There is no absolutely difficult language compared to all the others. After all, children without problems learn their native language, whatever it may be. However, adults who speak one or more languages ​​are more easily given a language that is closer in relation to their native language. For example, for a Russian speaker, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian will be the least difficult.

In terms of writing, Chinese and Japanese are difficult to learn even for native speakers themselves.
Every language is a problem solving in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, spelling, etc. The more these problems are similar to those you solved when you learned your native language, the less difficult it will be. language to learn.

An interesting study was done by the Institute for the Defense of Languages ​​in Monterey, California. All foreign languages ​​taught here were divided into groups according to the degree of difficulty. There were four groups: from " most lung" before " most difficult» depending on how many hours of classes you need to spend with students (mostly English-speaking) in order for them to reach a certain level.

Below is a comparison: 1 = least difficult, 4 = most difficult.

1. Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Haitian Creole, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish.
2. Bulgarian, Dari, Farsi (Persian), German, Modern Greek, Hindi-Urdu, Indonesian, Malay
3. Amharic, Bengali, Burmese, Czech, Finnish, Modern Hebrew, Hungarian, Khmer (Cambodian), Lao, Nepalese, Pilippino (Tagalog), Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhala, Thai, Tamil, Turkish, Vietnamese.
4. Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean

Chinese is harder to learn than English - officially proven

According to recent scientific research, it has been found that the human brain processes information differently depending on the language. The study observed the brain activity of native English speakers and native Chinese speakers when they listened to speech in their native language. At the same time, it was found that the Chinese use both hemispheres, while the British use only the left. Conclusion: understand and speak Chinese more difficult than in English.

Which language is harder to learn Chinese or Japanese?

I would like to note right away that we are talking about Mandarin Chinese. Other dialects of the Chinese language have similar features, although they differ in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.
Learning to read and write in Japanese is possible and more difficult than in Chinese because most Japanese characters (kanji) have two or more pronunciations, while the vast majority of Chinese characters (hanzi) only have one. Also keep in mind that Japanese has two syllabic scripts (hiragana and katakana). On the other hand, some Japanese words and endings are easier to read than Chinese, since in the first case they are written phonetically using hiragana and katakana, while all Chinese words are written using Hanzi. If you don't know how to read Hanzi, you can only guess based on what you know.

Chinese word order is more or less similar to English or other European languages, while Japanese word order is similar to Korean, Mongolian, and Turkic. Therefore, for an English speaker, Chinese is easier than Japanese in this respect.
Chinese grammar is considered easier to learn than Japanese. Chinese is an even more isolated language than English, lacking verb conjugation, cases, and gender. Moreover, the Chinese plural is used in a limited and selective way. Japanese is an agglutinative language with many different endings for verbs, nouns, and adjectives.

Japanese pronunciation is perhaps easier than Chinese. Japanese has a small number of sounds and no tones. However, Japanese words have different intonation patterns that need to be memorized in order to be understood. Although only a few Japanese words differ in intonation, so if you pronounce it incorrectly, then most likely you will be understood. Chinese has a large set of sounds, and each syllable has its own tone. Incorrect use of tone can affect the meaning. Most Chinese dialects have even more tones - 6 or 7 in Cantonese and 8 in Taiwanese, for example.

How long does it take to learn a language?

It all depends on what level you want to reach and how much time you are willing to spend studying. Some manage to acquire practical knowledge in a few months or even weeks, while others “struggle” for years and do not get any noticeable results.
If you use the methods described on our website, you will be able to master basic language skills in a period of several weeks to several months; It takes 6-12 months to learn to understand, participate in everyday conversation, and in 10 years you can learn to speak, understand, read and write fluently, at the level of a native speaker.
If you live in a country or area where a foreign language is spoken, you will be able to achieve success faster, especially if the locals do not know your language.

What is the most widely spoken language?

Below is a list of the languages ​​with the largest number of native speakers. If you choose one of them, you will have someone to talk to!

This is an estimate showing the total number of native speakers, including those for whom these languages ​​are second to their mother tongue. But this does not include the number of those people who study these languages ​​as a foreign language.

How difficult is Chinese?

Difficult:

• In Chinese almost no common words with European languages, so a Chinese learner has to do a lot (in European languages, we can find a lot of common words). But even though some Chinese words share common roots with a number of Asian languages ​​(especially Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese), it is difficult to recognize these words.
• Writing system quite difficult to learn, although, in theory, there is nothing complicated in it: just a lot to remember.
• Chinese - tone, i.e., various syntagmas in speech not only add an emotional connotation, as, for example, in English; they serve to distinguish the meaning of words. How difficult this is depends on the student himself: students with good hearing can easily learn this.

Easily:

• Unlike many European languages, Chinese no irregular verbs or plural nouns, which have to be memorized, since the word has only one single form, without suffixes to indicate time, number, case, etc., (there are a number of particles that serve to indicate time, but they are unchanged and do not depend on the words they are attached to.)
• The Chinese are always tolerant refer to the mistakes of foreigners - perhaps due to the fact that for many Chinese themselves the common state language is a second language.

Which language to learn: Chinese or Japanese? Which one is more promising? Which one is easier and which one is harder? What difficulties await me?

Yes, you can study an oriental language not just for months, but for years, or even decades. Therefore, such a choice is worth it to approach it more consciously, and take on a language that you can really learn.

So, let's figure it out.

Which language is easier: Chinese or Japanese?

Definitely Chinese.

Chinese is easier to learn than Japanese. Dot.

Firstly, Chinese is one of the most logical and understandable languages. And teaching him is a great pleasure! It is simple (but not easy, please note) and very systematic: logical and understandable pronunciation, a logical system of hieroglyphs, and of course a simple grammar.

Chinese has a rather simple grammar - there are no declensions, no conjugations, no gender, no cases. It is important to remember the word order in a sentence and the basic constructions, but there are not so many of them.

In Japanese, the presence of a branched grammar greatly slows down the development of the language. Words in Japanese have different forms, decline and conjugate.

Plus, the matter is complicated by the layers of speech, when the same word when talking with friends and with the boss will sound different. And as you understand, in a Japanese society permeated with traditions and etiquette, it is extremely important to be able to use both respectful speech and simple colloquial speech. And master keigo– respectful Japanese – it’s almost like learning a new language from scratch.

What other features should be considered when choosing between Chinese and Japanese?

♦ Tones and pronunciation

This is perhaps the most difficult part in Chinese. Every syllable in Chinese has a tone. They are needed, which often causes difficulties for students, because. There are no tones in Russian.

They cannot be ignored. Firstly, not only the meaning of a particular word depends on them, because there are many words in Chinese that differ only in tones and may seem almost the same to you. And secondly, wrong tones can put you in an awkward position when the Chinese do not understand what you are talking about at all.

On the other hand, difficult does not mean impossible. Learning Chinese should start with pronunciation and tones, and of course, you will have to work hard.

But, as we said above, the Chinese pronunciation system is simple and understandable. If you build this skill in gradually, get used to the sounds, then add tones, and so on. A couple of months, and everything will work out!

And if you back up your efforts with classes with native teachers, you can easily become a pro.

Japanese pronunciation, on the other hand, is easy for Russian speakers.

Japanese has tonic stress - it is also sometimes involved in distinguishing the meaning of words. By studying it, you can make your speech in Japanese more natural. But in textbooks for Russian speakers, little attention is paid to it.

The sounds of Japanese, with a few exceptions, are found in Russian. You don’t have to completely break your pronunciation, and it will be easier for native speakers to understand you.

♦ Alphabet

Or rather, its absence in Chinese.

Yes, there is no alphabet in Chinese, but there is a Pinyin (拼音 pīnyīn) transcription system. It was created on the basis of the Latin alphabet and is also used by foreigners. Therefore, it is found mainly only in textbooks for foreigners and in children's literature.

In real life, Pinyin is not signed anywhere. And if you do not know how hieroglyphs are read, this can cause certain difficulties for you.

Again, as we remember, difficult does not mean impossible. In 80% of Chinese characters there are so-called "phonetics", knowing which you can easily read most of the texts.

In Japanese, it's the other way around. There are as many as 2 alphabets - they are used together with hieroglyphs, or they can replace them.

One, hirogana, is used for Japanese words, and the other, katakana, is used for loanwords.

♦ Borrowed words

There are many borrowings in Japanese - they came from English and other European languages, "Japanizing" their sound. However, they are very easy to recognize and remember.

For example, フォーク Fōku is a fork, from English. fork.

In the Chinese language, thanks to hieroglyphs - their capacity and logic, there are very few borrowed words. Although, of course, globalization makes itself felt, and many interesting borrowings appear in Chinese:

T恤 or 体恤 tǐxù - T-shirt, from English. T-shirt

哦买尬的 òmǎigāde - My God, from English. Oh My God.

爬梯 pātì - Party, from English. party.

♦ Hieroglyphs

The difference and similarity between Chinese and Japanese characters is a big topic, and we will cover it in a separate article.

In short, the Chinese language is called the “Gateway to all Oriental languages”. And if you learn Chinese, then it will become your base for learning any Asian language, including Japanese.

The fact is that they came to Japan and developed there since the 4th century AD. In the middle of the 20th century, mainland China simplified the characters in order to spread literacy among the population. And in Japan, they have retained their traditional look.

Therefore, the same characters in Japanese look more complicated than the simplified characters used in mainland China.

Eg:

Chinese Simplified - Japanese Traditional:

Currently, about 1.5 - 2 thousand characters are used in Japan, which are similar to Chinese in spelling, and even very remotely in pronunciation.

And yet ... Which language to choose?

There is one thing that makes any language much easier than all the others and most of all helps in learning - this is love for the country and its culture, love and interest in this language. She is not afraid of any difficulties.

This is especially true for oriental languages. Whatever language you choose, learning it will require a huge amount of time, effort, commitment and love.

So our top tip is: Choose the language you love!

Successful practice!

Svetlana Khludneva

P.S. Take care of yourself!

To all of the above, we can add the following scenario: what if you do not leave your country?

In this case, (learning the language professionally and not as a hobby) it would be appropriate to choose an additional specialty, unless you are planning to take linguistics seriously.

In this case, the choice depends largely from your preferences. Employment using the Korean and Japanese languages ​​(in Moscow, I can’t say about other cities) is subject to the same factors as with most other professions. JobThere is. For both languages. But there is also competition. The main areas in which I saw really working people: business (dada! Here you can work not only with the Chinese language!), culture, television, linguistics and translation studies, event management, marketing, teaching. For the most part, this is work with representatives of that country or in branches of their companies. Success will depend to a greater extent not on the choice of language, but on your degree of competence, business acumen and resourcefulness. (Here I am based on numerous questions on this topic by teachers of the HSE School of Oriental Studies).

About languages:

Japanese - Here I do not agree with the author of the first answer. It's not a simple language. Damn interesting and fascinating, but not at all simple. Japanese is oversaturated with vocabulary even compared to the Russian language (not to mention European ones), a huge number of homophones, an unusual construction of thought at first, not to mention the fact that there are three types of writing in Japanese. But very interesting :)

Korean - writing is much simpler here, now phonemic writing is used in Korea, but this means that having learned the "alphabet", you will not be able (if you want) to read the originals of many historical texts - they are written in hieroglyphs. And the grammar is quite comparable in complexity to Japanese and even intersects with it in some places.

Regarding politics:

Here I can not note the negative effects on employment - I have rather scarce information, and even then only positive. But it can affect learning. For example, this year our university entered into agreements with several South Korean universities, according to which all the rooted ones of our stream will go to Seoul and other cities for free 3-month training. Japanists do not even dream about it, for them all internships abroad are paid, and very expensive. As we know, Russia has South. Relations with Korea are closer than with Japan, so a parallel can be drawn.

I don't want to write a conclusion. And so everything is clear like.

We will consider Japan and South Korea. North Korea will not suit you. Actually, the first drawback can be traced immediately: these are all American possessions, where Russians are very disliked, because the world will not soon forget the consequences of the Cold War. Now more specifically.

Japan: advantages

A very interesting culture. Fans of the "metal" genre will be especially surprised: local bands play power metal.

Quality is everywhere. Everything that surrounds people in that country is all done with high quality. Literally everything. Otherwise, it's simply not profitable.

The language is very easy. At my school, I was very bombed from the Russian language: declensions / conjugations, gender, cases, plural, perfect / imperfect form. This is not the case in Japanese.

The lowest crime rate in the world.

Flaws

The simplicity of the language is offset by strong contextuality. There were cases when a person saying "yes" meant "no".

It is easy to find a job only as a doctor and a musician. In the case of doctors, the population, whose age in 3/4 of cases is over 60 years. In the case of musicians, it is copyright, which is especially strictly protected in Japan. In other professions, you need to have either a work experience of 20 years (although sometimes 10 is enough), or a recommendation from a serious company, or very non-standard ideas.

And yes, there you can not hire a foreign worker for a salary below the average in the country.

Be prepared to die on the job. Literally .

The Gini coefficient is about the same as in Russia.

Forget the phrase "Japanese citizenship" too. You can get it only if at least one of the parents was born there. In other cases, a residence permit is issued. Temporary.

People are very complex. A very large number of psychological terms in Japanese (for example). They are also terrible xenophobes: 55 years under total American control will make anyone a xenophobe. They are also terrible conformists, which explains the fantastically low crime rate: the slightest misconduct spoils the entire result of labor, and Asians are very hard workers.

South Korea. An exact copy of the USA, which is not surprising if you know the history. But nonetheless: benefits.

I am not very familiar with the language, but it does not look very complicated.

Finding a job is not easy, but easier than in Japan.

You never even dreamed of such salaries.

Very good Gini coefficient and human development coefficient.

The people are very kind and friendly. While studying at the university, I had to communicate, and now - on Twitter.

Flaws:

The culture by our standards is very rotten. Watching TV in that country for the inhabitants of the post-Soviet space can end in tears of blood.

The friendliness of people is explained by hypocrisy and commercialism. Undoubtedly, it is everywhere. But it is especially noticeable among South Koreans. Or are you thinking about how to achieve fantastically high salaries in a country where there is only Samsung, Hyundai and Doshirak?

First place in the world in the average number of suicides ().

In fact, it will take hundreds of printed pages to describe the advantages and disadvantages. But conclusions can be drawn now. If you are just a good specialist - Korea. If you are a real genius in your field and because of your work you cannot even see your own bed - Japan.

Japanese? Easy?

Is it oral, and even that one - with all these morphemes, levels of politeness, the existence of different pronunciations of the same concepts (a legacy of Chinese influence) and much more makes Japanese a very difficult language. And I'm talking about writing.

Korean, by the way, is much easier. Plus: instead of hieroglyphs - a simple and convenient alphabet. And verbally, even Chinese is easier.

Answer

"samsung, hyundai and doshirak"... for starters, this is not enough, Samsung is a huge concern, with a decent share of high-tech industries, these are not just smartphones, TV sets, but modern Electronics, with a capital letter, Hyundai is only one of the automakers working on export, but there are more such firms; make an effort, google the peculiarities of local cuisine, as a good indicator - school lunches, and remember what you yourself ate at school, and you may understand that the agricultural complex there is clearly in order - for a start, and then remember at least that the South Caucasus is one of the world's shipbuilding giants, and this is without oil, gas and placer other minerals, and, of course, it is obvious that the United States could not do without shock assistance, but still.

Let's talk about Asian languages: Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Which of these languages ​​is the easiest to learn? What might be right for you? How are these languages ​​different? Knowing the differences is especially useful if you are just getting started with Oriental languages ​​and choosing which one suits you best.

A bit of geography

To begin with, we must recall that China is a very large country, almost a continent. And Japan and Korea are small countries next door.

Why do we think that these languages ​​are the same or very similar?

For greater clarity, let's draw an analogy with Europe and remember how things are with the similarity of languages ​​​​due to the geographical proximity of countries. Being in France, we are an hour from England if we sail by ship. But French and English are very different.

With Belgium, where Flemish is spoken, and with Germany, where German is spoken, the French generally have common borders. But the languages ​​of these countries are different. As with Spain and Italy, where they also speak other languages. No European can speak all European languages ​​unless he has specifically taught them.

It is obvious that neighboring languages ​​influence each other. Spanish influences Italian, German influences Flemish. Exactly the same applies to the oriental languages.

Korean

The Korean language has been heavily influenced by China. For a long time, Korea was captured by Chinese culture, as China was the most powerful country in the region. In Korean, vocabulary is 60–70% of Chinese origin.

For example, "egg" is pronounced the same in Korean and Chinese but is spelled differently. In Korean, the word will consist of several elements, because this language has a phonetic alphabet. And in the Chinese alphabet, in our understanding, there is no. There are about 20 characters in Korean that can be combined to form syllables.

In 15-20 minutes, using a little mnemonic tricks, you can learn to read Korean. You will not understand yet, but reading is already guaranteed. This is not possible with Chinese. Korean uses some Chinese characters and you will recognize them immediately.

Chinese character in Korean text

But they are used very rarely, for example, in scientific texts when receiving higher education, in everyday life - hardly.

This is what the text looks like in Korean. Small circles, parallel and perpendicular lines. Phonetically, this language is close to Chinese.

Japanese

The first big difference is at the level of grammar. Chinese and Korean do not have gender, number, articles, or conjugations. Japanese has a grammar.

The second is that Japanese uses Chinese characters. But the hieroglyphs there are not the ones that are studied when teaching Chinese.

Chinese characters in Japanese

These are either traditional Chinese characters, or characters that have undergone simplification. Chinese underwent a simplification reform in the 1970s, as did Japan. But the Japanese, of course, did not make tracing paper from Chinese, but made their own simplifications.

But next to these hieroglyphs, their own Japanese phonetic alphabet remained. And even two alphabets: iragana and katakana. One is used to write Japanese words. And the other - the same phonetic alphabet, but with different icons, is used for foreign words.

Japanese phonetic alphabet

So, two phonetic alphabets, 2000-5000 Chinese characters and letters of our Latin alphabet!

That is, the Japanese use four different writing systems at the same time in one text.

Chinese

Chinese uses only Simplified Chinese characters. Hieroglyphs are always proportional, always placed in an imaginary square. Same in Japanese. Chinese text gives the impression of a grid, where there are no circles, as in Korean.

There will be no slanted lines with apostrophes, as in Japanese. Straight lines and squares.

So, what is the difference between the texts in these languages? Compare.

Chinese

Korean

Japanese

What is the easiest language to learn?

By structure

In Korean, phonetics and reading are easy. Almost no grammar. But the structure of phrases is quite complex: subject, direct object, verb.

Japanese spoken is relatively simple. But when it comes to writing, there is a lot to understand and learn.

Chinese. The pronunciation is easy, the grammar is easy. But how to remember all these hieroglyphs? How to keep all these ideas in mind, since the Chinese do not have a phonetic alphabet?

It must be admitted that there is no language that would be easier than the others. Everything will depend only on you.

If you don't like grammar, Chinese and Korean are good for you. If, on the contrary, grammar is your forte, then you will achieve great success in Japanese.

For your motivation

In choosing, you can start not only from the structure of languages, but also from your personal motivation, why do you need these languages.

Do you like drama, iggy pop, music? Then Korean.

Japanese manga, cosplay? Then Japanese.

Do you like the history, the culture behind all these countries? Do you want to spruce up your resume and speak the same language as 20% of the world's inhabitants? Then Chinese.

Everything will depend only on you. There is no language that is more difficult than another if you have the right approach and techniques.

Important element

The teacher is also an element that must be chosen correctly.

Reframe the question

So the right question is not “which language is easier?” but “what language do I want to learn?”.

Editorial

Is it possible to learn Japanese quickly? Knows the answer to this question Tata Kononova, English teacher and linguo coach: .

In learning new languages ​​with a leaky memory, it will be difficult. So before starting training, it would be nice to train her. The book by Idriz Zogay will help in this. Minne, or Memory in Swedish. Methodology of the famous trainer for the development of memory ": .

What about learning a foreign language early? Is it worth it to "torment" children with babble in a dialect they do not understand? Translator Alena Belevich thinks it's worth it, and here's why: .

In this article, I want to speculate on the topic of which language is better to learn:

Some of you learn these two languages ​​at once, some just look and choose.

I don't know Chinese myself, but I've talked a lot with people who teach or learn Chinese. Therefore, I have my own point of view on this matter and will share it with you.

Let's, Firstly let's look at these two languages in terms of benefits. Who and for what reasons learns Chinese, and who learns Japanese?

Japanese most often taught by people who are very passionate about Japanese culture and want to learn more about it, get to know it better. It is also taught by people who already live or plan to live in Japan. The presence of Japanese friends and the desire to communicate with them is another reason for learning Japanese.

Thus, if we take the total mass of Japanese language learners, then among them there are a lot of people learning it at the call of the soul.

Studying the same Chinese more like learning English. Chinese is mainly taught from a practical point of view, for example, to get a good job. The Chinese economy is currently developing very strongly. Russia has more ties to China than to Japan. Many rationally choose to learn Chinese.

This does not mean that you cannot make money with the help of the Japanese language, but it will be more difficult. It is necessary not only to know the language, but also to be a professional in your field. It should also be taken into account that Japan is not such an open country as China.

So, if you ask yourself, with which language there are more opportunities to earn money, I would say that with Chinese. With the Japanese language, there are also such opportunities, but they need to be sought, more efforts must be made.

The second aspect is pronunciation. Let's compare the pronunciation in Japanese and in Chinese - which is easier and which is more difficult. Chinese has 4 tones, but Japanese does not. Japanese has tone accents, but not 4 tones.

Accordingly, in this regard, Chinese is much more difficult. There you can pronounce the same syllable in 4 different ways. It can be difficult to understand which word is spoken. Chinese is more difficult to understand by ear. Japanese is much easier in this regard. Its pronunciation is easy for Russian people, it is also much easier to read Japanese texts.

And the third aspect is writing. It is known that the Japanese borrowed hieroglyphs from China several thousand years ago. After that, the Japanese also invented 2 syllabaries: hiragana and katakana, which were originally intended to sign the reading of Chinese characters.

If you visually compare Japanese text and Chinese, then Chinese will be written entirely using hieroglyphs, and Japanese text will be a mixture of hieroglyphs and syllabary icons. In addition, the reading of characters in Japanese is often signed with a hiragana on top.

In this plan Japanese is easier to learn, the volume of characters studied in it is less. You can not know them at all and read texts written on top of hiragana hieroglyphs. In Chinese, you need to know a lot of hieroglyphs.

The main difficulty in learning Chinese is the amount of information that needs to be learned.
I told you my own opinion. Choose for yourself: what is closer to you, what culture is closer to you, what goals you pursue in learning the language.

And if you still decide to learn Japanese, sign up for our main course.