaking, Korean is the hardest one. The use of an alphabet makes it seem easier, but it has the most complex grammar and pronunciation of the three. And the hanzi actually helps to disambiguate meaning and build vocab efficiently
I disagree haha but I learned Japanese fluently first and then learned some Chinese and then became fluent in Korean. Korean is easier when you understand the hanja/kanji but it’s also soo much faster to learn when you can read everything by learning hangul. The grammar is very similar to Japanese, but there are a lot less concepts to learn than for Japanese in my opinion. However, Japanese has a LOT of phrases that are repeated over and over in certain situations, so it’s easy to get by with a little Japanese if you learn what you use in your daily life and don’t need to go much more beyond that. Korean is a little trickier in the beginning because there’s more variation and less standard phrases that you need. The pronunciation of Japanese is slightly “easier” because there are less vowel sounds, but Korean has more sounds that native English speakers use that Japanese speakers don’t. I think pronunciation of the two are fairly similar in “difficulty” to learn.
@@monicastamantWhat about the writing system for both Japanese and Korean? I know someone who learned the Korean's writing system in one week, but I find it hard to believe.
@@Oberstien17 Yes, you can learn the Korean “alphabet” called hangul really quickly. It’s was created in order to be accessible to everyone (as opposed to the Chinese characters). Once you learn it, you can read everything, even if you don’t necessarily understand it. It makes it quicker to look up words in the dictionary, etc.
Japanese has three writing systems: Kanji, katakana, and hiragana. The last two are the same sounds but look different and are used differently. Kanji takes YEARS to learn and even most Japanese people can’t remember all of them all the time or write them by hand. You can’t look up a word that you can’t even enter into the computer because you can’t read it. It takes hours and hours of rigorous study to learn basic written Japanese that little kids learn in school. So when you learn Korean, you’re saving a lot of time in the reading/writing areas which can be used to learn vocab, grammar, etc. Japanese just requires a lot more time and dedication to learn in the reading/writing department.
@@monicastamant Wow.. I didn't know you can learn it in such a short time!
@@monicastamant In regard to the grammar, some people are saying that Korean is much harder than Japanese, is that accurately true or it differs from one to another?
Korean and Japanese pronunciation is COMPLETELY different.
Japanese is one of the easiest languages for English speakers to pronounce, even easier than most European languages. The major differences I can think of are that Japanese has double vowels and consonants. But these are easy to pronounce because they just involve small changes in timing, not entirely new sounds.
Korean, on the other hand, has devilishly difficult pronunciation. It has far more vowels than English and the difference between these vowels is often imperceptible to English speakers. The tiniest movements of the lips or tongue are perceived as entirety different vowels by Korean speakers.
Tbe consonants are also very challenging for two reasons. First, many basic Korean consonants fall in between English consonants. For example, ㅂ falls in between "b" and "p", whereas ㅍ is almost equivalent to "p". Thus, English speakers have great difficulty distinguishing between ㅂ and ㅍ. Then there are the double consonants, to which there is no analogy in English. Imagine trying to distinguish between a "stressed" k and a normal "k".
Well, that's the gist of the differences I'm aware of. To be honest, Steve, I have heard you speaking Korean and your pronunciation is quite poor. Perhaps it is because you have not spent much time on Korean that you think the pronunciation is similar to Japanese.
Though not having tried to learn Korean, as I don't need it, this sounds like my experience. Not a native English speaker I learned some Japanese on my own as I like video games, anime etc. I (very briefly) studied Mandarin in school and found it to be a breeze (maybe because I've played instruments or because my language/dialect has minute pitch accents so I'm accustomed to small differences in tone. Grammar was easy). I can somewhat follow conversations in both languages. Japanese seemd a LOT more difficult thanks to the grammar.
Korean though... Korean to me sounds like some weird alien language where every single word ends with differing lengths of OOoOOoOoO or sumida and everyone mumbles as fast as they can in between those sounds. I straight up can't wrap my ears around it. Easy writing system apparently but that doesn't matter when I can't hear shit anyone says...
Hi Steve, I came from 秋山's video. Subscribed to your channel!
I agree that there can be an issue of content when learning. I faced this problem when i was learning japanese and trying to go from begginer to intermediate. I didn't find content that i enjoyed and that was close to my level at that time. I was also self-studying and had to do everything on my own.
Yes! Finding content can be so tricky and can really take a blow to your motivation if you can't find something you're interested in. I recently started playing my video games in Japanese and really enjoying it!
字幕が付いていて、
更にわかりやすいです。
ありがとうございます😊
I’m chinese and a mandarin speaker, so I don’t know how hard Chinese is to a Chinese learner …..to me I think it’s not hard. Maybe because I’m a native speaker. But anyway, I personally think Japanese sounds so cute and nice, it doesn’t sound as melody and harsh as chinese. But I think no matter which language you decide to learn, I think it’s essential to learn chinese characters at least, or for to begin with. Because ancient history and most of the culture are written and recorded in chinese characters, regardless of where you go, japan, Korea, Vietnam etc, those countries ancient stories are all written in chinese characters ( at least to a large extent). So it’s useful to learn it if you want to know more about east Asia. Pronunciation and grammar and proficiency and all the rest of things, you can worry about those regards the next.
No hao
Pitch accent is most definitely a thing in Japanese, but it's like the final level of fluency and the last thing you should GENERALLY focus on, but it can have real affects verbally. Take for example "Rain" and "Candy". Both written as "あめ" in Hiragana but have unique Kanji, the only verbal difference between the 2 is the pitch of the 2 syllables. Rain going high to low (A-me) and Candy going low to high (a-ME). Sure the other person might understand you meant the other one if you stress it wrong, but you still stressed it wrong and the wrong word came out as a result. The regional differences like Osaka or Tokyo are more akin to regional accents in the US, replacing some words entirely, than pitch accents although I'm sure pitches also differ between regions, that's just how languages are. Speaking with natives you can definitely hear the stress and pitches put on certain words and syllables (Not as much as in broadcasting though) and is generally how you tell a native from a fluent foreigner, as learning pitch accent seems to be the hardest part for most learners.
But again, this is high tier "I want to sound like a native" level of speaking and definitely should NOT be a focus until you're either fluent or close to it, but some words like above can make a difference. It's not even comparable to tonal languages, it's simply not as important, but it IS there for those who want to up their game once they're close to fluency. Without it, you'll always have that "foreign" accent to native ears
One thing I'd love to have been in this video is the level of difficulty in reading a language with no spaces like Japanese and how to differentiate where words start and stop!
It is usually the perfectionists who refuse to quit until they sound like a native, and while it's an individual decision, there's still a reason behind that goal, so what is it? Bragging rights? If you don't look like a native, there's no use pretending you are one and expect to be treated like one. In some countries you won't be no matter how native you sound. Speaking a language is not an automatic pass to get people to accept you. It's being respectable, not just towards the culture and people, but to everyone. If you respect other cultures besides Japanese, learn other languages to prove it and open more doors of opportunities.
If somebody from America, Britain, Australia, Ireland, and Scotland were all speaking English to each other, who sounds the most like a native? All of them! In a local setting, they sound normal but in this case, all their accents sound foreign to each other. The way they speak is not wrong but not the one true way to speak English despite having different pronunciations and accents. They're all natives and they certainly don't need to sound like each other. Excluding slang, they can understand each other just fine, so if there's mutual understanding, there's no barrier to communication. Who cares if you don't sound like a local/native? Why does it matter so much? Many Europeans are non-native speakers of English and it's clear from their accents but so what? They can still communicate just fine. Condemning them for their accents and not sounding like a local is stupid, unfair, disrespectful, and ultimately not a big deal. If it is for you, then you really are a perfectionist who takes "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" too seriously. Just keep it to yourself instead of stirring up the pro-pitch accent cult and imposing its supposed importance on those don't care and will never be convinced that it is.
Same holds true for all the varieties of Spanish and Arabic. Mexicans and Spaniards sound "foreign" to each other, just as Saudi Arabians and Egyptians sound "foreign" to each other. The fact is they're all natives of their own varieties of the same language, not "fluent foreigners".
Your argument seems to assume only one correct way to speak a language if everything "should be this way " or "should be like that". It implies that a language SHOULD adhere to rules and by not following them makes you a foreigner (again, who cares?), and that language SHOULDN'T change overtime when in fact they can which is why language varieties exist. Why do you think Castillian is different from Mexican Spanish? Why is Gulf Arabic different from Egyptian? They just are, and neither is more correct than the other. So what counts as sounding like a native in Spanish or Arabic?
Another example is that Finnish is spoken differently than it's written. Why they're not the same, no idea. Using the standard language in conversation is a surefire way to get natives to instantly switch to English no matter how fluent you are in standard Finnish.
In the end, nobody cares if you sound like a native. It may be impressive for like 5 seconds, but then realize it was a pointless obsession if you don't look the part. Afterwards, they care more that you're able to communicate AND if you're a pleasant person than if you sound like a native. Sorry to burst your delusional dreamland bubble but that's how it is and you just need to live with the fact that you were never a native, never born into the culture, and never raised with their traditions and values.
@@michaelrespicio5683 You seem to be making assumptions and hard leaning into the fact that people into learning proper pitch are obsessed with being accepted by natives. Wanting to sound native and wanting to be accepted are not the same thing. You will never be accepted as Japanese if you look foreign regardless if you have nationality or not, I'm not arguing that point it's just how things are. But what IS being accepted? Because that doesn't REALLY mean anything unless you have an obsession with being Japanese and not whatever you're born as, which is real delusion and borderline fetish. Half-Japanese natives even deal with not being accepted despite literally BEING Japanese. "Hafu" bullying is a huge issue still.
Entirely a separate discussion, but culture and tradition are not race dependent and you're not locked to the culture you were born in. These things are geographically dependent on where you spend most of your time, not even entirely where you were raised. People immigrate and assimilate all the time, you learn culture and tradition over time and that includes as an adult moving to a new country. The literal only advantage a Japanese person has over an American is that they have extra time in that culture and it comes more natural because they were raised in it. Everything, including language learning, is easier when its ingrained at a young age and becomes harder once you become an adult but that doesn't mean you can't learn and assimilate. Overtime a foreigner can easily learn every tradition and cultural nuance of Japan, it's totally dependent on how much they care to learn and the effort they put in.
The entire point of this isn't that you have to learn pitch to be accepted, it's that pitch IS a part of the language and those that write it off because "context exists" are taking very defeatist attitudes towards the language and just saying "Well I can communicate that's good enough. I don't need this aspect". Cool, you don't need it, but it's still THERE and people still use it. Striving for native level language isn't about being accepted, it's about learning your chosen language in and out and using it properly. Most people simply do not care to learn 5+ languages, that is not common. If you're goal is to be a polyglot then by all means take shortcuts and cut out things you feel like you don't need but if your goal is to be fluent or sound native in 1 single language, there is no point in taking shortcuts. Even if context corrects you in 99% of cases, you're still saying the wrong word so why would you NOT want to learn how to not make those mistakes? Being PERCEIVED as a native is the ultimate compliment, I don't know why you would not strive for that if you love the language. There's seems to be GENUINE hostility between the pro and anti pitch communities, it's not that serious. Pitch isn't not a requirement, it's the cherry on top. The final level of the language for those who want to go the extra mile
I can speak 日本語, 中文, and 한국말. While I understand 한국말 in any parts of South Korea, Japanese gets quite difficult when talking with people in Aomori, Akita, and other semi-rural parts of Japan (I myself can speak the normal way of speaking, as well as Osaka dialect). For Chinese, oh man, I don't understand a thing depending on where I am in China (even if the people are speaking Mandarin).
I heard that only about 400-500 millions of Chinese population understand Putonghua correctly and precisely, and speak it with standard pronunciation...
CMIIW.....
確かにちょっと違いますけど、そんなに大きくなくてただの慣れの問題だと思います。
I wanted to learn a few basic phrases in Korean, which I found easily on the Internet. However, in all cases, the romanization of those expressions were often nothing like what I heard from the native speaker. So you make a good point about the shortcomings of transliteration.
Sorry, I should have written “romanization….was” or “transliterations … were.” I failed my grammar test.
Sorry Steve I can't wait and finish the vídeo... I had to use Lingq and try to learn those three languages! LOL. Best Wishes from Brazil.
Hi Mr. Kauffman. I have been learning Korean for almost 3 years now and I am still struggling with my listening comprehension. I know you emphasize listening and reading, but I was wondering if you had a particular strategy that you use while trying to understand spoken dialogue. By that I mean do you try to visualize the meaning of the words in your head as you hear them or do you try to "see the words" in your head as if it's text coming up on a screen? I know it's a weird question, but I really want to improve my comprehension, especially my listening.
Look-up Anki listening comprehension; in short, you need to drill commonly used verbs and verb phrasings, at varrying speeds, overtime your comprehension will improve!
For me in English, i used to translate each times until i could remember the sound. I think if u watch enough shows and try to perceive the sound out of it, it can help you.
@@kunokoaeri3505 you are totally right
And I try to listen to and read content of interest. I listen to it and if I don't understand very well I read it, and save words and phrases and then listen again until I'm tired of it. Then I go on to something else. I learn about things of interest and my listening skills improve.
Very interesting video!
As for ta chi tsu te to of Japanese, there are some odd cases where chi is written as ti and tsu is written as tu. The measurement instrument company Mitutoyo is an example. I pronounce it as Mitsutoyo, but all my co-workers pronounce it like Mitootoyo.
King Sejong created Hangul to enable everyone from all classes to be able to read and write. It is so easy to learn that he said, “a wise man can acquaint himself with them [the characters] before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days.” Japanese can pronounce about 1k sounds, Chinese about 3k sounds, Korean 3000k+. Is this right?
Couldn't "kami" mean either "god" (神 ), "paper" (紙) or "hair" (髪) in Japanese depending on the tone?
Great vid as always Steve!
Admiro muito esse cara
Brasileiros em todos os lugares
@@geanhenrique6982 sempre estamos aqui, sempre!
@@geanhenrique6982 quando vc estiver assistindo tv, nós estaremos lá. Quando vc estiver assistindo vídeos, no CZcams , nós estaremos lá. Até mesmo quando vc estiver tomando banho, nós estaremos lá.
@@MarcosVinicius-hj3sn eu entendi a referência kkkk
Great video, sir! Just what I was looking for to get some info on comparison of these two (Japanese and Chinese for me).
Bonsoir monsieur. J'apprécie énormément ce que vous faites pour nous. La méthode que vous enseigner est basé sur l'écoute et la lecture, mais surtout l'écoute. Alors, comment je peux savoir que j'ai validé un cours ? C'est à dire, quand je prends un audio et que je l'écoute plusieurs fois pendant plusieurs jours, quand est-ce que je pourrais le changer et passé à un autre ? Comment je saurais que je l'ai validé, c'est à dire comprise ?
c'est difficile pour moi de dire puisque je n'apprend pas les langues pour quelque validation que ce soit. J'écoute et je lis un contenu donné jusqu'à ce que cela ne m'intéresse plus, et là je prends quelque chose de nouveau. Petit à petit je comprends de plus en plus.
Love how he rips into pitch accents. I never studied them specifically, nor did I know what they were. But I started to pick them up as I became advanced as people started to correct my accent. They are not something a beginner needs to study.
I totally lost it when Dolores and the M.O.M picture popped up 😂😂😂.
Great vid Steve 👍
Trying to learn pitch accent is a waste of time while learning Japanese. Most of the time it will be obvious if you're talking about rain/candy or bridge/chopsticks etc.
I think starting with plain form and soon enough learn polite form is good. But no need to delve too soon into honorific/humble speech.
I started learning Korean since last month and I think you should abandon the romanization asap since hangul is easy enough and way more helpful.
I mostly agree about learning Japanese pitch accents. We are dealing with all those differences about different regions daily, and you can guess which one is meant from the lines of conversations most of the time. (Though sometimes you might stand out or make the others smile.)
Guys, what does "think in a language" mean? for eg, "think in swedish"
The sentences that pop up in your head when you talk to yourself are in swedish.
Haha. As someone raised bilingual I always hated the infamous "what language do you think in?" question. It just never made any sense to me. As far as I can tell I don't think in any language, except in very specific cases where language itself is the focus of the thought, or where it's somehow relevant. It did make me wonder about how some other people are learning languages. I mean, are there really people out there who are thinking "I want to say X" in their native tongue, and then consciously translating it to the language they're learning? Dunno. When I'm speaking a language it's just straight from thought to that language. Tbh I think that question is just the byproduct of the fairly recent phenomenon of monolingualism.
@@bofbob1 Not thinking in any language is actually the exception, most people have sentences in their head, monolingual or not.
And people don't translate, or at least they try not to, you just do the same you do in your native language and automatically turn your ideas into words in whatever language you want.
"I should check on my sister"
"¿Qué quería decir con eso?"
"Quel cazzo di merda..."
"Gostava de viajar ao Brasil...."
@@bofbob1 you are weird...
@@nazzarynnavarronunez9471 exactly
Excellent video. Just one correction about Hangul. Hangul was invented 400 years ago, but Hanja (Korean writing based on Chinese characters) was still standard. In North Korea the switch to Hangul completed by 1949. In South Korea it was later and much more gradual. Even today Hanja is used for many place names, personal names, to distinguish between homonyms (Hangul is phonetic), and in some other places. Some things (dictionaries, birth certificates) use both Hangul and Hanja, next to each other.
Hangul was invented in 1443.
There is plenty of Chinese dramas available on CZcams for free, often with English subs. Definitely the availability of software such as OCR tools makes it much easier with that language now. I can't even imagine back in the day when you had to use paper dictionaries.
“Second cousin, third aunt.....I don’t have any Korean relatives” 😂😂😂
Everybody(including Korean) says Korean is easy to write. But although my friends, relatives, and even I are Korean there are very very few people can writing in a right way. Writing Korean is more difficult than you can imagine.
Absolutely, most people got confused where to put the 받침. Example, 말이야 sometimes got mistaken as 마리야. 못해 mistaken as 모태(in term of writing). I’m as a korean learner, this thing really screwed my brain plus the pronunciation twisted my tongue more than i would imagine due to consonant assimilation
받침 is very similar to liaison of French. it is difficult to pronounce patchim for Japanese. I am a Japanese who study Korean.
Glad you mentioned pitch accent! It's a fascinating topic, although a bit polarising at times 😅 A lot of people seem to view it as either essential or totally pointless. Personally I fall somewhere in the middle, as I feel like it's not remotely necessary (as you've proven first-hand), but can have various benefits. Whether it's worth pursuing those benefits depends largely on the goals and priorities of the learner
Hi guys, I'm study English right now , but there no English-speaking people around me , so if you want study Chinese and you have time , we can study together, contact use Chinese/Engish .
I'm Korean. I have worked in Japanese company and I was an exchange student in Japan. I have studied in China. Many of Korean and Japanese vocabularies come from Chinese. Korean and Japanese have the almost same grammar system but Chinese doesn't.
I have hsk 4 level (more or less, but rather less). Oh well, i work in the nuclear industry (in germany) and somehow now the learning contents of hsk is boring. So I just took some Chinese nuclear regulations and now learn the serious academic vocabulary....like radioactive substance...discharge, nuclear power plant...etc. Now that’s fun. It’s better to learn things with interesting contents than some boring beginners stuff, although the latter makes also sense.
Steve in 2014: “I’m a linguist”
Steve in 2022: “I don’t know I’m not a linguist”
Now that’s character development
Hahah but two different meanings of the word.
Well they are Marty fake newsmen
Its a shame about Laoshu505000 May he RIP
Really sad for him😭🙏🏻
who
Asked
He has all the east asian language infinity stones
Спасибо дорогой Стив!!!
Koreans were also using a Chinese writing system up until about 500 years ago when King Sejong and a group of scholars created Hanguel in an attempt to raise literacy levels. But Hanja (what Koreans call Chinese characters) are still used today in academic papers and newspapers but increasingly less than the past. Regardless, this suggests to me that Korean was also influenced by Chinese. In fact, Koreans even use a Sino-Korean number system to count in some cases. So there's definitely some Chinese influence there.
Mandarin is by far the easiest of them all. I'd say mandarin is easier than any language I've studied.
Yes,it’s more logically
Nah the tones make it so much harder
@@jeygee3736 The tones for me were not a problem at all. I find complicated grammar to be a far bigger pain.
You said syrrabres lmao also I'm learning Mandarin right now, I've been before to China in 2016. I LOVE history so I love your channel and I'm glad I found it recently
Hey steve! I would want you to make a video on Indian languages too! Please make one!
I'd also like to see a video in Southeast Asian languages. That would be interesting
I learn Chinese .This language is easier for me than Japanese and Korean.
My dream is to be able to speak many foreign languages. I love it
I think Korean is the hardest asian language in my opinion because it's the not the alphabet. It's the phrases and sentence structures that confuse a lot of English speakers including myself. Mandarin Chinese and Japanese wasn't too hard
I'm a native Russian speaker so Korean wasn't hard for me because in Russian we have 2 politeness levels and both SOV and SVO sentence structures are used. So it's fine for me learning Korean.
Michael Ewing, what planet are you from? It took my cousin and I an hour to learn to read Korean. The king who invented hangul designed it so that even an imbecile would be able to read in a day. It is a simple alphabet system.
Japanese and Chinese took me 5 years because of the Chinese characters involved.
@@golforfishing he clearly says it’s the hardest DESPITE of its easy alphabet. He never said the alphabet is hard.
@@golforfishing Looks like you did not read Michael's comment properly. He said the alphabet is not hard, it is the grammar and word order
Weird, because I found Korean easy but I know a SOV language which might've helped. I'm learning Japanese and it's so much harder for me then korean
After watching this, I get the feeling that learning Japanese or any of the others mentioned is going to be an interesting experience.
If your interested in learning japanese i recommend the Genki series, after about 5 mounth you are ready to have actual conversations
@@user-qm6ck1rx7o Thank you! I will definitely look into this:D
Could you make a comparison between Tagalog and Indonesian? That would be interesting to hear. For example, that they have some words that sound the same meaning the same things, some words sounding the same but mean different things, and yet a different word order in general.
Steve, suppose you already know Japanese up to a relatively high level, a level where Chinese characters aren't a problem. How would you go about using that to your advantage when starting to learn Chinese? Would you still resort to pinyin even though you are quite confortable with Chinese characters? Don't you think going straight for basic grammar then moving on to reading is a better way to go about it given the circumstances?
The issue in my opinion isnt just knowing the characters (which are also different in chinese and japanese) but also knowing their pronunciation. So without pinyin you can't know how the character is pronounced just by looking at it. Also japanese pronunciation and mandarin chinese for example are vastly different from one another
@@sumbunny2009 I don't think you got what I meant. Well for starters the characters do have the same meaning, it's just a matter of getting used to the simplified/traditional form, not that much of a problem. And regarding the readings, there is the option to just hear them being said instead of relying on pinyin.
@@chicoti3 Natives use pinyin, Taiwanese people use other system. I'm you can learn the words directly but you need a phonetical system to know how the words are pronounced and to write on computers and phones.
@@frakorS I've learned bopomofo before, do you still think pinyin is that necessary?
Yes I would use the Pinyin in order to get used to the new pronunciation. Just hearing it is not as effective as hearing it and seeing the phonetic script in my experience.
日韩跟乌拉尔语系没关系，但有的人认为跟阿尔泰语系有关
That thumbnail of the Rock Paper Scissors hands coded with the ROK, PRC and Japanese flags looks like some sort of geopolitics cartoon you’d see on the cover of a policy magazine lol
GREAT! BRAVO !!!
Hi sir...This is Prakash Peter from Chennai City, Tamil Nadu State, in India.
Hats off to you that you learnt three asian languages.
Pl try to think of one more Language TAMIL.
This Tamil language is mother of languages.
Chinese and Japanese and Korean has lots of Tamil words too.
In Tamil we call Dad as APPA, and we call Mom as AMMA. same sound comes in Chinese n Korean too
You are such an inspirational role model for us sir.
I started learning Chinese n Japanese since 2020.
Love you sir
Can you help us by finding some volunteers to translate our 60 mini-stories into Tamil and record them. Let me know at steve at lingq.com
can you give a example of words in Chinese or Korean that come from Tamil?
Learning intonation by doing a lot of listening is the same as learning pitch accent of all the words, it’s just a different way of achieving the same thing. One is a wholistic way and the other is a systematic way. It really depends on your learning style
Steve! Quan podrem gaudir del tailandès? En tenim moltes ganes! Quan queda més o menys? Merci per la feina que fas! Petons des de Catalunya!
Pitch accent becomes more and more popular, and Westerners (外人） are trying to sell it (literally) like its something so so important, and as you said, even if one says 雨 and 飴 with the same accent they will understand through context. Vocabulary and grammar and comprehensible input are way way more important. これはありがとうございました。
I find it hard to do other languages since laoshu died, he was the only reason I got into it now when I see or hear another language I only think of him
Even though he passed away and I learned lots of mandarin from his videos I'm gonna learn it in his honor
Hey Steve, I have the goal of learning Japanese and Korean. I've started Japanese, but I'd like to get started on Korean as well. Can I learn two languages at the same time?
Hey! Thought I'd give my two cents since I tried learning Spanish at the same time as Japanese, but later focused on only Japanese. Of course, you can study both at the same time, but I think it will come down to your goals and priorities. If you wanted to learn either or both to high levels, I think you will find focusing on one to be easier. But if you're just learning for fun and aren't concerned about how fast you progress, go for both!
@@AliviasNook Thanks so much! If my first goal is to be able to travel and converse regularly with little difficulty, is that too lofty? I've already been doing Japanese for a bit, but I'm not fluent. I think eventually I'd like to get to a high level but I'm not particularly concerned at the moment.
@@UnagiMonk I think that's a great goal, I really want to be able to do that too! I think if most of your time is going towards Japanese you'll be able to reach it, and then you could do Korean more casually on the side whenever you feel like switching it up!
Hello Mr Kaufmann I learn English and German simultaneously. To date it was enough for me using flashcards but it is extremely boring and it takes a lot of times. In addition now when I'm learning also German I would have to spend to much time creating flashcards. Following your advice I started reading more and more but I'm afraid if I don't repeat my flashcards I will forget a lot of words. I don't have any alternative method to enrich vocabulary beyond using flashcards. What should I do to maintain and still increase my knowledge of words?
If you are learning european languages then flashcards are unnecessary (not useless though). Reading > flashcards. Don't worry about forgetting words. it is an unavoidable part of language learning. if you run into them often enough they will stick with you eventually.
@@suras8849 Yes I use flashcards after I read or listen to something. But using flashcards with stray words, it is pointless. I listen to some podcast and after that I review flashcards, once I listen to without transcript and once with transcript but each times I review flashcards alternately.
If I used random flashcards then it wouldn't be very effective. Even learning iteresting material, it is still very difficult retain certain words.
I made the experience that flashcards are very useful for studying Chinese characters. But since the European script is 'readable from the start' I think flashcards are optional here. Constant exposure by itself is like a srs system:)
Best of luck und auch viel Erfolg beim deutsch lernen:)
@@suras8849 Danke sehr. I agree with you but I'd say each of us must create some specific learning style. Best of luck ;)
In which one of these languages can I become more exposed to the tibetan language or, at least, have a place to learn it?
Actually and historically，tone is not alway a typical character of sino-tibetan family，some nowadays dialects (both from Chinese and Tibetan，but for different reasons or route) without tones，and the ancient Chinese (perhaps before Qin dynasty)，the ancient Tibetan (the time when Songtsen Gampo roled the plateau) thought to be the same--without tones. But some Korean dialect do have tones now, like the Gyeongsang dialect, which is thought to keep the ancient Korean‘s tradition (back to the era of Silla).
向您致敬 ！ 🙏🤝🙏
I want to learn all Chinese, Japanese and Korean but I feel like it’ll be to hard
If u do not try u can't know. That's all i can say. Try one language, learn it with someone or in classes, it can help you to get a 'better' understanding of it and then u can apply it to other language. Ofc it will be hard if not similar to ur own language, but u can do it for sure
It will.
@@kunokoaeri3505 thank you 🥺🥰
@@Re3iRtH I want to learn one at a time though lol
@@mysopeworld You're not going to be able to learn a Category 5 Asian language without thousands of hours and a significant emotional reason to do so. You'll quit well before getting any traction. This isn't like learning Spanish 30 minutes a day.
Is the LingQ team actually making progress getting new languages onto LingQ? Seems like stalling, and some people are eager to start Thai, Vietnamese, Tagalog and whatever else is coming. When was the last time a new language was added? It's the middle of March for goodness sake. How much longer must people wait?
I can understand that there are many Mandarin words in Japanese and Korean - it was the prestige language and culture there for millenia. However, as Mandarin and Cantonese are (from what I understand) made of monosyllabic words, how are these adapted into Korean and Japanese which don't have tone and so need more polysyllabic words to difine different words?
@@lowtide9389 thanks for answering and going to the effort.
I'm learning Japanese but after that I will learn korean.Thanks steve
頑張ってね！
Why does Pinyin do such a sloppy job? Changes in tones for 不, 一 & Sandhi r sometimes stated & sometimes not. Separation of syllables, capitalization, 2nd syllable (not) neutral tone vary depending on the source. Yet I don't wanna deal with Bopomofo & Wide-Gales is so archaic now.
Does anyone know a resource similar to Assimil's bidirectional translation and listening that can be used for Korean or Mandarin. Thanks!
Japanese isn't tonal but does have pitch stress which when omitted makes the speaker sound "awkward". Dogen's YT channel covers this in depth. Once the Japanese stress system is mastered, then your Japanese sounds so much more authentic.
Swedish has a dual pitch stress, Danish has its "stød" for stress, and even English has its own pitch stress system: e.g. "produce", stress on 1st syllable means "fruits and veggies", and on the 2nd means the verb "to make something."
but people would understand you without the "pitch accent',so its not important
@@osamahabbas3443 It s important if fluency is a goal. Speaking sloppily ignoring proper word stress is distracting for the listener and can result in misunderstandings. Missing the stress can change the meaning of the word entirely.
@@lohphat no its not,Steve did business in Japanese without it ,and he is fluent in it.I think you have never spoken with someone who speaks your native language ,you don't care about pronunciation errors
@@osamahabbas3443 I've studied Japanese and have been there many times. Missing stress accent can cause confusion.
czcams.com/video/O6AoilGEers/video.html Dogen explains this in his Japanese pitch accent series.
@@lohphat sorry I don't agree you can communicate without studying it ,Steve explains in many videos that it doesn't matter and he lived there for 9 nine years
I have a question, is it possible to learn multiple languages at once and if so , what are the tips and how to move forward.
I think so, but it's obviously harder than learning one language at a time.
Why do you want to learn multiple at one time? If you want go to find some smart drug.
What is the top five languages more useful in your opinion?
Mandarin, French, Korean, Hindi/Urdu, and English
I was looking at which one I should learn either Chinese or Japanese. This video made me consider that Chinese would be the starting point as I’m simultaneously studying Vietnamese (and I can speak in all different tones in different accents; north, south and southwest) thus I feel like the tonal part wouldn’t bother me too much and learning Chinese seems to be the way to go 😊
Thanks a bunch for all the information so far!
If I may ask: Could you perhaps tag some books? (Like which one you used when you started studying or any other relatable books)
"A lot of scrambling going on" haha that's a good description of my ethnic background 😂
제가 한국어를 2년 동안 공부하고 있는데 아직 잘 못 말하고 써요...그냥, 저는 다양한 영상들을 한국인 거의 매일 봐요...어렵지만 포기하고 싶지 않아요 ! 싫어요!
Haven't watched the video yet but i will make a wild guess and say Korean is easiest, then japanese, and then Chinese is hardest.
Thank you , very interesting
Do you know any African language ?
no, but if we get one on lingq I will probably give it a try.
Olga, are you from Africa?
@@MarcosVinicius-hj3sn no I am from Russia living in Nigeria :) I am interesting to learn yoruba language
@@Thelinguist Afrikaans is one of the easiest one from what I know.
I’m not a linguist. A unexpected tri lingual flex.
The population of China is around 1.43 billion people
Till you get into the classical Chinese😆
한국어 만큼 배우기 쉬운게 어디있을라나...
Americans: What language is easier to learn than English?
French: What language is easier to learn than French?
😂
Cries in Vietnamese
I really like u. Hope u will never get older.
Quisiera comprar muchos Libros que me gusten… pero falta "money"😔