Im curious, what language would you say will give someone a leg up 20 years down the road? (Not considering English)
Japanese
or
Chinese/Mandarin
epic
Japanese
or
Chinese/Mandarin
epic
What language to teach....
- Thread starter epicstruggle
- Start date
Japanese for the anime alone would be worth it. 
Im more concerned about what will be the language used by businesses/researchers. Although I guess it wouldn't hurt to get anime to watch, easier to learn the language.Japanese for the anime alone would be worth it.
Wasn't Japanese the asian language. I guess now it's going to be Chinese with the way people are always telling us China is going to be a superpower.
And Korean for their awesome movies.Japanese for the anime alone would be worth it.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
Well Chinese would probably be the most usefull as China will keep on growing and China is very big so as far as work goes they'll probably have alot more room for a foreing worker that lets say Japan.
However I would start out with learning a language you want to learn. If your learning something you actually having fun learning and can use while learning (read some text in Jap games, or read/understand some words said in Anime/movies) you'll learn alot faster and have alot more reason to keep on learning as you feel your actually getting somewere. Trying to learn a language because you think it can help you 20 years from now might be hard as it typically takes 4 years (atleast if you go study at a school) before you have learned a language, thats not going to work if you dont have fun learning the language.
I'd personally go for Japanese though. A mate of mine studies Chinese in his spare time (he's having a fetish for a few Chinese woman at his work I believe) but he says its very hard to learn. They say Japanese is a ''easy'' language to learn. Atleast as far as leaning words a hiragrana/katakana they're right I think.
However I would start out with learning a language you want to learn. If your learning something you actually having fun learning and can use while learning (read some text in Jap games, or read/understand some words said in Anime/movies) you'll learn alot faster and have alot more reason to keep on learning as you feel your actually getting somewere. Trying to learn a language because you think it can help you 20 years from now might be hard as it typically takes 4 years (atleast if you go study at a school) before you have learned a language, thats not going to work if you dont have fun learning the language.
I'd personally go for Japanese though. A mate of mine studies Chinese in his spare time (he's having a fetish for a few Chinese woman at his work I believe) but he says its very hard to learn. They say Japanese is a ''easy'' language to learn. Atleast as far as leaning words a hiragrana/katakana they're right I think.
This isn't so much for me, but for my kids, which is why I'm more interested in their influence 20 years down the road. My first will be born in a three months and I want to get certain things lined up from the beginning.
Our household will be multilingual (English, Hindi, Gujarati) but I wanted to add another language to the mix.
epic
Our household will be multilingual (English, Hindi, Gujarati) but I wanted to add another language to the mix.
epic
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
You want to raise your kid with 4 languages? I know 2 shouldnt be a problem, but isnt 4 a bit over the top?
Chinese would probably be the best choice, but isnt it better to let your kid chose weater he wants to learn a extra language or not? I dont think it will be a real benefit to force someone to spend 4 years and atleast a couple of hours of practice a week learning something he or she might not be interrested in at all not to mention he/she is already learning 3 other languages of wich 2 probably wouldnt even be spoken outside the house.
Chinese is harder to learn to pronounce correctly because of the tones, but the grammar is easier. No gender, no conjugation. (well, there's measure words, but using "ge" when you don't know usually works. ) Besides, with Chinese, if you want to learn to speak *and* read/write, you only need to learn two systems: pinyin and simplified hanzi, but with Japanese, you've got, what, Romanji, Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Looks much more complex to me.
I took a course in Chinese years ago for a semester, and I can read/write/speak about 2000 chinese words already, recognize about 500 Hanzi, but read/write about 2,000 pinyin.
Japanese pronunciation seems simpler and more "western" to me, due to the accent and multisyllabic words, but the grammar seems like reverse polish notation. And although Japanese doesn't have Chinese's tonal difficulties, it does have contextual/relative registers (honorifics), which can get you in hot water if you make a mistake alot faster than if you screw up a tone in Chinese.
And, if you like Asian Cinema, learning Mandarin will allow you to bypass those dubs and English subtitles (well, you'll still have to watch a Mandarin dub if it's a Cantonese film)
And don't even think about learning Cantonese, it's got double the number of tones of Mandarin. (nine vs 4-5 depending on how you count)
Finally, in pinyin (I'm sure some native speakers will bust me on grammar now that I've said it's easy):
Xue Zhongwen. Ni keyi zhengqian. Hen duo qian.
or using an IME to enter chinese characters (Hanzi)
学中文。 你可以挣钱。 很多钱。
Literal translation:
Learn (Xue), Chinese (Zhongwen). Ni (You), Keyi(can), Zhengqian (earn money). Hen(Very) Duo (Many) Qian (Money).
or, as I think it should read "Learn Chinese, you can earn money. A lot of money."
) Besides, with Chinese, if you want to learn to speak *and* read/write, you only need to learn two systems: pinyin and simplified hanzi, but with Japanese, you've got, what, Romanji, Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Looks much more complex to me.I took a course in Chinese years ago for a semester, and I can read/write/speak about 2000 chinese words already, recognize about 500 Hanzi, but read/write about 2,000 pinyin.
Japanese pronunciation seems simpler and more "western" to me, due to the accent and multisyllabic words, but the grammar seems like reverse polish notation. And although Japanese doesn't have Chinese's tonal difficulties, it does have contextual/relative registers (honorifics), which can get you in hot water if you make a mistake alot faster than if you screw up a tone in Chinese.
And, if you like Asian Cinema, learning Mandarin will allow you to bypass those dubs and English subtitles (well, you'll still have to watch a Mandarin dub if it's a Cantonese film)
And don't even think about learning Cantonese, it's got double the number of tones of Mandarin. (nine vs 4-5 depending on how you count)
Finally, in pinyin (I'm sure some native speakers will bust me on grammar now that I've said it's easy):
Xue Zhongwen. Ni keyi zhengqian. Hen duo qian.
or using an IME to enter chinese characters (Hanzi)
学中文。 你可以挣钱。 很多钱。
Literal translation:
Learn (Xue), Chinese (Zhongwen). Ni (You), Keyi(can), Zhengqian (earn money). Hen(Very) Duo (Many) Qian (Money).
or, as I think it should read "Learn Chinese, you can earn money. A lot of money."
4 is a lot? In my immediate family we know: English, Hindi, Gujarati, Portuguese, Spanish, Africans, Urdu. Thats not counting the 4 years of french, 2 years of latin, and 1 year of german I took in High School.
Its easier to learn languages early on. I want my daughter to be exposed to something foreign to my family, hence the options of Chinese or Japanese.
epic
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
Yes and how many people in your family are fluent at all those languages at the same time? That way I speak 5 languages, fact remains I can only know 2 of them enough to actually be usefull.
I know. However most kids that get raised with multi languages have their parents speak language X and speak language Y outside the house (like the 3 you mentiond in your first post). Its easy because the child gets exposed in a naturall way at the same time. However now your planning on trowing in another extra language wich she needs to study for as she wont hear it in house or on the streets. Doesnt have to be a problem if she doesnt mind but what I mean is maybe let her decide things a bit. I dont know at what age you want to teach her but I dont think you should force a young child, better have them play like other kids.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
Chinese is harder to learn to pronounce correctly because of the tones, but the grammar is easier. No gender, no conjugation. (well, there's measure words, but using "ge" when you don't know usually works.
Isnt Kanji based on Chinese writing? You dont have to learn romanji as its just the alphabeth, hiragana and katakana are something like 100 characters I think and they arnt very hard to learn. I started out with Katakana a week ago practising with a homebrew DS app when im on my way to school and I learned about 20 in under 2 hours time.
I dont know alot about grammer. All I know is that Japanese is kinda like speaking like Joda and that pronouncing words is similair to Spanish and that grammer is easy. But that could be because Dutch grammer is very complicated. I heard Japanese is harder to write that Chinese but speaking Japanese is easier than Chinese.
I would say Mandarin, but why not both ? Probably add Korean as well. But poor kid. This reminded me of my parent. I had to learn 8 freaking languages.
They said the same thing as you as well, its easy to learn languages when you are young. I reckon it's easier to take a crash course on a language you need for a year or two when you are older rather than waste your childhood learning it.
But yeah, go with Mandarin. It is easier and probably more useful in the future.
They said the same thing as you as well, its easy to learn languages when you are young. I reckon it's easier to take a crash course on a language you need for a year or two when you are older rather than waste your childhood learning it.
But yeah, go with Mandarin. It is easier and probably more useful in the future.
Language with the best future economic benefit? Mandarin.
In the US, language with a practical benefit? Spanish.
English is the world's most popular "second language", and it's not likely to be displaced by Mandarin, but given China's domestic market size and future economic power, it's likely that they will be producing (especially if and when they get a democracy) alot of information content, media, on par with the US, and so Mandarin will be useful if you want to do business, as well as consume Chinese media.
My kids are learning Mandarin, and even if my wife wasn't Chinese, they'd still be learning Mandarin. When my son is 4 however, I am sending him to a private international (secular) school that teaches classes in Mandarin and French, not because I think French is particularly useful, but because the exposure will be good for him, especially if he wants to learn other Latin/Romance languages.
I didn't start learning Chinese until my 30s, and thus, I'll never be a completely fluent speaker. My advice is to maximize exposure to as many languages as possible before the end of your teenage years. Research has shown that even early exposure makes learning in your later years easier.
For example, Chinese and French have some sounds that don't exist in English. It's hard to master these later if you were never exposed to the sound until your thirties. But in studies, people who only *heard* foreign languages when young, but never spoke them nor comprehended them, found it easier to pronounce alien sounds.
In the US, language with a practical benefit? Spanish.
English is the world's most popular "second language", and it's not likely to be displaced by Mandarin, but given China's domestic market size and future economic power, it's likely that they will be producing (especially if and when they get a democracy) alot of information content, media, on par with the US, and so Mandarin will be useful if you want to do business, as well as consume Chinese media.
My kids are learning Mandarin, and even if my wife wasn't Chinese, they'd still be learning Mandarin. When my son is 4 however, I am sending him to a private international (secular) school that teaches classes in Mandarin and French, not because I think French is particularly useful, but because the exposure will be good for him, especially if he wants to learn other Latin/Romance languages.
I didn't start learning Chinese until my 30s, and thus, I'll never be a completely fluent speaker. My advice is to maximize exposure to as many languages as possible before the end of your teenage years. Research has shown that even early exposure makes learning in your later years easier.
For example, Chinese and French have some sounds that don't exist in English. It's hard to master these later if you were never exposed to the sound until your thirties. But in studies, people who only *heard* foreign languages when young, but never spoke them nor comprehended them, found it easier to pronounce alien sounds.
Kudos epic, but don't force it too much. Make it fun, and your kid will probably enjoy it! Languages are pretty fun IMHO, with their weird sounds and differing, delicate connotations...
In Asia (as I'm sure epic knows), people often grow up learning four languages. There's so much cross-pollination of cultures here. It's pretty interesting -- it does seem like a lot of work, but it makes a difference. The exposure young filipinos, for example, get to English at a young age really shows in their relatively standard accents (although part of this is probably also due to Pinoy sharing a lot of sounds with English). I studied Mandarin in Shanghai, but never in a classroom, and practical experience is something I recommend. Obviously you can't send your kid to Shanghai, but maybe you can live in an area with lots of immigrants. Having even one old granny on the block who only speaks Mando will give your kid an excuse to practice -- most importantly, to hear how that stuff actually sounds, in a genuine environment! So many two- and three- year Mandarin students come to China and sound like utter crap (worthless pronunciation). Usually all they learn how to do is listen. But there are some gifted langage learners there, too, of course.
Anyway, good luck! Specifically with regards to research, Mandarin is likely to be an influential language for centuries. Also, for the record, basically all Cantonese movies come with (both traditional and simplified) Chinese subtitles, so all you have to do to watch those is learn some Canto-specific slang and constructions, and learn to read pretty quickly.
Languages are pretty fun IMHO, with their weird sounds and differing, delicate connotations...In Asia (as I'm sure epic knows), people often grow up learning four languages. There's so much cross-pollination of cultures here. It's pretty interesting -- it does seem like a lot of work, but it makes a difference. The exposure young filipinos, for example, get to English at a young age really shows in their relatively standard accents (although part of this is probably also due to Pinoy sharing a lot of sounds with English). I studied Mandarin in Shanghai, but never in a classroom, and practical experience is something I recommend. Obviously you can't send your kid to Shanghai, but maybe you can live in an area with lots of immigrants. Having even one old granny on the block who only speaks Mando will give your kid an excuse to practice -- most importantly, to hear how that stuff actually sounds, in a genuine environment! So many two- and three- year Mandarin students come to China and sound like utter crap (worthless pronunciation). Usually all they learn how to do is listen. But there are some gifted langage learners there, too, of course.
Anyway, good luck! Specifically with regards to research, Mandarin is likely to be an influential language for centuries. Also, for the record, basically all Cantonese movies come with (both traditional and simplified) Chinese subtitles, so all you have to do to watch those is learn some Canto-specific slang and constructions, and learn to read pretty quickly.
The reason is, probably, that many characters are designed with the "pronunciation+idea" system. For example, the pronunciation of "bill" (the money one) is very similar to "long", so the character for "bill" is combined from the character for "cloth" and "long."
Unfortunately, not all characters are designed this way, and many common characters are quite irregular (as in most languages).
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