Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

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dml130
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Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby dml130 » Sat May 27, 2023 1:40 pm

Japanese and Mandarin are listed as Category 5 languages by FSI, which places them in the most difficult category; other "difficult" languages such as Vietnamese and Turkish (written in the latin alphabet) are listed a level below, in category 4. However, anecdotally, I've heard that Vietnamese as a spoken language (at least according to some people) is more difficult than Mandarin. It makes me wonder, would the FSI difficulty rankings look different when considering languages only in their spoken forms? Might languages such as Japanese and Mandarin be considered more along the lines of a category 4 difficulty (or lower) in that case?
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby tastyonions » Sat May 27, 2023 2:43 pm

I’ve heard Japanese grammar is rather tough, though I’ve never studied it myself.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby dml130 » Sat May 27, 2023 8:11 pm

I don't have any first hand experience either, but I've heard the same. It's all relative though, and I've heard the same about some category 4 languages such as Hungarian and Finnish.

In the case of Mandarin, the difficulty with the spoken language seems to relate in large part to the use of tones, rather than grammar as with Japanese. But from what I've heard, tones aren't unique to Mandarin or Chinese languages in general - languages such as Thai and Vietnamese have as many or more than Mandarin.

So, I'm wondering if the difference in in these FSI levels is more about the written language, rather than a significant perceived difference in difficulty with challenging grammar or tones.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby Sae » Sat May 27, 2023 10:45 pm

dml130 wrote:Japanese and Mandarin are listed as Category 5 languages by FSI, which places them in the most difficult category; other "difficult" languages such as Vietnamese and Turkish (written in the latin alphabet) are listed a level below, in category 4. However, anecdotally, I've heard that Vietnamese as a spoken language (at least according to some people) is more difficult than Mandarin. It makes me wonder, would the FSI difficulty rankings look different when considering languages only in their spoken forms? Might languages such as Japanese and Mandarin be considered more along the lines of a category 4 difficulty (or lower) in that case?


I figured these were rated based on how long it is supposed to take, rather than the challenges you may have to overcome and I guess that's subjective too, because some people find some things easier than others and I think finding an accurate metric for difficulty is just going to be tough if not impossible thanks to subjectivity.

I tried learning Japanese as a teen and have been learning Vietnamese and comparing the two I'd say the process of learning Japanese and speaking it was definitely easier. Vietnamese is hard not just because of tones (Mandarin has tones too) but because there's a lot of sounds that are quite similar and the same words with different tones for different means it a part of it, but there are other sounds that contribute too.

Eg.

Anh ấy đã ăn trưa (He has eaten lunch)
Anh ấy đã ăn chưa? (Has he eaten yet?)

Sound almost identical to me when spoken.

And tones do this too (example I used in another thread):
Nấu ăn cho em. (Cooking for you)
Nấu ăn chó em. (Cooking your dog)

So it can make speaking and listening tough and it is still a challenge I have, because there's more subtlety compared to other languages I've seen. Context helps with mistakes at least. But I have also learned new words by making mistakes too.

But I think where maybe Vietnamese makes up for it is that the grammar itself is pretty simple when compared to other languages and can be fairly straight forward, the language is also very consistent and logical and it is also fairly specific too. You don't even have to worry about verb conjugation (unlike Japanese). Words don't change form, they work like lego bricks and it lacks a lot of grammatical features other languages have.

And you do have to adjust to the Vietnamese way of thinking too because directly translating to English doesn't often work well but then it's generally the case when you deviate away from languages related to English.

And the fact Vietnamese has a latin alphabet can be misleading because of the accents and tones it does feel like you're learning a new alphabet, but to be fair, it's still small compared to what challenge written Chinese and Japanese offer.
But the downside is when you get to vowels, they can be a bit like this:
a â ă á ấ ắ ả ẩ ẳ à ầ ằ ạ ậ ặ ã ẫ ẵ
Which is probably overwhelming to look at, but the logic between each tone is consistent for each vowel and you treat the accents as separate vowels and you've broken it up to be more digestible and it's less scary than it looks. However, looking at it does give an indication how subtle the differences in sounds can be and they can affect meaning.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby lavengro » Sat May 27, 2023 11:02 pm

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

[as for grammar of Japanese language], difficult is.

For me so far with Japanese, it is the particles. The clip of Chiitan (ちぃたん) in this tweet is a physical manifestation of the tricky wicked ways of some particles: just when you think you have a handle on one, you stumble.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1480163784136474625
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby gsbod » Sat May 27, 2023 11:09 pm

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.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby lavengro » Sun May 28, 2023 12:41 am

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

[as for grammar of Japanese language], difficult is.

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


It's not.

I stand corrected.
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Sun May 28, 2023 3:30 am

Well then what makes Korean so hard? Alphabet isn’t Latin, but it’s not so bad. Grammar seems on par with Japanese. No tones, but still Category V. What gives?
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby Dragon27 » Sun May 28, 2023 3:46 am

Korean grammar is like Japanese grammar but on steroids (according to Arguelles: "If you could get a complete grammatical synopsis of Chinese on, say, 10 pieces of paper, you would probably need about 50 for Japanese and closer to 100 for Korean"), and though it has no tones, it still has a very complicated phonological system (3-way distinction between consonants, lots of tricky vowels, compared to the standard 5-vowel system of Japanese).
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Re: Difficulty of Japanese and Mandarin as spoken languages

Postby Monty » Sun May 28, 2023 4:23 am

The difficulty of Japanese lies not in its grammar but in the fact that it is effectively three languages in one.

The writing system by itself is as big as a language.

Then word readings have to be learned separately with different kanjis producing different sounds at different times. Multiply this by 10,000 words and that's another language.

Then finally the core language itself, ie the structures, the grammar, the exceptions.
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