Chinese Japanese language difficulty comparison

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A video, where I try to compare the difficulty of Japanese and Chinese for western learners. I think that Chinese is much harder and in the video I try to explain why. Hope the video is not too technical and even viewers who do not speak either of the two languages will find something interesting in it. Goes without saying, that what I say is only my personal opinion based on my own experience and if you have a different one, feel free to share :)
Language Blog: www.foreverastudent.com

[@moweightless9167]

I could not agree more and I think your arguments are absolutely valid, Vladimir! I learned both Japanese (high A2) and Chinese (getting closer to B2) and I have lived in Taiwan for 8 months. I've been studying Japanese for 8 months and Chinese for almost 1,5 years now, and I've encountered every single difficulty you were mentioning in your video. So maybe I can give some examples for the points you've been mentioning: 1.) First of all, why do people say, that Chinese doesn't have any grammar or has super easy grammar? My only explanations for this is, that these people either are native speaker or never learned Chinese past a beginner's level. For me, it was easy getting started in both languages. Chinese beginner's grammar seems to be easy, because it doesn't have the stuff that makes Western languages difficult (as you mentioned above tenses, genders, declination etc.) and this is maybe why people consider it to be easy. But once you get past the beginner's sentences for ordering food and having small conversations on how your day was etc. things get really crazy. Just like you, I literally am learning every sentence and it's sometimes really a struggle to build the easiest sentences, because I never encountered this situation. Let's take for instance this sentence: 他又再次沒問我就把我腳踏車騎走了。 I had to learn this sentence, otherwise I would have ommited the 又，and the 走, and probably would have used a different syntax. And then you read something, a random 所 will pop up, all the 起來, 出來 structures, 把 sentences and. That's just a few examples. Let's take a character like 才, it can have a myriad of meanings depending on the context and sentece it's used in. It can mean: a) something happens later than expected, 我九點才到了。 b) emphasizing that something happened relatively recently, 我上個禮拜一才去替一個朋友看孩子。 c) used together with 只有 to emphasizing the needed condition 只有信教的人才過聖誕節。 d) emphasizing that a relatively small quantity of something produces a result greater than one would expect, 才一個小考試就讓你有這麼大的壓力。 e) used to top or contradict something mentioned earlier. A: 今天的雨很大。 B: 今天的不算什麼，上個禮拜的才大！ Or let's take something like 可 It can be used to: a) State that something is worth doing, 台北是一個很可去的地方。 b) state disagreement with the previous speaker, 他可不是小孩子，你以為他會聽你的嗎？ c) emphasize degree, especially exclamation, 她可真愛看電影，她每個禮拜要看一場。 d) to state that something must be done a certain way, 這個藥每四個鐘頭吃一次，你可別忘了。 e) to show that a problem is hard to solve, 這麼多的課，我可都上完了。 And I could go on forever with these things. So I don't really get why people would think Chinese grammar is easy. Of course I can understand these examples, but when it comes to using all these things in daily life, it's harder than one might think. Sometimes it's just nuances between sounding like a native or like a foreigner, but more often than not these things can make a difference between being understood perfectly and not being understood at all. And as you mentioned as well, Chinese sentences are really much shorter and the information flows so quickly, which makes it a) really difficult for your brain to process and b) hard to remember even when you heard a native speaker using them. So my point is, of course something like 我吃飯 is very easy, but once you past this, it's getting really confusing. Luckily there are more and more textbooks trying to explain this (since you have been asking in other comments, I could recommend a German book by Claudia Ross, which is called 'Moderne Chinesische Grammatik'). But still, although the ressources are getting better and better, they still lack a lot of good explanation. When I took classes in Taiwan, I often tried to use the new grammar structures we just learned, and then our teacher would tell me that it sounds unnatural, and that she wouldn't say it this way. When I see or hear them, I get them, but it's really hard to come up with these as well and it takes a long time to intuitively know when to use them. Of course, in Japanese you will also have problems with improvising from time to time, but while in Japan it was waaaaaay easier to improvise, also due to the fact that you don't have to be super careful with every single syllable. By no means do I want to say that Japanese grammar is easy, especially parts like 敬語 (the honorific language) are extremely difficult, but that's also the same for Chinese. 2.) In Japanese it's pretty easy to know which part of the sentence has which function due to the particles and verb endings. But in Chinese, this is especially a problem that one will face in the beginning. I mean there are literally hundreds of words that can be, depending on how they're used, either noun, verb or adjective and it's sometimes really hard to know which function it has, and when it comes to applying this, you will ask yourself, is this word only a noun or can I also use it as a verb? 3.) Also, it was and to a certain extent still is awfully difficult for me to remember Chinese words, because they're super short and sound so similar. Yes, Japanese sounds are also limited, but I never faced the same difficulties as I did in Chinese. The best way that I could handle this is by looking at the characters (e.g. If I see something like Tàng qīngcài is really hard to remember for me, but once I see 燙青菜 it immediately gives me something to connect the word to, and it also makes it easier for me to remember the tone). But that is just me, I know that it's hard for a lot of people to read and write, but learning characters was the first thing I did with Chinese (I used the Heisig method), but I already knew a lot of Kanji from Japanese, so that was my advantage. So these are my thoughts, I probably could go on with even more, but it's already late and I think that's enough for today. So I hope you will read this and I would be happy if you maybe left me some of your thoughts on this. Thanks for inspiring me to go on with this wonderful language. 加油～

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you very much for the comment Mo and thank you for mentioning the part about words that can act as verbs, nouns and adjectives (maybe even adverbs, I lost count). It's just another one of those things that I kind of accepted:) If it's ok, I'll pin your comment, because of the examples you mentioned.

[@moweightless9167]

You're welcome and of course it's okay to pin it :) Oh yes, one of those verbs that can also act as adverbs that comes to my mind would be 比較 which could either mean to compare or rather/quite.

[@user-rs8wc8rn7r]

Mo Weightless 比较 can also be noun， example here： 不要再拿汉语跟日语比较(v.)了，这种比较(n.)比较(adv.)不合理。

[@GiorgioPagnoni]

I completely agree with you second point. Japanese grammar is a blessing in disguise; all the particles, suffixes and so on make parsing texts and speech so much easier than in Chinese. Good luck with word boundaries in Chinese when you are a beginner.

[@matthewbitter532]

Exactly. Particles like 又，就，才，把，给，了，吧，被，别，随，着，中，与，下，事，过，以，出，所，将，etc. are giving me a lot of headache. I don’t see why these aren’t considered inflections. Then you have to learn dozens of measure words and why noun they apply to. I find them way more complicated by gramatical genders. Again, I don’t see why these are considered inflections. Demonstrative pronouns are also made complicated by all the classifiers. Don’t tell me you can use ge all the time. Cuz different measure word appear very often both in writing and speech. Word order is also very flexible. In a lot of ways, it can be similar to english but also very different especially when you go beyond saying things like “I am a boy”, “This is a truck”, etc. Then you have to learn a crap ton of chengyus that doesn’t make sense word for word. To show how confusing things can get, the sentence, 他们把他抓住, 不由分说, 痛打一顿。means “They seized him, and without waiting for an explanation beat him severely.“. Word for word this means: They, accusative marker, he/him, seize, to allow no explanation, to give a good thrashing. Mind bending sentences like these come up very often.

[@SuperDanteng]

好读书，读书好，读好书，书读好，meaning "love reading books, it's good to read books, read good books, get enough education and get high marks" I am native Chinese and I cannot guarantee that I can write down every words people say. That's how difficult it is. And I feel sad.

[@fearlessmyworld]

lol.

[@monsieurbernoulli8101]

you forgot 书好读

[@lifescience2050]

this is the easy one, the hard ones would be: ”冬天：能穿多少穿多少， 夏天：能穿多少穿多少。“ ”剩女产生的原因有两个：一是谁都看不上，二是谁都看不上。“ "单身人的来由：原来是喜欢一个人，现在是喜欢一个人。" "两种人容易被甩:一种不知道什么叫做爱，一种不知道什么叫做爱。" :-)

[@wendigong4337]

我笑了233...估计评论里没多少人知道“剩女”是啥玩意儿

[@duranchen3222]

+Wendi Gong aged single lady, lol

[@raspberris17]

I’m a Japanese so it was very interesting to hear what a European person thinks about learning Japanese and how it compares to Chinese.

[@sunflower553]

so as a chinese，i really really like Japanese and i want to learn Japanese well!

[@addictedtothebold]

Speaking and listening is the hardest part of Chinese. I have no real problem learning the characters because all I do is visualize the character in my head over and over again. I used to write it so many times but then my hand would hurt and I would give up. I also preferred to use my cellphone or iPad to handwrite it. I use my iPad to speak the text I am learning out loud to memorize the sounds of each sentence. I used it to practice for a presentation in Chinese and I got a perfect score.

[@WouterCorduwener]

I totally agree. I'm now studying Mandarin for two months more and even then it's so hard to pass the beginner level. Thanks for your great video!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Wouter Corduwener Keep up the great job Wouter:)

[@michaelyuan8822]

不要放弃，继续努力。加油！

[@Greamzih]

The question which language is more difficult usually doesn't make any sense. It's all very individual - some people have good mechanical memory, others - logical, some are auditory learners and may find tones not that difficult. The informative portion of the video is the differences between the two languages and for that I would like to thank the author.

[@randomgreekmathematician3159]

Well, still, there are languages that are more complex than others- compare the grammar of Russian and Indonesian for instance

[@CalvinKrause]

I have some experience with learning Japanese and a little bit of experience with Chinese and I totally agree with you! Both Chinese and Japanese grammar are so alien to Westerners but Japanese makes it a lot easier because words have endings and the sentence structure is much more obvious. Hiragana and Katakana also make the language fairly accessable to beginners (but the different Kanji readings can be so frustrating). And I think getting a feeling for the language takes longer with Chinese, also for the pronunciation, the tones in combination in a sentence are really hard for me..

[@altalio5383]

at least chinese doesn't have 8 ways to say sorry lol, lets a say a character in chinese "要", which means want, all you have to do to change it to "I don't want" is to add a "不”, which becomes “不要”, this repeats for many other phrases.

[@Hey-py2hb]

Calvin Krause by personnal experience I tried japanese and I failed miserably to adaptto it because it is frustrating to have one word having 2 say to say to it and know the moment to use it I tried chinese recently and I find it a lot easier because it is more direct I mean whrn you masterise tones it becomes so easy

[@matthewbitter532]

Al least japanese doesn’t have a crap ton of ways to say yes. 对，有，是，是的，是啊，好，etc。不 isn’t the only way to negate. There’s also 没，别，否，没有，each with their different use case

[@davidsoael615]

@@altalio5383 ​ On the other hand Chinese has 6 ways to say 'learn': 学，学习，习得，学到，学会，体会下; at least 7 ways to say 'yes': 嗯，对(啊)，是(的)，有(啊)，好(的)，没错 and repeating the verb; at least 7 ways of negating: 不，没，非，勿，(verb)否，无，未 and all the post-verbal ones like 不了，不得，不定，不出来 etc. (and if we're talking about some advanced constructions from older Chinese texts, also 毋， 匪 or 弗); oh, and did I mention that most of these are also homonyms with words like 穴，席，惠，队，士，布，飞，吴，卫 and many, many others?

[@ChaohsiangChen]

@@matthewbitter532 It depends on which level of honorific and humble form you are satisfied with.

[@kakakukukakakuku]

lacking of complex grammar is exactly what makes Chinese so difficult to learn, coz it's so flexible and there are so many ways to say the same thing, thus it's very easy to get lost.

[@nikritshak.9523]

I agree too. I studied Japanese for two years (supposed to be 3) with a year off for exchange program. Once I came back to high school, I couldn't catch up and had difficulty with the Kanji. I cannot read Chinese but I feel familiar with the language even though I don't know how to read it or don't understand the whole conversation.

[@justincho6317]

I'm a native Chinese speaker, the thing is that we never learned Chinese grammar we were in school. I guess that's because Chinese grammar is too complicated so that you cannot learn and memorized the rules, you can only experience the grammar.

[@hacasaz5714]

Thats really true.....and when i was in elementary school my teacher taught some simple rules but these rules cannot be fit in all sentences

[@ErtixPoke]

+Justin Cho But, chinese grammar in comparison to japanese is more easier.

[@hacasaz5714]

+ErtixPoke why

[@justincho6317]

Hecaz Basically the as native Chinese speakers, you speak the way you feel it's right. There are rules, but they are so complicated for teaching and learning.

[@RoderickVI]

Chinese grammar is easier than spanish or english or german or french, so for me it was really fast when it comes to learning it the only thing I dont get is why Zhè *gè* nán rén zái kàn shū what is the gè doing there, if Zhè is this and the rest is man is reading book, can you explain that to me,or is it that the word is Zhègè but my clases tell me gè is an individual indicative for no reason also just started learning so sorry if its a horribly structured sentence

[@monsteraddikt]

how long have you been speaking English? I ask because have a very clean accent, minus the odd pronunciation of a few words. those few odd ones are a dead give away though, best example (most memorable example) being how you said plethora. otherwise impressive to sure.

[@naakatube]

Hi Vladimir, can you point out or make a video on Chinese grammar? I'm planning to learn Chinese and an introduction would be highly appreciated!!! I mean I read introductory books but they keep telling grammar is easy!!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

The problem is, no one really knows how to teach Chinese grammar, because Mandarin is a relatively new popular language to learn. People just don't know how to teach it. I could explain what I've learn in my university courses easily, but when it comes to learning the real language, it didn't really help me.

[@ludovico5790]

Ciao! (Hello! in Italian)I have to learn some different leanguages at university, but I don't know which I should choose. What are the other things to consider for my choice beyond difficult that foreign languages may have?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hi. I wrote an article about it. Read it if you like:) www.foreverastudent.com/2016/04/which-language-should-I-learn.html

[@theoneandonlypete]

I have also been learning Chinese for 8 years, but I am nowhere near C2. I barely passed the HSK 5 a few years ago. I agree with the speed and density of information conveyed by speech, as well as the lack of syllable and word variety. About the grammar, since there are no declinations or conjugations you have to pay so much attention, any short syllable that you miss, will cause you to misunderstand. Other languages save you by putting in a bit more redundancy, such as German or French.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I agree.

[@basilerasidy7116]

Hi man, very interesting video! I've been learning Chinese for a year and a half and I'm still struggling very badly but that surely will make it worth it at the end. I've been learning English for 3 years and a half as well (I'm a french native speaker), and I'm wondering whether you are a native speaker of English or if you've learnt it as an adult? If so, that's impressive because you sound perfect! I'd be pleased to hear about your journey and how did you get to speak it so fluently!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hi Basile. Thank you. My native language is Slovak. I learned English as a child when I was in the US. I spoke at a conference in New York in 2015 about how I was growing up and learning languages. It's called 'The story of a 20 language life'. Look it up if you like. All the best.

[@zllikevin]

I feel like all of the other languages i have learned or touched on all have clearly stated, strict, regular, consistent and memorisable grammars. But when it comes to chinese languages (i am native of cantonese and mandarin) it's hard even for me to figure out and summarise a set of rules to follow in speaking, so i think it's okay to describe chinese has either "no grammar" or just "very flexible, random and irregular grammar" by the standard of most of the languages i know.

[@ronniejamesdio6889]

Hi Vladimir! It has been 4 years since you published this video, how is your Japanese? :) Do you have the same opinion after 4 years of learning Japanese?

[@SantiagoDavel]

Hi Vladimir I'm really enjoying your vids, I have a quick question: what language would you recommend me to learn? I'm really interested in learning chineese and I love learning languages, but to be honest I'm a lot more interested in Japanese culture (not animes/Mangas though) and maybe that would drive me to learn it better. I'm a native spanish speaker and I'm fluent in english but I want to learn another language and don't know which one should I pick.. I've studied 1 month of french and it was fun, but I'm still looking for a language that's more useful. What do you think about the choice of learning a language just because there is more people that speaks it in the globe? Thanks in advance for your response!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Santiago Davel Hi Santiago. I wrote an article about it on my blog. Read it if you like. All the best. www.foreverastudent.com/2016/04/which-language-should-I-learn.html

[@SantiagoDavel]

Thanks!! Really good article

[@qingchuanyi6904]

As a native Chinese, i do agree with the point on the system of honorifics, this is not grammar you can learn from the book, this is something only can be learnt from the life experience.

[@andymounthood]

After hearing this and other videos of yours, I'm tempted to call your blog "Forever a Mandarin Chinese Student."

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

:)) Sad but true and funny

[@abhinavchauhan7864]

10:09 cognates are not the words which you can recognise from other languages but rather are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. And sometimes they aren't even recognisable For instance the word for horse in following languages are all cognates yet its very hard to recognise this at a first glance Sanskrit: áśva Ancient Greek: híppos Or take for instance english word wheel. It has a cognate in sanskrit word chakra Can anybody see any similarity between chakra and wheel?

[@facundogimenez7528]

This video would have been much better if you gave some examples of what you were explaining

[@lucianlipciuc5284]

+Facundo Gimenez totally agree ;)

[@pedromatos4641]

Amazing video! Congratulations!

[@baltzlyn5769]

Your analysis of the comlexity of the Chinese language is the most accurate and insightful I have seen by far, and I really appreciate your efforts ! By the way, I was a Chinese student studying Czech lanuage na Univerzite Karlove v Praze v roce 2007:-) a Byl jsem v Bratislave, Man rad vase hezke mesto:-)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you very much:)

[@giovannig2509]

Interessante video :) Vladimir pensi che i corsi dell'Istituto Confucio siano buoni per iniziare lo studio del cinese? grazie

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Ciao Giovanni. Grazie. Direi di no, ma non lo dire a loro:)

[@giovannig2509]

hahah ok acqua in bocca. Peccato però che non siano buoni :)

[@mangofer6871]

So what are your thought now 4 years later?

[@yuicho0111]

I watched this clip to practice my listening. Your perspective is impressive for me. I'm currently learning English, Mandarin, and Korean. Reading Chinese is pretty easy for me because I already understand a plenty of words even if I'm an absolute beginner of Mandarin, but it can be hard to learn the pinyin and tones. I'm sure Korean would be easiest to learn for Japanese people because of lots of similarities regarding grammar usage. In those languages, I'd say English is extremely difficult, but honestly learning English is most fun for me because of a world language. Thanks for reading.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Good luck with your studies.

[@murraycampbell4043]

What a wonderful, interesting video! Thank you! I was under the impression that it is just the tones that are difficult in Mandarin. After that (I was told), it’s all downhill as the grammar is like Tarzan. Japanese it is!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you:) I think no one who speaks Chinese well would say that Chinese grammar is like Tarzan.

[@WaLayKau]

您好，想請教您，在您多年的學習經驗之下，是否曾學過注音？ 如果不曾學過注音，是否可以稍加嘗試之後，評論一下"使用注音來學習中文發音"的優缺點？

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

您好。我曾經學過一點點。自己覺得注音比羅馬拼音更適合一點。

[@usablefiber]

Could you do a video about the grammatical challenges of Chinese? I have been studying japanese for a few months and while it can be perplexing in the beginning.... You realize that is is very REGULAR, concise, and logically simple, it seems like I can really make progress quickly. I am interested to know what will make chinese so difficult to learn without being scared away.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Usablefiber I can try to make videos like that, but it will be hard, because there are no books or textbook to base this on, I can only talk from my own experience. Chinese is unfortunately not logical at all. My experience has been, that for every new sentence you want to say, you need to learn a new grammar pattern.

[@usablefiber]

+Vladimir Skultety I hear you. From what I gather from my friends, he most confusing thing to westerners is that nothing is literally translated word for word and many expressions are idiomatic and make no sense to us. So thinking of what the words are in English is no help. having said that, I am really excited by the challenge of it and want to take on this language! It seems difficult but also really fun and rewarding!

[@LincolnakaOnion]

There might be some useful books for studying Chinese in Russian. Actually, I am sure there are some. Just the impression I got learning languages in Russian and looking at the library/shop supply, while searching for Japanese learning materials.

[@user-ld3md4yg6o]

What do you speak better, Chinese or English? I watched the (very interesting) presentation you gave at the Polyglot Conference in New York on KZbin and if I can ever speak Chinese even at 80% as well as you can speak English/Chinese then I'll be extremely proud of myself. I'm at university doing a double major in Chinese and Economics, and am finding it difficult. I have just started, but studied hard during a gap year at home whilst working last year. I found it SO HARD to get going, even as a musician, which meant I feel like the tones were easier for me than for a non-musician. They are still impossibly difficult and I get the wrong all the time, but I feel like I'm getting better. You're right, there is so much pulling you down at the beginning, it's so dejecting. About Chinese grammar - is there anything that's going to help me understand how to use 把 properly? Or how to use 起来 properly? Or how/when do you 到/出/过/了/过了/不到 and all the other things that have grammatical meaning properly, or are you best just memorising how Chinese people say these things/patterns and writing lists down/learning them by heart. Like, I know I can say ”那么我应该把后面学的那句子也用上 “ , combining both "把" and "用上". You can also say 把这件东西放在这里, combining 把 + 放在, and 把这个 + verb完了. And do you get better at intuitively constructing natural sounding sentences? Or do you still find yourself just copying natives? Your insights would be invaluable.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Laurence Heyes Hello Laurence. Thank you for the comment. I speak better English. I'd say my Chinese is about 90 - 92% of my English. As far as tones go, the best thing is to not worry about them too much when you are a beginner. You will get into the habit of checking your pronunciation with every syllable and that will be a complete disaster. It will ruin your progress. As far as 把 and other grammar words you mentioned goes, I used to try to find similar constructions in other languages I know to help me out (however 'raw" they sounded, as long as I had a direct translation it was ok). For instance, 把 directly translates as "take it and (do something with it)" in Slovak. This method usually worked to understand the concept. You get better with time and the thing that works best is extensive reading, but the most unfortunate thing is, that it will be long before this will be of help :(

[@user-ld3md4yg6o]

+Vladimir Skultety Thanks a lot for your reply, Vladimir! Hmm, I'd take that to mean "don't worry about them to the point of getting completely tongue tied and not being able to speak", because tones are important, right? If you get them wrong then you are simply coming up with a jumbled mess of nonsense. That sounds like a good strategy. I think that's a really great translation of 把, and will definitely think about it like that from now on. I'll also try to come up with other translations for similar words and particles. Extensive reading always helps, but it's such drudgery at the moment. I can already tell that I'm getting better, but sometimes you feel like you're making no progress. So long as you just keep doing it, you get better I suppose. Clearly it's not impossible to speak very good Chinese - you, among others, are living proof of that. I'd like to say that I find you and your videos very inspiring and I also find it nice to know that you struggled a lot - it makes me feel less alone in my endeavor to learn to speak almost native like Chinese (within the next 7-8 years)! Thanks a lot, and keep the videos coming! :)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Laurence Heyes Thank you Laurence:) I'll try to make more videos. Reading is incredibly discouraging. It seems like new characters never stop coming. It took me about 7 years until I felt reading wasn't a pain. I read about 100 books and comic books during that time and it was only the last 5-6 ones that were a pleasant read. When it comes to tones, I think there has to be a balance between how much attention you pay to them and how much you don't. If Chinese words are in context, even if you mess the tones up, you will be understood. Even very similarly sounding Chinese words with very similar usage are (almost) impossible to confuse, if they are in context (e.g. 我要睡覺 Vs 我要水餃 etc) as long as the sentence structure and syllable pronunciation is correct. Tones need to be spot on in situations where the context is not strong, for instance when you are giving single word answers (e.g. answers to Where are you from? What is your name? What is your job? Where do you live etc.). Other than that, you can get away with it in the beginning, work on sentence structure, vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, politeness etc. and perfect tones here and there as you go. If you concentrate on tones too much, like I said, you will get into the habit of pausing with your brain on every syllable you pronounce and it is a devastating thing to do.

[@florapake6869]

Hello, my name is Flora and I would like to become an interpreter. I started learning Japanese, however people keep tell me that's it's useless to learn Japanese while I can learn chinese instead. Since it became a very important language to learn nowadays. But I'm not a big fan, maybe the language afraids me. I wanted to ask you if it's worth learning a language you don't enjoy? and I also wish to learn Scandinavian languages before applying to ESIT in France. Should I take the opportunity to travel and learn the languages or go to university to learn these languages? thanks😄

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

One simple answer: Do what you enjoy:) Obviously, if you don't want to learn Chinese and enjoy Japanese, learn Japanese. It's impossible to learn something well if you don't want to learn it. As for your second question, I don't think it's a good idea to go to a university and learn a language as a 'homework' when you can travel and learn the language abroad on your own, for free, at your own pace and much better. I never learned any of the languages I speak at school, only on my own and using it in real life as much as I could. Good luck.

[@florapake6869]

ok thanks, another question, do you recommend science politic studies before entering ESIT?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I'm sorry, but I don't know what is ESIT.

[@florapake6869]

oh ESIT is an interpreter school in france

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Flora Pake I understand. It depends on what you want to do. If you want to work as an interpreter, then ESIT is important. If not then I think you can spend your time doing something more interesting and useful:)

[@reggiehsu1481]

I'm a Taiwanese exchange student now learning German. When I was learning all the grammar stuffs with my Spanish speaking classmates I told them how simple Chinese grammar is since we don't have all those cases and verbs changing according to their subject and tense. As a native Mandarin speaker, this is the first time I recognize that there are "complex grammar" in our language. Although I think there definitely is a certain grammar that builds up our language, I don't really know what it is. I think that might be the reason why most Chinese/Taiwanese don't know how to explain the word orders to foreigners. Because they think it's not that difficult! Can you give me some examples of the Chinese grammar that you found very difficult to understand? I'm really curious about that.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Reggie Hsu Hello Reggie. I can't off the top of my head. I stopped trying to look for rules and patterns, because there were so many that I just started to learn expressions and sentence structures one by one as they came.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

@@m.neuville5389 I agree:)

[@danielleon8687]

Thank you for the video! It always drives me crazy when people say Chinese has no grammar and therefore its easier. Typically only people that don't speak it assert this. Completely agree. Chinese grammar is so difficult to pin down and there is so much ambiguity in it sometimes that it's hard to pin down exact meanings ha ha. I have yet to learn Japanese but thanks for the comparison if I ever decide to in the future.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you for the comment.

[@staciekeenan7953]

Thank you, excellent video!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

:)

[@yanjy9234]

New to your channel. I'm really impressed by your 19 languages video! I born in China, grew up in Japan.Therefore, both of them are my native languages. Currently in the US and learning Spanish. You made some great point in this video. And I also think that history might be another reason here, since up to today, Chinese schools still teach classic Chinese literature --"文言文“. And because it is very common in China, Chinese people use lots of Classic Chinese reference every day, while Japanese have added more and more　外来語 and make it easier to catch up. Besides, I, personally, think that it is REALLY hard to have one Chinese textbook that is well structured to include the characters, grammars and everything else. You might need probably 10 or more books to fit everything in. Lots of my American friends think that the only way to properly learn Chinese is to be in that Chinese-speaking environment. Anyway, well done! Look forward to your other videos!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you. Good luck with your studies.

[@hamzaen536]

Hi i have a question is it true that if I learned the Chinese language, the Japanese will be easier because it uses the same characters????

[@alexpt1527]

Yes.

[@ThunderK01]

Hamza EN depends. If you're learning simplified Chinese, many Japanese kanji will seem much different or even have a complete different meaning.

[@alanluo4442]

谢谢你的视频!请问你觉得中国人学日语会相较于斯洛伐克人或者其他西方人容易些吗?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

你好。謝謝你的留言。我覺得中國人學日語會比西方人容易多了。

[@user-zv8rm1gs6z]

I'm a Chinese teacher in Thailand, I am totally agreed your opinion. 真的是越教越觉得中文难，不成章法的语法永远不能简单的用一个公式套路来带，只能通过不断积累习得，这就是中文语法的难处。

[@user-ds3kd4cc2x]

说白了就是要靠经验学

[@truezyf]

Chinese is short, maybe the shortest of main languages. i see this an advantage. because it means high efficiency. high efficient communication is always good. easy to read and speak. this comment is not only shorter in Chinese writing, but also in pronunciation. 中文很短，也许是主要语言里最短的。我认为这是个优点，因为这意味着效率。 高效沟通总是好的，易于阅读交谈。 这段文字不仅中文写着短，中文发音更短。

[@RoderickVI]

but it takes longer to write, traditional chinese just takes simply too much time for every hanyu

[@truezyf]

Paramone Gaming i m not sure. maybe the speed of writing base on ur head, not ur hand.

[@RoderickVI]

Gear5 ZYF posibly, but traditional hanyu DOES have too many strokes, hahaha, i still prefer it over simplified but, hell... hahahaha

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Paramone Gaming Hello. It's Hanzi, not Hanyu.

[@RoderickVI]

Vladimir Skultety That that, sorry :P

[@whitelichmage7004]

I'm interested in learning both Chinese and Japanese simply because I wish to visit both countries but I would start on Japanese first cause Japanese grammar is longer, It has less complex letters to learn there are no tones in Japanese and because It has more borrowed words from the English language unlike Chinese which has practically none at all .

[@chipmunk4115]

The reason that furigana is often needed is because often there are so many ways to read certain characters that if there wasn't furigana you might not actually know how to read it. For example, even a character as simple-looking as 人 is read multiple ways depending on what characters are around it. It could simply just be ひと but if the word is 村人 then it is pronounced びと. In 人生 is じんせい, 一人 is ひとり and 三人 is さんにん . So there are plenty of ways to read even a single character and then often you might encounter words such as 玄人 which is くろうと. While may be able to get a list to learn all of the readings, you would drive yourself insane if you tried to memorize them all. And even if you did, you would often have no idea of when to use the readings you learn. While you do need to learn about double the amount of Chinese characters in Chinese than in Japanese (about 4000 I believe), at least once you have learn't them you will know how to read them. Whereas the readings in Japanese often follow no rules what so ever and you will have to essentially keep learning how to read those 2000 characters forever.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hello. Just today I replied to a comment (again) talking about how it is a misconception that Chinese characters in Chinese don't have multiple readings. Would you like me to repost my comment or will you look it up? I think you will change your mind after reading it. Also, what is more important, Chinese characters in Chinese have many unrelated different meanings which might be even more difficult than having different readings only, since the meaning of the character changes while the pronunciation remains the same. Thirdly, in Chinese a Chinese character and a Chinese word are not the same thing. While you might need to know only about 2000 characters to read some news articles, they will not help you much if all you know are only 2000 words. Finally, I doubt that furigana is present in books aimed at younger readers only because Chinese characters in Japanese have many different readings. It is there exactly for the same reason Zhuyin is present in books aimed at young readers in Taiwan - kids at that age, simply do not know how to read Chinese characters yet, in Chinese or Japanese.

[@farafra3763]

Interesting video . Learning Chinese must be good a good brain exercise . I read a book which said that when you read Chinese characters you recognize them with your right brain , while when you read the western languages you use you left brain . There was this experiment done on this native Chinese-American patient, , who had his left brain damaged in an accident . The interesting thing is that after the accident , he was no longer able to read English while he had no trouble reading Chinese . Also the unique thing about Japanese is that since it has Hiragana and Kanji in it's writing system , you actively use both sides of your brain . hiragana is phonetic so it gets recognised by the left brain .

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+PrinceMyshkin Thank you for the comment. Interesting experiment. I am no scientist and have nothing to back this with, but I think at a certain point us and Chinese read in a very similar way, that is we skip over chunks of text and consciously check back with what is written only here and there. We have a huge subconscious database of patterns of the language in our minds and our brains more or less know how a sentence is going to finish when it starts. The words/characters where we consciously pause to check back with the text serve as verification points, so the whole reading process is more mental than visual. I have no way of proving this of course:) It's just how I feel about it being able to fluently read in Chinese (almost) and English/Slovak.

[@casualking4548]

Great points

[@hacasaz5714]

The comments remind me an example Your life can be separated into following four stages: 喜欢上一个人 喜欢上一个人 喜欢上一个人 喜欢上一个人 Same sentence but different meanings, depends on how u cut the sentence (and feel) in different situations. Part of experiencing grammar.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Hecaz 1. 冬天：能穿多少穿多少； 夏天：能穿多少穿多少。 2. 剩女產生的原因有兩個： 一是誰都看不上， 二是誰都看不上。 3. 捷運裡聽到一個女孩大概是給男朋友打電話，“我已經快到西一門了， 你快出來往捷運站走。如果你到了，我還沒到，你就等著吧。 如果 我到了，你還沒到，你就等著吧。” 4.單身人的來由：原來是喜歡一個人，現在是喜歡一個人。 5.兩種人容易被甩:一種不知道什麼叫做愛，一種不知道什麼叫做愛。 6.想和某個人 在一起的兩種原因:一種是喜歡上人家，另一種是喜歡上人家。 7.一個男同事和一個女同事上班同時遲到，但女的沒被扣薪水，男的被扣了， 男的就問 女同事“你為什麼沒有被扣薪水？”女的說：“因為我睡過頭了。 ”男的說：“我也睡 過頭了呀。

[@hacasaz5714]

+Vladimir Skultety 哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈QvQ

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hecaz 好笑嗎 ^_^

[@hacasaz5714]

+Vladimir Skultety 嗯呢

[@ruanpingshan]

+Vladimir Skultety Someone mentioned no. 2 to me last year, and I didn't get it until I saw this thread.

[@bridgechn4204]

hi,nice to meet you ,can you speak chinese ,i do some thing about chinese culture.i need you help

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

What kind of thing are you doing?

[@loot6]

My circumstance is similar to yours in that I studied Chinese for years and am fluent now and also studied Japanese for a few months so am just a beginner with it. My experience is the same, in that Chinese is much harder in all the ways you've described...but...I find that while Chinese is so hard to begin with it actually gets easier once you get more advanced.. Words are not so hard to remember later on once you've got the hand of composing these 'melodies' in every sentence you utter its not so hard to speak and understand new things you hear. However I've heard that while Japanese is comparatively easy to being with, it actually gets much harder the more advanced you become in the language. Its kind of like the complete opposite.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+loot6 Hello. I heard this about Japanese too. I have to learn a bit more Japanese to be able to tell though.

[@mrtsiqsin2290]

Hello Vladimir, thanks for your excellent comparison between Chinese language and Japanese language. I'd like to share my opinions and feelings with you, hoping you'll find them useful. :) I'm a Cantonese native speaker and I use traditional characters. I can speak a certain level of Mandarin and have learned Japanese before. First of all, is Japanese hard to learn for Chinese people? The Japanese characters are rather easy for Chinese people. Even though there are three forms of characters in Japanese, I don't think they are difficult to memorize. I remember I memorized all the hiragana and katakana in just one week, and the remaining Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese), you know, is not a big problem for any Chinese. There is no tone in Japanese. If you, as a westerner, find Japanese pronunciation relatively easy, then I can say it's super easy for Chinese speakers. I didn't find any sound difficult to pronounce at all. The most difficult part to learn is Japanese grammar, especially the differences between the polite and casual expressions. But as you say, their rules are like mapped out that it's just a matter of time to memorize them all. Okay, now comes to the Chinese language itself. I know you learned a little bit Cantonese. There are many variant forms of Chinese (or politically speaking 'dialects'). We as Cantonese speakers share the same written characters with Mandarin speakers, even though we have the traditional and simplified characters, most educated people understand both. However, if we don't learn how to speak each other's language as much as the westerners do, we can hardly understand each other verbally. So you can imagine how big the differences for the variant forms of Chinese can be. I particularly appreciate your point that even though Chinese does not have those visible grammar markings, like 'gender', 'declensions', 'case', 'tense', or whatever, that doesn't mean Chinese has no grammar. Instead, Chinese grammar is extremely subtle and does not appear in the surface. Otherwise why do we as native speakers have to learn so many years in order to master it? Some westerners find Chinese word order very flexible. Yes, it does allow a certain flexibility, but after all you still have to arrange the words in some kind of logic so that we can understand without confusion. And this kind of logic is so subtle that you can't figure it out what it is actually in a grammatical way. From my own experience, how I know a Chinese sentence is correct is based on my language sense and this sense is built up by that logic. We don't distinguish correct sentences from wrong sentences by visible forms and grammar rules, we do it by feeling the sentence from our native sense. So that's why there are very few textbooks well written for Chinese grammars because it's really difficult to present them in an organized way. Not to mention there are many regional differences, especially among the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong. I know what I have said is a little vague, but I hope it somehow gives you a general idea about how a Chinese native speaker look at his/her native language. Thanks again for your video! Good job!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+MrTsiqsin Amen! What you wrote should be written in stone:) I completely agree and couldn't have said it better myself.

[@Liliquan]

"And this kind of logic is so subtle that you can't figure it out what it is actually in a grammatical way. From my own experience, how I know a Chinese sentence is correct is based on my language sense and this sense is built up by that logic. We don't distinguish correct sentences from wrong sentences by visible forms and grammar rules, we do it by feeling the sentence from our native sense." Go take a class on 病句 and you'll see that there are many technical and grammatical methods for determining if a sentence is logical and grammatical. Furthermore, there are plenty of excellent Chinese grammar books so the idea that Chinese grammar is so subtle that it can't be represented grammatically is also nonsense and feeds into the myths about Chinese being some sort of mystical impenetrable language.

[@kenchao4142]

wow, I cannot agree more! I am a Chinese from mainland China!

[@irongrey1343]

@@Liliquan I am totally agree with you，saying Chinese grammar can't be learn from the book is nonsense,don't depict Chinese into some kind of mysterious language

[@ChaohsiangChen]

Cantonese is not standard Chinese. There are much more alchaeic usages as well as Cantonese characters. To master Cantonese, one has no choice but also learn literary grammar on top of colloquial Cantonese. Most modern use of standard Chinese is not that complicated.

[@PaulieRubinDMize-uu6lc]

After a few weeks, I almost decided to just stop learning japanese and start all over to chinese, reason being that I thaught japanese was hard because of it's grammar, alphabet system, particles etc... and I thaught chinese grammar was such a breath of fresh air for an English speaker because of the SVO structure and the characters would be fun to memorize too. Then I saw your video and all I can say is thank you. I now have a clear mind and more reasons to keep on learning 日本語。

[@pranitzadbuke9903]

Bruh japanese is easiest langauge compare to chinesse

[@pranitzadbuke9903]

Chinese

[@damiankueng]

I'm european and had more trouble learning Chinese than Japanese, maybe because I started with Japanese?

[@aftereffects00]

+damiankueng If you start with Chinese language then is more easier when you learn japanese cuz chinese hanyu is more difficult to write. You already know how to write kanji... In kanji you just need to remember the onyomi and kunyomi..

[@ayupuspitasari606]

I think so. :)

[@whyhellothere6855]

I think you should learn Chinese first, Japanese has many similarities to Chinese, and once you learn Chinese completely, Japanese will be a lot easier.

[@Mbwunion]

Finally someone who also thinks that grammar is the hardest part of Chinese. Also as someone who has reached a high level (high B2/low C1), the most frustrating part I find about the grammar is that instead of large overarching and consistent rules, it consists of memorizing the multiple and specific usages of individual characters (for example, 以 and 而 being the the biggest pain in the ass for me). This is why learning Classical Chinese is mandatory for achieving a high level of literacy. Plus you never mentioned the huge variety of dialects in Chinese. It is much easier in Taiwan since there is only one dialect besides 國語, but every place in the mainland has their own distinct dialect (with varying degrees of similarity with standard Chinese), and how well the locals can speak 普通話 also vary immensely. I have been to many places were they say they are speaking 普通話, but I still can't understand a word of it.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Good point you made with the dialects. China is huge.

[@AverageJoe-gi1ur]

Nice Video Clip!! I know what you mean when talking about the transformation of sentence form in Chinese. It is not a grammatical change like Japanese, it is literally change on "word" (or title). For example, 叔、伯、舅、丈 mean 4 different elders in your family, and I believe for westerners it could only be represented by one word "uncle" in English, it must be so confusing to the westerners.But for us, it's quite important . if you give the wrong title, the elders must consider you as impolite or uneducated and the conversation will be hard to continue. I think that is what you mean, right? (By the way I came from Taiwan)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hello. No not really. That's not what I meant. I meant the complex invisible and visible system of honorifics in Chinese. Pronouns like 人家，大家，您，先生，小姐，甲乙丙丁姐／哥 , referring to someone in the third person while talking to them, referring to oneself in the third person while talking to others, correct syntax while talking to someone higher in social status, vocabulary used etc

[@AverageJoe-gi1ur]

I've got your point. I didn't know that the honorifics would cause such a problem for you. But after your explanation, I look into English (or other European language) and find out that those languages indeed do not have such a complex honorific usage the same as Chinese. Vice versa, there is no conjugation or suffix change in my mother mother tongue, so these language characters confuse us(or Taiwanese) too.

[@Junhishiryu]

Japanese is very easy to learn compare to chinese. Here's my observations. 1. In japanese, you can tell a word if it's a verb by simply observing the -masu, -mashita and so on. In Chinese, verbs usually take only 1 syllable which is ridiculous like 带， 走,，拿 2. Verbs in japanese are way LONGER than chinese so it's easier to understand it. 3. Chinese words consist of 1 to 3 syllables with tones while Japanese can be as long as 8 syllables. 4. There's no tone in Japanese. Sure, there are patterns in speaking Japanese like the ups and downs but it's not as complex as Chinese. Speaking chinese is like singing. 5. Hiragana and Katakana. Japanese people don't often use complicated kanji. 6. Particles in japanese give you clue if a word is a noun, an adjective, etc. 7. Chinese has IDIOMS that are used in daily basis. Idioms are everywhere. 8. ANIMES! MANGA! 9. Learning Chinese is like learning an entire new language. They have terms for european concepts like 癌症， 自拍，基因 while in Japanese, they have tons of borrowed words from English.

[@joewulf7378]

+Yinshid Jun Chinese language system is more simple than Japanese, only write system and/or tone drive you crazy. In fact, Japanese is full of borrowed words from other languages that unable to translate.Chinese(mandarin),of course, have lots of borrowed but translated words. PS.Chinese characters have their own 'construct system', like 癌症, if you know how it works, you can guest that word is illness related because of the 疒 component. Just my opinion.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+joe wulf Hello, the video was mostly about the spoken language not about the written language. Knowing what 疒 means will not help you speak.

[@joewulf7378]

+Vladimir Skultety Okey, I see now, in that way Chinese is way more difficult than Japanese without kanji. Basically Hiragana and Katakana are another kind of alphabet, like Korean. Just follow certain rules and you can speak fluently. But Chinese written system has nothing to do with the spoken system, that's why it's so difficult for western learners, because it will cost you double time at least. But what do I know? I'm just a Chinese who only speak Mandarin/Cantonese and primary school English. Just my opinion.

[@0angeplume0]

我認為以母語非中文也非日文的人來評論這件事會比較恰當，不然會失真而且不客觀。

[@ryanesaki]

+Yinshid Jun sorry but a lot of your points about Japanese are very wrong. the -masu form is only one form of verb conjugation, the polite form. there are many conjugations for each verb and most casual conversation japanese does not use masu form, they use plain form. So if you only learn masu form, you will be completely lost in a conversation. there are around 2300 commonly used Kanji in Japanese that are essentially required to be functionally literate as an adult. Saying Japanese don't often use Kanji is completely false. I think the order of usage in everyday life in Japan goes Kanji ->Katakana - Hiragana. particle usage can be incredibly confusing because many particles are used for 5-6 uses. for example, the particle 'ni' has about 6 or 7 uses that are widely varied from marking location, marking time to pointing to an indirect object. the particle 'to' can be used to say and but it can also be used to quote someone. I've never studied Chinese, and I honestly think that it probably is more difficult than Japanese but Japanese is still a very complicated language to learn for English learners. Just wanted to clear up your errors.

[@samzheng6735]

I am actually so inspired by your video. I am from Shanghai, China and now I am in Austria as an exchange student. Also learning German from a person who has been learning Chinese and we teach each other. Now it's midnight, but i am still so excited watching your video and very glad to see that you are still uploading new videos. I decided to watch more of your video and hope you can make it lol! I am also very interested in learning language, but actually i didn't spend too much effort though. My English is relatively good if compared with average Chinese students' level and I am kind of satisfied with that and it's no good. Also Chinese students have very few chance practicing spoken English and we call it 哑巴英语. However recently i am always thinking about this and now I decided to really work hard and hope i can make it. Really thank you for your inspiration. Vielen Dank.来自中国的祝福！

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Sam Zheng Thank you very much Sam. Your English really is more 'English' than the average Chinese student. Congratulations. I know how hard it is for Chinese to learn English well.

[@iosono8229]

What are all of the languages that you're learning?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hello. You mean in my life or right now?

[@iosono8229]

In your life and right now

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

io sono Right now I'm not learning any language and the languages I've learned are in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p6OngZ19faaooZI

[@sendakan666]

Informative. Thank you. Some inputs regarding Japanese: 1. Japanese children need 9 years at school to acquire the essentials of their language 2. The children then proceed to study ancient literature (古文) fairly extensively; the study of Chinese texts (漢文) is also mandatory 3. Polite language (敬語) is an additional layer Japanese master with time and practise, usually at their workplace While I speak a tonal language (Thai), it is difficult to make a direct comment comparing Mandarin and Japanese. But I intuitively agree with your view that Mandarin is almost certainly more difficult overall

[@bibianamajorska6520]

Ahoj, musím pochváliť toto video a celkovo tvoj kanál. Nikdy som sa neučila po čínsky ani japonsky, ale za to ma veľmi fascinujú. V novembri som sa začala učiť po kórejsky (som mierne pokročilá) a plánujem pridať ešte ďalší ázijský jazyk, avšak sa neviem rozhodnúť. Aj keď kórejčina má svoj písomný systém, je dosť dôležité sa naučiť nejaké čínske znaky. V Kórei sa doteraz používajú tradičné znaky, a tak naozaj sa mi nechce učiť tie zjednodušené odznova. Je mi jasné, že jedine na Taiwane a v Hong Kongu sa používajú tradičné znaky, a tak netuším, čo mám robiť... 😔

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Ahoj. Dakujem. Tych znakov nie je zas az tak strasne vela:)

[@bibianamajorska6520]

Vladimir Skultety Dobre vedieť, lebo už sa mi podarilo naraziť na nejaké a už sa mi to zdalo veľa. :) Napr. 東 a 韓...

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Ja som skor myslel, ze ked sa budes chciet ucit znaky kvoli cinstine, ci si vyberies tradicne alebo zjednodusene znaky bude zavisiet od toho, kde sa budes cinsky ucit a aj tak to bude jedno, lebo ich nebude az tak vela (2000 - 3500).

[@bibianamajorska6520]

Vladimir Skultety Jasné, chápem. Každopádne ďakujem. :)

[@369tayaholic5]

As a learner of Mandarin and Japanese , i totally agree with you. Those who say chinese grammar is freaking easy definitely ain't in the fluent level of Chinese. I'm very, very tired of hearing people saying that.

[@FabiusStephanus]

369 Tayaholic - You're kind of wrong, what about Laoshu from USA, he learned many languages in the past which his Chinese is the best language he speaks it at a C1 or C2 level. Either way he is definitely in the fluent level of course, and he says Chinese grammar is one of the easiest he ever learnt and one of the most straigtforward grammar rules this language has for most westerners but people still think this language is the most difficult just because of course you ought to learn their tones and its complex writing system which they're really difficult but its grammar and syntax is easier than most languages in the world. I just want it to clarify its overview a bit.

[@369tayaholic5]

@@FabiusStephanus that's only what it shows at the appearance. the more you learn, you'll find even if it has very easy sentences structures, there are many many subtle rules and ways of natural speaking rules in chinese sentence, and most languages will sound safely right if you learn those strict grammar rules, but just because chinese doesn't have a strict rule, that makes you even harder to speak naturally like a native speaker. You all think it's easy just because it has easy syntaxes and doesn't have difficult inflections, but many learners speak it badly and sounds strange but just native speakers don't care about it, they just think it sounds odd, well that's what i found. No one is wrong or right, only how you feel.

[@FabiusStephanus]

369 Tayaholic - yep everyone could be right and wrong but i'm a little curious about your Mandarin and Japanese progress after nine months from your comment, how are you with those languages?

[@ayszhang]

I approve this message 😎 Jokes aside that was a great summary and I like how you targeted beginners. Like you said it's true that it's difficult to achieve a native-like fluency in any language. However, I had a relatively easier time learning Japanese and I give all the credit to the cognates in English and Chinese (and consequently Korean). English and Chinese are my native tongues and I lived in Korea when I was young. Korean has a very very similar grammar and in my opinion is Japanese without the Chinese characters, plus more phonemes and more verb endings. Anyways, my background gave me a wonderful foundation for learning Japanese and after 3 years of study I get mistaken as a native. Oh I just wanted to mention that pinyin or zhuyin are used in books for native speakers but only as a teaching tool for young children (or for super obscure or archaic readings)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Adrian Zhang (ayszhang) I heard several people say Korean and Japanese are similar, but then I read that linguists are reluctant to classify them into the same language family. Do you happen to know why? I'm glad you liked the video.

[@ayszhang]

+Vladimir Skultety Well linguists aren't sure what family they are to begin with. There's also the issue of politics. But if I had to say, purely linguistically, I don't see why they aren't in the same family, at least the modern language. The points of dispute is, in my opinion, due to a lack of historical records. People on the Korean peninsula and the Japanese islands did not have their own writing system until they adopted Chinese, and even then they had to write according to the grammar of Classical Chinese not their own language. There has been hypothesis connecting extinct variations of Korean to Japanese, among other claims but the evidence is not enough to convince the entire field. From the pov of the average person, it is like an English speaker learning German - similar but different enough - if you ignore the fact they have different writing systems

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Adrian Zhang (ayszhang) Thank you Adrian. I'll read into it.

[@saint1633]

日本語の発音は簡単、それに、日本語の文法は複雑ですが、ルールがあるから明確に説明できます。その反面、中国語は文法がないと言われるけど、実は、文法が明確じゃないので、解明できない場合が多いです。

[@user-rj5uu2bs8q]

はい、そうです

[@user-kn9hm6zp9e]

samuel .w 我非常赞同你的观点，虽然我不知道你说的具体意思。I strongly agree with you although I cant get exactly what you mean。I guess you mean Japanese pronouncing is easier ，but grammar is complicated。While Chinese ……^_^

[@daumoro]

Казакша сойле

[@eliskavenglar4316]

Both Glossika and Stu Jay Raj find Japanese harder, but I think it's very subjective. All three of you speak Mandarin better than Japanese, maybe a follow-up video when you're at around the same level in both may be a good idea. I think the onyomi and kunyomi readings are pretty hard. For example light is hikari and light source is kogen, using the same kanji. etc. But I know you're already familiar with that. I for myself can't tell which is harder, because I speak them at a very low level, so I just won't go there. :D

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Eliska Venglar Thank you for the comment. I think Glossika thinks Mandarin is harder though.

[@eliskavenglar4316]

+Vladimir Skultety He wrote "I would still rate Mandarin and Cantonese as easier than Japanese overall. It's a consistent vocabulary that builds on itself using all its own roots. Not like English or Japanese that have borrowed so extensively, you have to learn vocabulary of several languages just to master the one. " on the HTLAL forums, but of course that post is 8 years old, so I can't tell if his vievpoint has changed or not.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Eliska Venglar Interesting. I'll ask him the next time I talk to him:)

[@word20]

You have the simple chinese grammar and the complex form of grammar. The simple is as in the english sentence. The complex is different. The verb and action is at the end of the sentence. In both languages you should start with learning to speak the languages. Today you have easy books learning chinese. Most of the Chinese words are easy to pronunce. It is just a few sounds that are more difficult. Both languages are difficult to understand when people speak fast. You have to get used to listen to the languages. That is my experience of learning the Chinese language at beginner level

[@SimstheBG]

I am learning korean japanese and chinese. In my opinion chinese begins be harder on HSK3 or HSK 4 level. when i am learning chinese language begore heard a lot of people said Chinese grammar is simplest in the world or chinese doesnt have grammar or similar to english. I started to learn after two languages korean and japanese. i was lucky when chinese grammar was simple and i though it was true. later i feel rules begins to spread and i am struggling more and more and. i have chinese friends and trying to talk. they fixed every sentence even i spoke basic rules or rules from books. its too complicated and too much information.and funny japanese and korean gets more easier.

[@jiashenqu6580]

I am a native Mandarin speaker and I also can speak fluent English and Japanese. I agree with what u said about their difficulty comparison. No clear grammatical rules in Chinese is what makes it so difficult though somebody may be arguing that there are rules and they are simple. However, rules don't apply to all cases in Chinese, which means there are a bunch of exceptions. Besides, Chinese sentences are usually very short and highly context-dependent, which means u have to be fully immersed into the conversations if u want to understand what speakers try to say.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you for the comment.

[@evanfont913]

Interesting that you find Mandarin so much more difficult. I have found many more language learnings posting on the Internet and other polyglots for that matter who have gone on to say that Chinese is far easier to learn for them than Japanese. Do you think people may feel this way based on a very limited exposure of the two languages and underestimating the "simple" grammar and also pronunciation difficulties in Mandarin? In your experience, have other people you've known person tended to agree with you with your assessment of the two languages? I was recently giving a listen to so slowly spoken Mandarin, and when I realized how complex the pronunciation is it really scared the s%*& out of me haha.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hi Evan. Actually I've found that only polyglots that have been learning Mandarin for a very long time and are proficient in it say that it is more difficult than Japanese. But on the other hand I realize that most of us do not have the same level of proficiency in or exposure to Japanese so we might as well be very biased.

[@ErtixPoke]

I need A REAL ADVICE of an expert which specialise in Asian languages and can help me which one of them - japanese or mandarin - should I learn? Look, I come from Poland and I'd like to travel across the Asia or live there in the future. My dream is to live in Japan. I am VERY interested in japanese culture, but reality says me that I should move to Taiwan. I've discovered by many years of listening japanese that grammar isn't easy in grammar rules which makes me giving up on learning, not only that, there are none of japanese citizens which can help me in language studying. Chinese what I've heard is more, more practical but I'm not learning a chinese music much. I think that chinese language was destroyed by CCP (first, simplification of REAL chinese characters and their's politic isn't which I can like and many others.) but there is also Taiwan which maybe I don't adore (like Japan) but I very like. All says that chinese will be (is?) a language of future, like english nowadays. I do not want to learn something which will be useless, that's why I wondering if learning japanese will be not a waste of time when more people speaks chinese. Don't know why but I think that chinese languages taught by Confucius Institutes is a propaganda of controlling westerners and chinese people by theirs government, and now I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO! Did I should learn a language I feel more passionate of country and culture with, but will be veeeeeerry useless by practical point of view (japanese) or make a more practical choice and go with chinese mandarin in traditional script which (probably) will be as important in the future as english today? I am wondering about this by 8 years and I really don't know what to do. What Chinese thinks of theirs language and what also Japanese thinks? Please, help.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

It's a hard decision, but I would learn Japanese in your case. Chinese is more useful, but you don't want to learn it because of anything else, only because it's useful and that is not enough. And it's not like Japanese is completely useless.. it's a good investment into the future too.

[@ErtixPoke]

Vladimir Skultety But japanese in my case is useless probably because there are no citizens and chinese like you said is more practical.

[@ayalena1233]

Hello :) Your video is interesting to watch!I'm a native speaker of Japanese, so I don't know how much difficult/easy for Western people, so this video helps me to understand learners.I haven't studied Chinese, but one of my friends said it's easy to read and understand Chinese passages even though she doesn't know how to read letters because we can guess the meanings from letters(kanji). But the pronouciation, as you said, is very difficult for Japanese too.As an English learner, native English speakers' speaking speed, including you ( are you a native English speaker?), is too fast! It makes me more difficult to understand...how much do you understand onomatopoeia in Japanese?Thank you for such a nice video! I'm sorry that my English is poor :(

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Ayalena Thank you for your comment in very nice English:) I am not a native speaker of English. In Taiwan I lived in a dormitory with 60 students from Japan who were learning Chinese and they were learning much faster than us, because of vocabulary loans between Chinese and Japanese. For instance a Japanese boy, who was still a beginner in Chinese could use very difficult words like 子宮 in Chinese easily because the characters are the same in Japanese, he just used the Chinese pronunciation. Also as you say, learning to read is much easier for you. My Japanese is really very basic. I don't understand onomatopoeia too well.

[@ayalena1233]

+Vladimir Skultety You're Slovak, aren't you? I just checked it on another video. Though you still have your native language accent when you speak Japanese, your Japanese is nice :) To understand onomatopoeis is difficult for you? Probably it's difficult but they're very useful. We Japanese can understand Chinese words like 子宮. Kanji helps us to understand Chinese easily. But sometimes it makes us confuged sometimes. Since I have never learned Chinese, I don't really know, but there're some words that look same but have different meanings. For example, 手紙. It has different meanings in both languages.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Ayalena Yes I'm Slovak:) There are of course words that will be different in both languages, but just the fact that a Japanese boy who is a beginner student of Chinese can use the word 子宮, but even easier ones like 天気 or 太陽 is incredible.

[@ayalena1233]

+Vladimir Skultety Yes there's a fact that kanji helps us to understand Chinese easier than other language speakers. Nice talking with you! I'll check your video when I have time :)

[@jinsi_hou4791]

I have been learning Chinese for 3 years, and through the process I atcually found out that Chinese really isn't as hard as people usually think. I mean even if it requires a lot of memory, I personally think that Chinese works in a much more logical way than many european languages for instance. To give an example, I think the Chinese way of constructing words is actually really intuitive because it's just like adding characters (=concepts) together to create meaning. This logical construction makes learning new words easier, as you can easly link words from the same lexical feild together. Whereas in European languages, words of a same lexical feild don't always look like one another, which makes learning new words more difficult to me. So I wanted to ask you this question, what about the difference between Chinese and Japanese regarding this point ? How is the Japanese way of building words different with the Chinese one ? Thanks for all your videos, and keep up the great work !

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Maxime Arnaud Hello Maxime. I don't know Japanese well enough to be able to compare this very well, but you are right, Chinese is much more intuitive when it comes to word formation (電話，電筒，電視，電影，電子，電腦 etc). Chinese is a very conservative language and due to it's nature very immune to loanwords. I know that most and maybe all languages create words the way Chinese does (the 電話，電筒，電視 example), but if we take European languages as an example, they have absorbed so many loanwords from Latin, Ancient Greek and English, that the old stratum is often lost. You an deconstruct the word "telefón" in Slovak as much as you want but you will find no native Slovak morphemes in it. However in Greek as far as I know "tele" means "distant" or "far" and "phonos" means sound, so the word was created exactly as 電話 in Chinese. This is not valid only for modern words, but also for older ones. The problem with older words is, that the morphemes often fuse due to pronunciation changes and shifts, but the word building concept is the same.

[@jinsi_hou4791]

+Vladimir Skultety Yeah that's a very good point ! I'm quite impressed by the number of languages you know and your level of expertise in this feild. I think I would be amazed to know the work quantity that must be behind it ! Besides learing all these languages, did you study language science at university ? PS : En tant que français, je serais impatient de t'entendre parler de ton experience vis à vis de ton apprentissage du français dans une future vidéo ! Est-ce que c'est prévu ?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Maxime Arnaud Thank you Maxime. I have a Bachelor's in Chinese studies as I mentioned and as part of the program we had to take some linguistic classes (phonetics, Chinese historical phonetics etc.) but I don't know too much about language science in general, only bits and pieces here and there. Oui, c'est prévu:) Mais je ne sais pas quand. Bientôt j'espère.

[@vincecsababugar9716]

That's your best video

[@369tayaholic5]

you guys should know that just because chinese doesn't have a certain strict grammar rule, and that's what make it hard to learn. Stop saying that it's very easy just because it has no inflections and has similar syntax with european languages.

[@ksawerykaminski2606]

yes i'm tired of hearing that, those people think about this linguistic aspect only on the surface.

[@jaronmartin5758]

I agree with you with most of your points but Japanese has many sounds that sound very similar as I been living here for more than 5 years. They have very few sounds, so many sounds are very similar. If you live here you get used to it though it is not too bad.

[@phuongthaonguyen2439]

chinese is much easier with majority of vietnamese

[@yupengwu2550]

XD humorous people

[@hmmmhmmm6917]

yea cause you guys have a lot of tones

[@frankdelvan1294]

Phương Thảo Nguyễn Sure!! Hahahaha...

[@ivyivy5427]

Can you teach me Japanese? Your videos get into key exactly andspecificlly.I like your videos!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+辛慧 Hello. My Japanese is very basic. Definitely not good enough to teach someone else.

[@ivyivy5427]

+Vladimir Skultety That is alright.

[@nanas916]

+Vladimir Skultety im japanese and i think your japanese are great :D

[@usablefiber]

After studying japanese for a few months it really doesn't seem THAT difficult. It seems that it can be really frustrating to get started but the grammar is so REGULAR and consistent that once you get most of the basics down the really hard grammar is over. At least that is what it seems like at this point.

[@ren7068]

It really does get harder when you study more and more :/ Good luck !

[@amaloamlanji3232]

yeah that's true its good video

[@nhy123123]

Here I am just very curious, but why do you preferentially use traditional Chinese characters over the simplified ones, which the latter is used by the current CCP government for the mainland? (Admittedly, traditional Chinese is not very far off from simplified and it is rather easy to identify both due to similar root-forms and so.) The 'beauty' of the original I assume?

[@nhy123123]

+nhy123123 Oh yes, it is sad to see actual China Chinese on KZbin, given that they are forbade access to so, disappointingly. There is VPN and Tor, but...

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I studied simplified at the Chinese department in Europe for 2 years, but later lived in Taiwan for 5 years so I know traditional much much better.

[@nhy123123]

woah excellent! As much as I do hear from my family somehow offer rather disparaging comments that traditional is 'a relic of the past' and simplified is something that eases off the burden of countless Chinese students (let's just compare '學' and '学'), I have to remember that it is also a good argument that some are just so over-simplified that it insults the original character (what is '义气' without '我'?) Oh and thanks for the immediate reply! Sorry if I digressed a little too much, because I appreciate my country's constant effort in teaching us two beautiful language with excellent linguistics IMO.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Traditional are more complicated but much easier to remember, because they don't resemble one another that much. I rarely write charecters by hand and there is no difference when you type them on a computer so the complexity of traditional is of no disadvantage to me.

[@nhy123123]

+nhy123123 That's true. Although I do have to note that this phenomenon is slowly affecting (adversely) the East Asian people when it comes to utilising Chinese characters, as the need to actually write the characters increasingly fall out of favour after the years of education life as denoted by the 'Keitai Culture', in which youngsters recognise, but increasingly do not know how to write out Kanji when told to do so. Luckily, Kanji is still vital in learning to understand Japanese literature, the essence of the Japanese spirit. Regardless, all the best in your endeavours, and Japanese is indeed, something of a language that will bring you across countless boundaries into the once-hermit nation! In fact, Japan is still highly homogenous and localised in context, a nation with so much good stuff kept to only their own, and those who understand them. (Oh yes, Kanji is highly in traditional Chinese as well, even those simplified might be greatly different from simplified Chinese.)

[@Raketemensch-fl3sv]

Old video, but Ding! I'm sick of people saying that chinese "has no grammar" (utter nonsense from an anal linguistics major's perspective), or slightly less frustrating that the grammar of chinese is extremely simple. As you point out, there's no inflection, but languages make up for the lack of one feature by complicating another. E.g. the number of possible syllables in chinese is incredibly low, but add 4 tones and now there are 4 x 4 as many possible disyllabic words with the same syllables. The lack of inflection in chinese is made up for with crazy fucking syntax. Things like 把， S+V+O+V+得+ADV， "rhythmicality" (a one syllable word having a two syllable counterpart but one or the other being dispreferred in certain contexts), and i still don't even know what's going on with some deeply embedded clauses. There's another thing weird about mandarin at least in the PRC. There's an idea here that foreigners cannot ever possibly speak chinese, and some people have a serious mental block so that it's like you're speaking gibberish no matter how clear and grammatical your speech. Not infrequently i'll have an interlocutor that's just like a deer in headlights, showing signs that they're trying to grasp my meaning by their expectations of the situation, hand movements, or just anything at all *other than* the words coming out of my mouth. And you might rationally assume that i'm just lacking self-awareness and my chinese is shit, but often in these situations a person standing right next to us will effortlessly understand everything i'm saying and take over the task of talking to me, and that first person will mutter "i don't understand english", or, hilariously, after the conversation is over they'll say to that second person "wow, your english is really good!"

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you for the comment. To the second part: I also find it very annoying when I say something in Chinese and the person replies in broken English. I continue in Chinese and the person continues in broken English.. #frustrating

[@Raketemensch-fl3sv]

Yeah, i'm in a second tier city where very few people speak english, so usually people are relieved and happy to stick to chinese, but sometimes that will happen, and if i'm in a rush it's really frustrating, but in some cases where they might lose face (like if someone's boss is watching and their job is supposed to require fluent english) i'll try to accommodate. And if someone wants to just throw in a few english phrases for fun that's fine. But now i'm worried that maybe someone studied english for a while, but they're rusty, and my insistence on mandarin hurts their pride.

[@molikmittal6590]

Japanese is easy than Chinese the words of chinese is not difficult but as compare to Japanese it little bit different and difficult

[@bmys3304]

日本語にはカタカナ交じりの文語体とかがある。例えば（右ノ筋合ナルヲ以テ上等裁判所ノ裁判ヲ聽斷ノ定規ニ合ヒタル者ト判決ス依テ上告状差戻候事）。日本語の難易度が高い理由。

[@ksawerykaminski2606]

chinese grammar is on surface very easy but actually got tons of subtle rules to master, and hard to make you sound like a native. If you're a learner of over 3 years, you might know what i'm talking about

[@danvermark8232]

rule of Grammars is like 26 leters in english, with these certain rules , you can create all grammars and don't need to memorize them. But the grammar of chinese don't have rules, you need to memorize every grammar, this is the reason why chinese grammar is extremely difficult to learn.

[@danvermark8232]

this is the reason why grammars aren't taught in chinese text book.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I agree and disagree. I don't have the statistics, but in my opinion English and Chinese language complexity is roughly the same. Because English is the most taught language in the world, it has been researched very well and English language teaching methods are very advanced, English grammar is very well mapped out. This means, you can for instance just go to any bookstore and find a ton of books about English grammar there. In other words, if you want to learn English, you have a lot of materials that can help you learn English grammar. Chinese is a relatively new popular language to learn, its grammar is less researched, teaching methods are undeveloped, therefore there are almost no books to learn Chinese grammar from. This however doesn't mean that Chinese grammar is more complex than English grammar, it just means it is less researched and there are less Chinese teaching materials than there are English teaching materials. You definitely cannot say 'Chinese has no grammar rules'. Of course Chinese has grammar rules. Every language has grammar rules, it would not be a language otherwise. If you want I can give you a list of books that talk about Chinese grammar rules. For instance: 朱德熙 (1982): 語法講義. 北京, 商務印書館出版 鄭貴友, 現代漢語語法 Драгунов, А.А. (1952) Исследования по грамматике современного китайского языка. Москва, Издательство академии наук СССР (if you speak Russian obviously)

[@danvermark8232]

the "text book" , I mean the book was taught in Chinese elementary school , middle school and high school, as far as I know , grammar is rarely taught ,even mentioned in their Chinese lessons. This situation is very strange compared to other language,. by the way , I'm Chinese : )

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I know you're Chinese:) Read this book if you like 朱德熙 (1982): 語法講義. 北京, 商務印書館出版 鄭貴友, 現代漢語語法

[@danvermark8232]

Thanks for recommending the book.

[@user-ql5pr1ih4j]

very honest suggestion，i like it，

[@PyroNexus22]

tbh I personally didn't have much problem learning to read pinyin. I mean I didn't even dedicate time to it, it just came naturally after hearing how people pronounce stuff in videos and music.

[@Nikhilperfect]

As far as I have heard, its like the person who starts the language, either Japanese or Chinese FIRST finds it difficult than other. But, yes Japanese do have lots and lots of Homonyms and Homophones. It's very hard to interpret espicially when Listining. They speak very fast. And Japanese have multiple pronounciation for same character which is like death. And sometimes this also refers to Grammer and Proper noun which is very much difficult. Too much of exception and very high level of Grammer which is very difficult to manage the rules.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

All of what you mentioned is present in Chinese as well and when it comes to homophones the situation is several times more difficult than in Japanese unfortunately. For instance: 事實 shi4shi2 實施 shi2shi1 試試（看）shi4shi4 (kan4) 適時 shi4shi2 制止 zhi4zhi3 吃吃（看）chi1chi1 此次 ci3ci4 食指 shi2zhi3 是指 shi4zhi3 實質 shi2zhi2 失智 shi1zhi4 指示 zhi3shi4 知識 zhi1shi4 只是 zhi3shi4 直視 zhi2shi4 之時 zhi1shi2 試吃 shi4chi1 支持 zhi1chi2 智齒 zhi4chi3 獅子 shi1zi0 石子 shi2zi0 十字 shi2zi4 十次 shi2ci4 詩詞 shi1ci2 致死 zhi4si3

[@Nikhilperfect]

@@VladimirSkultetyOfficial Haha, But atleast 1 character represent 1 proper meaning and 1 proper sound. Atleast visualisation can be done. In Japanese sometimes kanjis will gives senerio of phrase but becomes difficult if u don't know the onyomi and kunyomi as Japanese has more than 1 pronounciation for most of Kanjis and each kanjis have different meaning of it's own and sometimes completely misleads the whole sentence if u don't pronounce. In case of Chinese you have to learn more characters than Japanese for sure with complex writing but atleast the letters are pronounciation are fixed with less exception, just word Kake かけ has so many meanings, it means able to write, draw, can be passive form, to make someone sit, to bill,to gamble, it can be even used in honorofics etc etc. When the speaking goes very fast, it becomes complicated to understand what's being said. I guess because of this communication gap Hiroshima and Nagasaki was bombed in Ww2.😓😓😓😓. Even though the Japanese Grammer has set of rules and has dedicated books, it's actually too much. Higher the levels you go, u will be learning same Grammer phases with different uses with same kind of rules. Just the word Uchi うち、can be used as to indicate house, Grammer for 3 patterns which are used in very different situation but has same rules. Verb aggulation actually usage has many set of rules and many set of expections, the usage of particle Ni に、ga が are used very widely and using to to match Grammer patterns rules correctly is still a dream to me 😂😂. And yes Katakana may seem easy, but it's not that easy, bcz interpretation of words are difficult, words may seem closely related to some English or German word, but till u pronounce it 3 or 4 times it's difficult what's that Katakana word. And in listining part, it's difficult to interpret which is hiragana part and which is Katakana part. Anyway thanks for the knowledge on chinese, I have got some good facts from video and could learnt some Chinese 😅😅

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

@@Nikhilperfect In Chinese, most Chinese characters have several readings and a huge amount of Chinese characters have several different totally unrelated meanings. Also, the 'higher level' you learn Chinese, the more complicated it gets.

[@hammun6]

Totally agree. Like you, I learned Chinese first and can speak it better than Japanese, which I've only just started learning. Japanese particles are, in my opinion, what makes it so much easier. The serve as "markers", not only from a grammatical point of view, but from a speech pattern perspective, because they mark the "beats" in the sentences. In Chinese, the only rule of thumb is the two-by-two character cadence, and still, in spoken Chinese, from a listening comprehension perspective, it's very easy to lose oneself, especially when sentences are longer. And yes, the sounds in Chinese repeat themselves very often, because it's harder to tell tones apart in fluent speech, so sometimes many "words" kind of "sound alike". The fact that Japanese has a phonetic alphabet and many loanwords makes it that much easier to learn, even though Japanese has the on and kun pronunciations for kanji. Japanese grammar may be a bit more complex on the one hand, what with verb and adjective conjugations and the order of phrase elements (verbs coming at the end) but Chinese grammar is more complicated, and if you want to speak with a more native register, you almost have to change your whole way of thinking, it takes a kind of cultural shift to internalize the language, due to the fact that it is less structured, totally pictoric, and tonal. Anyone who wants to learn both should definitely learn Chinese first. Having said that, whenever I see a kanji the Chinese pronunciation of it always pops into my head first. ;-)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you for the comment.

[@moonlightinfinite641]

I feel that Chinese is easier because it is more straight forward. japanese is more complicated

[@Keyman135]

那是你還沒有體驗到中文的表達法有時會產生很多歧義。比如“幾個工廠的工人”就可以理解成workers in several factories or several workers in the factory.中文的語法是很模糊的，通常只能靠語境判斷意思。

[@Keyman135]

+Justin Xie 领导：你这是什么意思？小明：没什么意思。意思意思。领导：你这就不够意思了。小明：小意思小意思。领导：你这人真有意思。小明：其实也没有别的意思。领导：那我就不好意思了。小明：是我不好意思。--问，以上“意思”分别是什么意思？

[@LeonardoCaida]

+Key mansan 对的，还有一个原因是因为口语中为了简便所以会这么说，其实用也可以表达出来这两个不同含义，只不过说话的时候觉得麻烦，这句话其实可以扩写为：几个来自不同工厂的工人，或者是该工厂的几个工人，不过口语中没人会说的这么麻烦，就会用简便的说法，所以需要用上下文语境来判断到底是哪个意思。虽然有时会有歧义，但也正体现了中文的灵活。

[@wiitubeaccount]

You mean w/o the hanja (thus no context)?

[@matthewbitter532]

these same is also true in chinese

[@Brandubhh]

How old is this guy?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

34

[@MarCel-ih6ui]

Totally interesting though I speak neither of these languages :D

[@egygat]

Tudsz magyarul káromkodni? :)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Eperlekvár #sweg Természetesen:)

[@olafurssonkyllian8153]

I feel like leaving a message here as well, but not because i disagree with you Vladimir but i disagree with some of the comments here , especially the one just bellow by Yinshid Jun. I have lived over 20 years in japan and less than 5 in China and i have learned both of the languages . I wouldn't say that one is more difficult than the other . I do not even understand why those languages should be compared . It is a bit like comparing Icelandic to Finnish just because those two countries are somehow part of Scandinavia (somehow because Iceland is actually technically not a Scandinavian country but that's off topic). China and Japan might both be in Asia but Chinese and Japanese as a language are very different . Chinese is a difficult language for westerners but it is also a difficult language for Japanese and Korean and Thai and Vietnamese etc etc . Though Japanese use Kanji (or Chinese characters) originally from China , the Kanji are now very different from the ones used in China . And even if both Japanese and Chinese can understand that those Kanji mean respectively 木　日　水　山　風　tree, sun, water, mountain amd wind . It is impossible for a Chinese person to read Japanese newspapers and even more impossible to understand the news on tv unless they learned Japanese thoroughly . What i mean is that both languages are very difficult . Chinese is clearly difficult to pronounce but at least every chinese character is pronounced the same way apart for some exception , while for example the Kanji 日　in Japanese can be read in over 20 different ways , whether you mean sun, day, light, etc and even if you mean just Sun , it can also be read in 7 different ways for different reasons. And this is not an exception at all in japanese , every character can be at least pronounced in two different ways called OnYomi and KunYomi whether it is the original or close to the original sound in Chinese or the original sound for the world in Japanese before chinese characters were imported . But most of the time every kanji can at least be pronounced in 5 different way. Which makes Japanese very poetic but also very difficult . Add to that the fact that they use three different writing systems kanji hiragana and katakana, and often roman characters . that they use both japanese/chinese numbers and arabic numbers which also can be pronounced in many different ways , and that different things are counted differently in japanese . For example you can't count animals the way you count humans, or things and even amoing things and animals the way to count them is different whether they are small or big animals or things . Add also to that that men and women speak differently in Japan and even youngsters and elderly and that it is very important to use the proper language according to one's gender and age . And finally Japanese have 5 level of formality according to who you are and whom you are speaking to and it is even more important to respect those levels of formality or informality . And then there is the proper use of the kana にのへなをかetc which are extremely important and the hellish use of はandが　which is so hard to understand , adding to that that Japanese conjugate not only verbs but also nouns and even sometimes adjectives and that the difference between nouns and adjectives is very vague and there you have it ! And Japanese dialect are countless , someone from the Iwate prefecture can't understand someone from Okinawa and someone from Kyoto speaks differently than someone from Tokyo or, Fukushima or Kyushu etc etc ... And finally the writing system is completely different whether you are writing for the newspaper , or as a novelist , as a scientist as an historian etc . So yes of course the basic Japanese of the Tokyo NHK is almost as easy to understand and learn as the basic English of the BBC . But this is not because one can understand the news in the UK that they will understand Shakespeare just like you can perfectly understand the news of the NHK but you won't even be able to read the transcription , only because what is said is never what is written though the meaning remains the same . In other words i have learned both languages and even though i find Chinese more difficult to speak and write or read (though the reading part is not that hard actually) , i find Japanese much much more complex to speak properly and even more to read and write . And on a more subjective note , though many linguists agree, Japanese is the most poetic language of all with notions that are impossible to translate in any other languages and also to my opinion one of the most beautiful when spoken perfectly and accurately because the base of its structure is so simple, its capacity to evolve and adapts is endless. And that is why true Japanese humour or conversation is so subtle and exquisite because it leaves so much room to interpretation and double sense etc... The best example of it is the Genji Monogatari , or much more recently, even just listening to Kouta or Nagauta, Rakugo, Kyogen, Noh , and of course Haiku and Tanka . But also listening to an elderly Geisha from Kyoto speak, is pure poetry /

[@miloskusakovic6218]

Thank you!!I really enjoyed reading this.I started learning chinese few days ago, so can you please suggest me how to learn it?

[@olafurssonkyllian8153]

+Crazy Coala44 My pleasure, thank you for taking the time to read all that. As for your question , my first suggestion with learning Chinese would be that you learn how to speak it first and then start with the reading and writing .

[@patrickpan5618]

I'm Chinese. Actually, I've never learned Chinese grammar in primary school. And my teachers didn't teach grammar separately, they just asked me to FEEL the way to talk in Chinese.

[@adelynnchan9459]

你的中文都很好啊。我覺得日本話很難因為日本話有KUN和ON readings.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Adelynn Chan 謝謝。KUN和ON readings實在很難。

[@MrHaganenoEdward]

Does number of textbooks avalible and number of homonyms make language easier? Yes, students of Japanese have more material to work with, but that doesn't really relate to language. Also I think that actuall spoken Japanese is much faster than anime Japanese :D. Oh and don't forget that almost every single kanji has at least two pronounciations :). And also Japanese actually uses characters closer to traditional while mandarin uses simplified ones. And of course Japanese is waaaayyy easier to pronounce than Chinese, but it's still a struggle for someone who was born in Wstern Europe. BTW I still think that this was an amazing video and that Chinese might be a bit harder than Japanese, but I think that you made Japanese a bit easier than it actually is. PS: Prepáč, ale nejak som neodolal slovenskému dodatku :D. Slovák študujúci japončinu v anglicku ťa pozdravuje :D

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hello and thank you. Does number of textbooks available and number of homonyms make a language easier? - Of course. Oh and don't forget that almost every single kanji has at least two pronunciations - Chinese characters in Chinese have multiple pronunciations too. And also Japanese actually uses characters closer to traditional while mandarin uses simplified ones. - I lived in Taiwan for 5 years, I learned Traditional characters, not Simplified ones. I don't see how they make the spoken language more complicated. They are easier to remember, if anything, since they don't resemble each other as much as Simplified characters do. This however has nothing to do with the spoken language so I don't know why everybody keeps mentioning it. Same goes for Kanon/Goon readings. I never said Japanese was easy, I just said, Chinese was much harder for an average Westerner to learn than Japanese.

[@MrHaganenoEdward]

Well this is what I get for not having any experience with Chinese :D :D. But I still think that number of homonyms makes spoken Japanese harder than written as you have to pay attention to pronounciation (but still not as much as in Chinese :D ) and the number of avalible textbooks makes language more accesible but not easier to study. And sorry about those simplified characters.

[@baltzlyn5769]

Your analysis of the comlexity of the Chinese language is the most accurate and insightful I have seen by far, and I really appreciate your efforts ! By the way, I was a Chinese student studying Czech lanuage na Univerzite Karlove v Praze v roce 2007:-) a Byl jsem v Bratislave, Man rad vase hezke mesto:-)

[@Kotsuyosama]

As a Chinese I have no idea about how difficult the Chinese grammar is until I read a Chinese grammar book for English speakers and I found maybe I am a fake Chinese, what the hell is that??? I think if I am not a Chinese speaker, learning Chinese will make me mad. To Japanese I don't think it's very hard (Maybe just for Chinese people )at least for the kanji characters, it's not a problem to us. As a Japanese learner, I found it's harder to remember katakana words rather than kanji. So which one is harder, it depends on your language backgrounds but there's no doubt that they're both super difficult language for English speakers. By the way, is Japanese people learning Chinese easier, what's the feeling when you study Chinese? 中国語を勉強している日本人がいますか？勉強は簡単でしょうか？

[@user-nm3nf1ue9u]

中国語を勉強している日本人です、難しいです…声調発音聞き取りがとくに、慣用句や成語も多いしね

[@Kakashi-Usagi]

I think being a beginner means you can't truly compare the 2. Because as someone who is studying Japanese at University I can say the language starts off very easy and gets increasingly more difficult. Grammar gets more and more complex. I studied Chinese for a year and felt that Chinese was very vague which could be easier compared to being very precise. "If Chinese didn't have any grammar why do so many foreigners struggle"? - I think the tones and Chinese characters are extremely difficult for most people. I can agree that there is more material on Japanese grammar but it is still extremely difficult. As you usually take a verb and add to it and add to it etc. Having the pronunciation in furigana does help BUT writing in only hiragana is only for children and can be extremely difficult especially as you write more complex sentences. Kanji are needed to bring meanings. And one huge difference here between Japanese and Chinese is that Japanese Kanji (Chinese characters) have multiple readings. Not one or two but some up to as many as 8 readings. And there aren't any particular rules on which reading is used. So that can be extremely difficult. Whereas in Chinese most characters have one reading. Japanese pronunciation is definitely easier. Japanese does have a lot of borrows words but then again a lot of these have been shortened and are hard to see where they came from. Which means you have to learn them independently. Japanese has MANY words which are pronounced exactly the same that only differ in the characters. But this is something you only see the further you get into the language. Japanese speak extremely fast too. Having longer sentences and words in Japanese doesn't make it easier. With short sentences it's fine but since Japanese is backwards (SOV) often you need the entire sentence to understand it. And the longer that sentence gets the harder it is to keep track in your head of what's being said. Even written down it often feels like a jigsaw puzzle to work out the sentence. Honourofic language is NOT EASY. Keigo is extremely complex and you often combine 2/3 forms, raising the person you're talking to while also lowering yourself. I feel they're both on the same level of difficulty just in different areas. But I do think it's not fair to compare when you don't have a good knowledge of Japanese. I even have a friend here in a lower set for Japanese who talks as if it's easy but she doesn't yet know the complexities of the language.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hello, just to address some of your points quickly: "I think the tones and Chinese characters are extremely difficult for most people. " I think you misunderstood me a little bit. What I meant was this: If a lot of people say that Chinese grammar is easy why do so many people struggle (with it)? Chinese characters have nothing to do with the difficulty of the spoken language, they are not what make Chinese difficult in my opinion. They are a complication, but they don't require you to have any special talent or anything similar, only time, which most of us have. Tones on the other hand are a very big complication, but they are the part of the spoken language, not the written one, but I was not talking about those. I was specifically addressing claims about how simple Chinese grammar is. "I can agree that there is more material on Japanese grammar but it is still extremely difficult. As you usually take a verb and add to it and add to it etc." I never said Japanese was easy. I only said Chinese was more difficult. Having a plethora of materials to use when you study is a huge advantage, since me for instance I had to make a lot of materials myself, which if nothing costs a lot of time and effort. "And one huge difference here between Japanese and Chinese is that Japanese Kanji (Chinese characters) have multiple readings. Whereas in Chinese most characters have one reading." This is not true. What you wrote is unfortunately a mantra of people who learn Japanese. Many Characters in Chinese also have several readings and, what is much more important, most characters have several (sometimes dozens) of unrelated meanings. Look at 著，和，的，得，從，會，長 etc. just to name a few random ones off the top of my head. "Japanese does have a lot of borrows words but then again a lot of these have been shortened and are hard to see where they came from. Which means you have to learn them independently. " Even if they are shortened, they are enough to serve as a memory hooks, because you'll have at least something to relate to, which is a great advantage. "Japanese has MANY words which are pronounced exactly the same that only differ in the characters. But this is something you only see the further you get into the language. " I am aware of that but can it compare to this? 事實 shi4shi2 實施 shi2shi1 試試（看）shi4shi4 (kan4) 適時 shi4shi2 制止 zhi4zhi3 吃吃（看）chi1chi1 此次 ci3ci4 食指 shi2zhi3 是指 shi4zhi3 實質 shi2zhi2 失智 shi1zhi4 指示 zhi3shi4 知識 zhi1shi4 只是 zhi3shi4 直視 zhi2shi4 之時 zhi1shi2 試吃 shi4chi1 支持 zhi1chi2 智齒 zhi4chi3 獅子 shi1zi0 石子 shi2zi0 十字 shi2zi4 十次 shi2ci4 詩詞 shi1ci2 致死 zhi4si3 These are all very frequent words which I wrote almost off the top of my head without thinking of all other possible frequent combinations. "Honourofic language is NOT EASY." I'm sorry but when did I say honorifics were easy? "But I do think it's not fair to compare when you don't have a good knowledge of Japanese." A lot of the things I pointed out are objective facts and I don't think a PHD in Japanese studies is a necessary qualification to make the statements I made. This video is a year and a half old and many people have left comments like yours under it, but no one convinced me yet. Like I said, I never said and would never say that Japanese is easy, I just said Chinese is harder. I've had a very nice, polite, discussion with a long-time interpreter of Japanese, who knew Chinese as well. We both learned a lot. He politely and in a very nice way argued that Japanese was harder in his opinion. Even he had to agree in the end that he wasn't aware of the many things that make Chinese objectively harder.

[@Kakashi-Usagi]

I wasn't trying to argue or cause an argument. So I do apologise if it came across like that! I can understand there are a lot of things I don't know about Chinese but I guess I was just saying if you've only done 5 months of Japanese (at the point you made this video) then it's hard to be able to compare them truly. But I still believe they're as difficult as each other. And if I'm being honest I feel like Arabic and languages like Russian or Finnish are more difficult. But then again I think it depends on each individual person! I think I just get annoyed at hearing this back and forth argument, it can sound like people write Japanese off as being easy. But anyway I liked your video and I'm really amazed by your Chinese! I wish I was that level in Chinese! And Japanese lol

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you for the nice words:) Like I said, I never said and never would say Japanese was easy. I just said Chinese was objectively harder for an average westerner to learn.

[@Dikkewormgrrr]

加油! :)

[@nekozombie]

10:55 修天？

[@jessehu9168]

话说，中文复杂的语法到底是哪些啊，可以举个例子吗？

[@MrSiomys]

可能是指中文不像日语 在语法上这么organized吧。毕竟现代汉语出现时间很晚，可能习惯语更多。怎么说的像个中国人不是很容易。。。但是我觉得对于外国人，中文的难点 应该都主要在读写上，听说上还好

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+MrSiomys +Jesse Hu 你們好。老實說，讀寫算不是一個很大的問題。學這些不需要任何特別的能力，只需要時間而已。反而要學起中文的發音，語法，句法，單詞，難很多了。 因為文句法上中文與我們西方語言很不一樣，對我們西方人來說，有很多文句法完全是新的，沒有很多自然的模範可以追蹤。差不多每一句話有自己的獨特機構，而這等於說差不多每一句話要背起來。

[@alisalin]

I think the only thing I feel in Japanese is really difficult that is easier in Chinese is the whole onyomi kunyomi thing. It boggles me as a Chinese Canadian, because when you learn a character in Japanese, you only learn it in that specific context. In any other context, you may know the meaning but you won't know how to pronounce it unless actually taught it for that specific situation. But yeah, in literally every other way, Chinese is hands down harder for foreigners. Not sure how people like you learn Chinese - I myself know a couple foreigners who can speak Chinese (some better than I do! whoops!) but I commend you all on that. That shit is difficult.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+MealisaStudio You're right but, this really is more about the spoken language than the written one. And plus, I learned how to read Chinese only after I spoke it fluently and it was way way easier than if I'd tried learning how to read as I was struggling with everything else. I can only imagine it should be the same for Japanese. You learn how to speak, you become fluent and learn how to read afterwards, which will be about one light year easier than doing it the other way around.