GRcade

Zenigame wrote:If dem Chinese folk are so smart why don't they all learn to speak English.

More people speak Chinese than English I believe

Meep, I could well be making this up, but i do believe Chinese, and in all likeliness, Japanese, is actually easier for dyslexics to learn (or at least dyslexia is no disadvantage); something to do with the way the language isn't made up of letter but instead 'pictures' (is there any real difference). You should look it up!

Again, I don't know about Japanese, but yeah, the tones in Chinese mean that pure book-learning is ill-advised.

Zenigame wrote:If dem Chinese folk are so smart why don't they all learn to speak English.

They are, China will soon have the largest English speaking population in the world.

Learn Chinese, business will be better there but then again, depends what area of work you're into. My boss is always flying over to China/Hong Kong for work.

Zenigame wrote:If dem Chinese folk are so smart why don't they all learn to speak English.

They are, you can't graduate from school in China without a certain level of English. In the main cities I think 3 of your (whatever China's equivalent to GCSEs are) must be done in English.

If you had said you were going to learn because you love Japan and anime I would have lobbied for you being banned.


Good man.

Learn Chinese, just so you can show off when you order a takeaway.

Kinetic wrote:Meep, I could well be making this up, but i do believe Chinese, and in all likeliness, Japanese, is actually easier for dyslexics to learn (or at least dyslexia is no disadvantage); something to do with the way the language isn't made up of letter but instead 'pictures' (is there any real difference). You should look it up!

Again, I don't know about Japanese, but yeah, the tones in Chinese mean that pure book-learning is ill-advised.

You can't really learn Japanese from a book either. It would be very difficult to teach yourself keigo　（敬語） for example. Basically the way in which you speak Japanese changes depending on the person you are talking to, and you need someone to guide you through all that.

Harry Bizzle wrote:If you had said you were going to learn because you love Japan and anime I would have lobbied for you being banned.


Good man.

Yup, there's only room for one of us on the forum.

Ban this chucklefuck.

NickSCFC wrote:

Zenigame wrote:If dem Chinese folk are so smart why don't they all learn to speak English.

They are, you can't graduate from school in China without a certain level of English. In the main cities I think 3 of your (whatever China's equivalent to GCSEs are) must be done in English.

Well that's good then.

I don't mind them taking over the world if they do so while speaking English.

I'm marginally edging towards Chinese at the moment, even if Japanese culture and the country itself interests me more.

What I think I might do though, is buy a decent, cheap-ish beginner's book for both languages and see which sustains my interest more - let's face it, even if I prefer Japan as a country, this is of little motivation to me when I'm studying in rainy Teesside.

Does anyone know any books to recommend for either language? I must stress that they must be for absolute beginners, as I've no prior experience. I think the local college does Chinese night-classes too, at least.

Rosetta Stone do freebie demo CDs that you can order for the languages they do if that's any help.

Parksey wrote:I'm marginally edging towards Chinese at the moment, even if Japanese culture and the country itself interests me more.

What I think I might do though, is buy a decent, cheap-ish beginner's book for both languages and see which sustains my interest more - let's face it, even if I prefer Japan as a country, this is of little motivation to me when I'm studying in rainy Teesside.

Does anyone know any books to recommend for either language? I must stress that they must be for absolute beginners, as I've no prior experience. I think the local college does Chinese night-classes too, at least.

I use a different series of textbooks now, but the first textbook I used was called 'Japanese for busy people', which you can buy in the UK.

Just checked and you can get them from amazon UK. There are two different versions; one is written in romaji (Roman alphabet), and the other in kana (Japanese alphabet.) I would recommend the kana version, but you will need to take some time to learn the Japanese alphabet first (hiragana and katakana would be enough at this stage.) There is no point learning Japanese using the Roman alphabet, if you want to be able to read/write properly eventually.

Click

Chris wrote:

Parksey wrote:I'm marginally edging towards Chinese at the moment, even if Japanese culture and the country itself interests me more.

What I think I might do though, is buy a decent, cheap-ish beginner's book for both languages and see which sustains my interest more - let's face it, even if I prefer Japan as a country, this is of little motivation to me when I'm studying in rainy Teesside.

Does anyone know any books to recommend for either language? I must stress that they must be for absolute beginners, as I've no prior experience. I think the local college does Chinese night-classes too, at least.

I use a different series of textbooks now, but the first textbook I used was called 'Japanese for busy people', which you can buy in the UK.

Just checked and you can get them from amazon UK. There are two different versions; one is written in romaji (Roman alphabet), and the other in kana (Japanese alphabet.) I would recommend the kana version, but you will need to take some time to learn the Japanese alphabet first (hiragana and katakana would be enough at this stage.) There is no point learning Japanese using the Roman alphabet, if you want to be able to read/write properly eventually.

Click

I'll vouch for this, I don't know if it's how long I've been studying now, but I'll see a word written in romanji and I won't even recognise what it is. I'm slowly getting to the point with Kanji now too, like I'll forget what a word is written like unless I see the Kanji. It's weird how it all clicks together as you learn, but definately go about learning at least Hiragana before you start learning (if you choose Japanese) as it'll help from the get go on reading and pronounciation.

From experience I found learning using Romanji easier for speaking. It might just be because I find sometimes words in a foreign language sound run together when spoken and I needed some form of seperation to help me along but it's something you might consider.

Chris wrote:

Parksey wrote:I'm marginally edging towards Chinese at the moment, even if Japanese culture and the country itself interests me more.

What I think I might do though, is buy a decent, cheap-ish beginner's book for both languages and see which sustains my interest more - let's face it, even if I prefer Japan as a country, this is of little motivation to me when I'm studying in rainy Teesside.

Does anyone know any books to recommend for either language? I must stress that they must be for absolute beginners, as I've no prior experience. I think the local college does Chinese night-classes too, at least.

I use a different series of textbooks now, but the first textbook I used was called 'Japanese for busy people', which you can buy in the UK.

Just checked and you can get them from amazon UK. There are two different versions; one is written in romaji (Roman alphabet), and the other in kana (Japanese alphabet.) I would recommend the kana version, but you will need to take some time to learn the Japanese alphabet first (hiragana and katakana would be enough at this stage.) There is no point learning Japanese using the Roman alphabet, if you want to be able to read/write properly eventually.

Click

I have just made an ill-advised trip to Waterstone's without checking here for replies first and bought the first Japanese for Busy People, albeit the romanized version (and for £8 more too - bah!). Is this still a decent starting point? The main attraction for me is the worksheets in the book, as I learn much better through writing rather than reading and, in distant third, probably listening.

I have also bought a phrasebook for Chinese with some of the basics and a BBC CD/Book pack (the Active brand ones, not the Talk branded ones).

I'm going to give them a whirl tonight and see how I get on with both. My one fear is that I will get hopelessly split between two languages, instead of picking just one. My paths will get crossed and I'll be all over the place - I need to decide on one very quickly.

The good thing is, my local college does classes in both so I may do one of those part-time if I can tempt a friend into doing it with me.

Yeah, it will be fine for giving you an idea of the basics without having to spend time learning kana first.

If you do decide on Japanese eventually, I think there are books in that series specifically geared towards learning of the two alphabets.

The main difficulty I have at the moment, after a brief run-through some of the introductory Chinese phrases is that it's fairly straightforward when you have romanised words, but not with script. "Ni hao" is hello and, broken down literally, means "you good", so I know when "Ni" or "Hao" crops up elsewhere, what the general idea is with a phrase.

However, I am baffled as to how you could ever learn to read the chinese characters, besides memorising every single one. Admittedly, I have only been using a Phrasebook at this time, which isn't the best for doing "lessons" (like the Japan for Busy People one). Any recommendations for Chinese books?

Parksey wrote:, I am baffled as to how you could ever learn to read the chinese characters, besides memorising every single one

Well, that's pretty much all you can do. Japanese didn't seem as bad to me at first as you have the two alphabets then the Japanese Kanji on top of that, but isn't Chinese literally all Kanji? I sure know there's a hell of a lot. It'll probably come down to just memorising though, after a while it should click with you though, it'll be hard but if you put in the effort it should get easier.

Forgive my ignorance, as I haven't read up on all this, but isn't Kanji a sort of Chinese-Japanese symbol that represents an entire word?

Whereas some of the phrases in Japanese are kinda written in the sense that each individual symbol can refer to one or two letters?

That would be easier to decipher, as if you learn those symbols, you can spell the word out in your head to romanise it, right?

I may be talking absolute rot, here. I've read the first few pages of my Chinese books, but not started on the Japanese one yet.