Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

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Axon
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby Axon » Sun May 28, 2023 6:23 am

Are there any examples of native English speaker adults learning to speak excellent Mandarin or Japanese with minimal reading ability? And by excellent, I mean C1, since I believe that's the criteria for the FSI ratings. Of course there are millions of illiterate native speakers of these languages, and probably hundreds of thousands of people or more from related language backgrounds who have picked up fluency as adults. But that's not what the FSI is measuring when it puts them at category 5.

Personally, I believe such a feat is nearly impossible. Speaking and listening at an advanced level as a foreign learner, with the vocabulary breadth and sophistication that that implies, more or less requires an ability to read the language. I'd even be shocked if someone achieved advanced fluency while somehow using a tool to convert all the text they read into Romanization.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby gsbod » Sun May 28, 2023 9:48 am

Axon wrote:I'd even be shocked if someone achieved advanced fluency while somehow using a tool to convert all the text they read into Romanization.


I agree. I think what is more likely for advanced learners is that they find their reading ability lags behind their speaking and listening ability, to a greater or lesser extent.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby tungemål » Sun May 28, 2023 11:14 am

It might be just me, but I find spoken japanese hard to understand because it's spoken so fast, and because there are few phonemes so many words end up sounding similar. I agree the grammar is not too bad since it's very regular.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby stelingo » Sun May 28, 2023 11:47 am

gsbod wrote:
tastyonions wrote:I’ve heard Japanese grammar is rather tough, though I’ve never studied it myself.


It's not. Word order is no more challenging than German. Tenses are pretty easy and there aren't many of them. Verbs are very regular. No genders, articles, declensions or plural forms to worry about. Particles are no more challenging than prepositions in other languages.

The hardest parts of learning Japanese are the vocabulary and the writing system.

I would imagine if it wasn't for the writing system, Japanese would be of a similar difficulty to something like Finnish.


That's a subjective opinion, not a fact. Japanese word order is more challenging than German for English speakers. If it was just putting the verb at the end of the sentence, that wouldn't be too difficult with practice. But you also have to reckon with differences in word order when dealing with relative clauses.

For example
'The book that I read yesterday was interesting.'
becomes
I subject particle yesterday read book topic marker interesting was (was being expressed in the adjectival ending)
私が昨日読んだ本は面白かった。

Certainly more challenging than German
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby gsbod » Sun May 28, 2023 12:07 pm

stelingo wrote:That's a subjective opinion, not a fact. Japanese word order is more challenging than German for English speakers. If it was just putting the verb at the end of the sentence, that wouldn't be too difficult with practice. But you also have to reckon with differences in word order when dealing with relative clauses.

For example
'The book that I read yesterday was interesting.'
becomes
I subject particle yesterday read book topic marker interesting was (was being expressed in the adjectival ending)
私が昨日読んだ本は面白かった。

Certainly more challenging than German


Actually, a very similar construction to this does exist in German to modify a noun, although a relative clause following the noun is usually an acceptable alternative that is not available in Japanese. See for example this sentence in the penultimate paragraph in this article in Die Zeit. I've underlined the construction in question.

Zeitpunkt, Abwicklung und Kommunikation des vor zwei Monaten vollzogenen Trainerwechsels von Julian Nagelsmann zu Thomas Tuchel sorgten intern und extern für Debatten.


Edit: Sorry, I should have included some kind of translation of the quote above:

The timing, completion, and communication from Julian Nagelsmann to Thomas Tuchel of the change of manager, completed two months ago, provoked internal and external debates.

(Apologies for my ropey translation skills).
Last edited by gsbod on Sun May 28, 2023 12:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby gsbod » Sun May 28, 2023 12:25 pm

tungemål wrote:It might be just me, but I find spoken japanese hard to understand because it's spoken so fast, and because there are few phonemes so many words end up sounding similar. I agree the grammar is not too bad since it's very regular.


I would say in this respect, Japanese is similarly difficult to Spanish, harder than German, but easier than French. Although it is then complicated by the fact that even if you can parse what you hear correctly, English speakers are going to recognise fewer familiar words in Japanese than in the other languages I've mentioned here.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby gsbod » Sun May 28, 2023 1:16 pm

Also, I know my opinion is subjective. Just like anyone's opinion on an Internet forum. But since I have studied for and passed JLPT N2, and successfully completed a C1 German course, my opinions are not entirely uninformed.

Japanese is challenging for an English speaker and there are difficulties with the grammar (just as with any language). I also think that for Japanese grammar beyond the basics (approximately N2/A2) most materials for learners are quite poor, compared to the excellent materials for intermediate to advanced German students. But I still believe Japanese grammar is not especially difficult compared to other languages, and in some respects it is easier.

There is still a reason why I can sit down and comfortably enjoy German novels but have all but given up on Japanese ones. But that is due to the vocabulary and kanji, and not the grammar.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby Monty » Sun May 28, 2023 3:06 pm

stelingo wrote:That's a subjective opinion, not a fact.


You're on an internet forum, complaining about subjective opinions?

I have seen it all now.

Incidentally, we're talking language learning here. Not maths. EVERY opinion is subjective, including yours.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby Ichiro » Sun May 28, 2023 3:37 pm

gsbod wrote:But I still believe Japanese grammar is not especially difficult compared to other languages, and in some respects it is easier.


I would like to lend my subjective support to this opinion. Once you get used to verbs at the end and the lack of relative clauses, there's not much to know in Japanese grammar, it's the least of the challenges.

What I found is that easy Japanese is very easy, advanced Japanese is very hard. As other commentators have pointed out, a lot of this is due to the rapidity of the speech (although I guess this will seem to be a problem with any target language) and the number of near-homophones, plus the difficulty of getting secondary support from reading due to the complexity of the writing system.

Two of these three challenges are there with Korean in bucketloads. In my arrogance I had expected to pivot over from Japanese to Korean easily, due to similarity of the grammar - everything there in Japanese is there also in Korean, but a bit spikier - and the fungibility of the Chinese loanwords. In fact, I have found Korean completely impenetrable so far. Something doesn't click for me. I think it's the contractions in their speech, they seem to swallow everything.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby stelingo » Sun May 28, 2023 8:56 pm

Monty wrote:
stelingo wrote:That's a subjective opinion, not a fact.


You're on an internet forum, complaining about subjective opinions?

I have seen it all now.

Incidentally, we're talking language learning here. Not maths. EVERY opinion is subjective, including yours.


I wasn't aware I was complaining. Thanks for explaining what an opinion is. :roll:
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