Why Japanese is harder than Chinese....reader request
(A reader has asked for my take on the above. He had a duplicate comment however, and as I tried to erase the duplicate it seems by default their both now gone...hope he doesn't think I just deleted everything on purpose...sorry about that.)
Yep, I said it. Japanese without question in my view is more difficult than Chinese. Indeed, several languages are. And I should know because I've studied several of them. Russian for example. Easy enough to read and write. Good luck speaking it grammatically correct. Spanish. Noted as the fastest language in the world. Another language easy enough to pick up on reading, but crazy to speak. I won't bring up Korean and French, two tongues "I've heard" are similar in grammar to the others above.
I am even fond of honestly telling Chinese(who never believe me), that even English is harder than Chinese.
So why is Chinese looked upon as being so damn hard?
I think it's because those folks saying that just aren't the ones studying it. China, so long looked upon as a mystery, by intellectual default therefore must be so dang impenetrable because of its language.
Nor does it help that the Chinese themselves, perhaps via indoctrination, believe Chinese to be nearly impossible to learn. Indeed, they are the biggest promoters to the outside world of this way of thinking.
Let's be clear; Chinese isn't an easy language to learn if one goes by the book. And straight up of course it is not an easy enough language to master. I still haven't done so. Various dialects and a zillion and one proverbs make for a language impossible to master. But can a foreigner really master any language? Is that the goal here?
I learn and forget new Chinese proverbs everyday. But if I can hold my own in a business discussion at a factory across the table from everyone the factory can throw at me, well then, I think my Chinese is good enough. 90% of the time, upon visiting a factor for the first time, the powers that be wheel out the mystery CEO to chat. Which extends my visit another 30-45 minutes, as he and I talk about everything under the sun, ie whatever is on the CEO's mind.
Chinese CEO's aren't used to being challenged. They bring that attitude when talking to laowai. The room falls silent as the CEO expounds upon whatever suits his fancy.
"Avoid that factory because their on the verge of bankruptcy."
"We ship 2 million units a month to Dollar General."
And my favorite from my last trip......
"A Chinese girl married a German, and ever since the marriage she's been crying everyday. She even sat here with me and during lunch cried. Now why is that?"
My point is when I was young, and proud, oh so very proud, I wanted to be the best fucking Chinese speaker on the planet. Everyone tried to compare me to that famous Canadian speaker, who even in 1990 was famous in China. I had not a clue who he was, much less what came of him.
Now...I simply shrug. My Chinese is "good enough", and if its good enough to conduct business in China without need of a translator, than that's fine by me.
But I hated Japan.
Now why is that?
I'm sure I've stated somewhere deep in the archive(I've given up studiously linking the posts, because you lazy people rarely read them...) but I was naive when I first went to Japan. One must remember after two years in a backward country I expected Japan to be a breeze and uh, no, it wasn't. But sorry, I don't want to dwell on that now. It's another 1500 word post folks. All I'll say is that I wasn't looked upon suspiciously enough to be spied upon, as many of us were in China. And the US Military presence washed the exoticism off of us long, long ago. But my personality and that of most Americans in my view is more suitable to the Chinese than the Japanese culture.
We are both direct, and candid. The Japanese are frustratingly opaque and slow. I'm just happy I got out before I died.
But seriously, it may have been a heck of a lot easier on me if I had simply been able to learn their language more quickly. As such, I found out Japanese is frustratingly hard. Real hard. And to loop back to the first paragraph above I can boil it down to this:
Japanese...and Spanish....and Russian, all have verb endings. And gender. And well....Chinese does not.
Let's go back to the rules:
To learn Chinese properly one must do two things; learn the intonation as well as the characters.
Well, this post is about being able to speak in Chinese. I found out right away that learning the characters simultaneously with learning to speak will slow thee down! Learn how to speak first!
(BTW, Japanese characters use the traditional characters...not the simplified)
And the tones? This is where I will get into trouble, but the tones are overrated. I learned real quick one's inability to know the proper tone won't mean a damn thing if one learns as much vocabulary as possible and can thus string a sentence together. As such I spent all my waking time my first year in China learning vocab...pinyin vocab. Not characters. Let's be real here.
The Chinese don't give a damn if you can't read or write as long as they can communicate with you verbally. Besides, the Chinese think we're all barbarians anyway. Their expectations of us are really, really low, when it comes to their language. The life long indoctrination of how unique they are has really paid off.
China's Communist Party btw did a great job in my view of rebuilding the confidence of the Chinese People. Of reminding the Chinese of how unique they are. Just went a tad overboard perhaps.
Pronouns? Same pronunciation folks. What does "She" mean? Ta. HE? Ta. IT? Ta. Different tone? Yep...what are tones? Couldn't tell ya...I forgot. But when you speak long enough, the tones become subconsciously internalized. You simply here them so frequently, they are just there.
There have been situations when I've embarrassed myself. When a one word answer is sufficient, sometimes I won't be understood. Regardless of how obvious my answer is to me.
One time I was in a pub with my GF, and I asked the waitress for ice. I simply used the work 冰 for ice, rather than the more common 冰块 . If my tone had been correct, she would have immediately understood what I had said. However, as the context of the conversation was about a drink and I had a glass, I thought it wasn't on me. My Chinese GF kept me humble and reminded me it was on me. It is my job to get the tones down. I probably have this problem today about 5% of the time.
Now Japanese. In my view it is immensely more difficult than Chinese.
Yes, there are no tones. I get it. Let me give you a simple comparison.
"I want to eat."
Wo yao chi le.
Japanese.
The verb for "eat" in Japanese is Taberu.
I'm eating...... tabete
I ate...tabeta
I want to eat Tabetai
As I'm getting dizzy just trying to remember how verbs work in Japanese, I just looked it up..before you open this link, pls get a shot of whisky.
http://www.japaneseverbconjugator.com/VerbDetails.asp?JapaneseVerb=taberu&VerbClass=2
As such there is no way anyone with an objective analysis can state Chinese is seriously more difficult to learn than Japanese. I spent several years there. The irony is my company offered me free Japanese lessons at work, as many Japanese companies do(did?). I wish Chinese companies did that....but their cheap. Simple as that.
And my Japanese was beginning to get moderately low level good. But I knew what buttered my bread. And it wasn't nihongo. When I left Japan I deliberately stopped learning Japanese. And haven't looked back. Not even to see if "regret" was closing in my shadow.
And I know I was right. Today it's hard to stand out in America even by speaking Chinese. Don't even mention Japanese.
Maybe someday I will dwell more on my Japanese experience....but for now folks, I hope this does provide some insight. I could write 10,000 words on my life in Japan, but I'd simply be guilty of reliving a nightmare, and get arthritis to boot.
Yep, I said it. Japanese without question in my view is more difficult than Chinese. Indeed, several languages are. And I should know because I've studied several of them. Russian for example. Easy enough to read and write. Good luck speaking it grammatically correct. Spanish. Noted as the fastest language in the world. Another language easy enough to pick up on reading, but crazy to speak. I won't bring up Korean and French, two tongues "I've heard" are similar in grammar to the others above.
I am even fond of honestly telling Chinese(who never believe me), that even English is harder than Chinese.
So why is Chinese looked upon as being so damn hard?
I think it's because those folks saying that just aren't the ones studying it. China, so long looked upon as a mystery, by intellectual default therefore must be so dang impenetrable because of its language.
Nor does it help that the Chinese themselves, perhaps via indoctrination, believe Chinese to be nearly impossible to learn. Indeed, they are the biggest promoters to the outside world of this way of thinking.
Let's be clear; Chinese isn't an easy language to learn if one goes by the book. And straight up of course it is not an easy enough language to master. I still haven't done so. Various dialects and a zillion and one proverbs make for a language impossible to master. But can a foreigner really master any language? Is that the goal here?
I learn and forget new Chinese proverbs everyday. But if I can hold my own in a business discussion at a factory across the table from everyone the factory can throw at me, well then, I think my Chinese is good enough. 90% of the time, upon visiting a factor for the first time, the powers that be wheel out the mystery CEO to chat. Which extends my visit another 30-45 minutes, as he and I talk about everything under the sun, ie whatever is on the CEO's mind.
Chinese CEO's aren't used to being challenged. They bring that attitude when talking to laowai. The room falls silent as the CEO expounds upon whatever suits his fancy.
"Avoid that factory because their on the verge of bankruptcy."
"We ship 2 million units a month to Dollar General."
And my favorite from my last trip......
"A Chinese girl married a German, and ever since the marriage she's been crying everyday. She even sat here with me and during lunch cried. Now why is that?"
My point is when I was young, and proud, oh so very proud, I wanted to be the best fucking Chinese speaker on the planet. Everyone tried to compare me to that famous Canadian speaker, who even in 1990 was famous in China. I had not a clue who he was, much less what came of him.
Now...I simply shrug. My Chinese is "good enough", and if its good enough to conduct business in China without need of a translator, than that's fine by me.
But I hated Japan.
Now why is that?
I'm sure I've stated somewhere deep in the archive(I've given up studiously linking the posts, because you lazy people rarely read them...) but I was naive when I first went to Japan. One must remember after two years in a backward country I expected Japan to be a breeze and uh, no, it wasn't. But sorry, I don't want to dwell on that now. It's another 1500 word post folks. All I'll say is that I wasn't looked upon suspiciously enough to be spied upon, as many of us were in China. And the US Military presence washed the exoticism off of us long, long ago. But my personality and that of most Americans in my view is more suitable to the Chinese than the Japanese culture.
We are both direct, and candid. The Japanese are frustratingly opaque and slow. I'm just happy I got out before I died.
But seriously, it may have been a heck of a lot easier on me if I had simply been able to learn their language more quickly. As such, I found out Japanese is frustratingly hard. Real hard. And to loop back to the first paragraph above I can boil it down to this:
Japanese...and Spanish....and Russian, all have verb endings. And gender. And well....Chinese does not.
Let's go back to the rules:
To learn Chinese properly one must do two things; learn the intonation as well as the characters.
Well, this post is about being able to speak in Chinese. I found out right away that learning the characters simultaneously with learning to speak will slow thee down! Learn how to speak first!
(BTW, Japanese characters use the traditional characters...not the simplified)
And the tones? This is where I will get into trouble, but the tones are overrated. I learned real quick one's inability to know the proper tone won't mean a damn thing if one learns as much vocabulary as possible and can thus string a sentence together. As such I spent all my waking time my first year in China learning vocab...pinyin vocab. Not characters. Let's be real here.
The Chinese don't give a damn if you can't read or write as long as they can communicate with you verbally. Besides, the Chinese think we're all barbarians anyway. Their expectations of us are really, really low, when it comes to their language. The life long indoctrination of how unique they are has really paid off.
China's Communist Party btw did a great job in my view of rebuilding the confidence of the Chinese People. Of reminding the Chinese of how unique they are. Just went a tad overboard perhaps.
Pronouns? Same pronunciation folks. What does "She" mean? Ta. HE? Ta. IT? Ta. Different tone? Yep...what are tones? Couldn't tell ya...I forgot. But when you speak long enough, the tones become subconsciously internalized. You simply here them so frequently, they are just there.
There have been situations when I've embarrassed myself. When a one word answer is sufficient, sometimes I won't be understood. Regardless of how obvious my answer is to me.
One time I was in a pub with my GF, and I asked the waitress for ice. I simply used the work 冰 for ice, rather than the more common 冰块 . If my tone had been correct, she would have immediately understood what I had said. However, as the context of the conversation was about a drink and I had a glass, I thought it wasn't on me. My Chinese GF kept me humble and reminded me it was on me. It is my job to get the tones down. I probably have this problem today about 5% of the time.
Now Japanese. In my view it is immensely more difficult than Chinese.
Yes, there are no tones. I get it. Let me give you a simple comparison.
"I want to eat."
Wo yao chi le.
Japanese.
The verb for "eat" in Japanese is Taberu.
I'm eating...... tabete
I ate...tabeta
I want to eat Tabetai
As I'm getting dizzy just trying to remember how verbs work in Japanese, I just looked it up..before you open this link, pls get a shot of whisky.
http://www.japaneseverbconjugator.com/VerbDetails.asp?JapaneseVerb=taberu&VerbClass=2
As such there is no way anyone with an objective analysis can state Chinese is seriously more difficult to learn than Japanese. I spent several years there. The irony is my company offered me free Japanese lessons at work, as many Japanese companies do(did?). I wish Chinese companies did that....but their cheap. Simple as that.
And my Japanese was beginning to get moderately low level good. But I knew what buttered my bread. And it wasn't nihongo. When I left Japan I deliberately stopped learning Japanese. And haven't looked back. Not even to see if "regret" was closing in my shadow.
And I know I was right. Today it's hard to stand out in America even by speaking Chinese. Don't even mention Japanese.
Maybe someday I will dwell more on my Japanese experience....but for now folks, I hope this does provide some insight. I could write 10,000 words on my life in Japan, but I'd simply be guilty of reliving a nightmare, and get arthritis to boot.
Wouldn't want you to have to unnecessarily relive unpleasantness for our sake! But if you do ever get round to writing up some stories I would certainly enjoy reading them.
ReplyDeleteLet me share my thoughts anyway. Because I don't lurk on forums any more, and haven't had a chance to ramble off the cuff about Japan, China and culture in quite some time. Apologies for the spam!
I come from more of the opposite background to you. Six years or so living in Japan. Eight years or more before that really learning the language. It certainly took serious time. Chinese by comparison feels somewhat easier to jump into, but then I do have the benefit of knowing the characters, and none of the pressure to actually know it to x degree for any academic or professional reasons.
Re: Chinese culture being a closer fit for westerners, this rings pretty much true to me. There are ways in which the Chinese and the Japanese are closer to each other than to us, as like family members. For example, general rules for deference and behavior relating to social status, family relations, and so on. But in other respects this doesn't hold at all. Generally speaking I find that the Chinese are gregarious. They like to have opinions. They like to assert themselves. I still remember getting on a ferry to Shanghai after three or so years in Japan, and being shocked at the sight of seeing a group of older men sitting around a table and having a heated discussion about global politics and whatever the USA was up to this time. It had just been such a long time since I had seen people talk in that way about anything. In Japan, everything is more or less quiet. Unless you have a few drinks in you. Sometimes things explode into shouting or violence, but usually these emotions are buried nice and deep, and just seep out through passive aggressive bullying. By comparison, I get the impression that the Chinese have no time for passive anything. If they are bullying you, you will know it. This might mean that some foreigners find Japan a lot easier to deal with as a tourist, and rate that country higher accordingly. You won't have anybody cut in line in Japan while you are waiting for the checkout, for example. But if you actually speak Japanese and understand what is going on, you will be able to better appreciate how rudely some people might actually be acting towards you.
Much thx for the comments. I've only seen Japanese fight once, and that was on a hot day in August, while everyone was piling out of the subway. It was the simple angst of living in Tokyo(or Shanghai, or any other big city in August). I stopped and stared, as a bored gaijin is prone to do. To my astonishment an old man broke up the altercation. There was nothing more than pushing. Both men wore suits and within 10 seconds were on their way.
DeleteAs for cutting in line, I find it an automatic cultural response to a crowded situation. I find that if one simply isn't quick enough on their feet, they will get overtaken by the actions of another.
Ok, a quick story about my own cutting in line experience in Japan. After work one night, I had to take a bus to get home. I was unfamiliar with the bus line, having never taken it before. It was dark and maybe rainy. I hated my job, and I hated my trajectory as well. I saw the line was quite long, at least fifty feet. I got in line. Not a second passed when I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned around. A middle aged Japanese businessman pointed behind him. To my astonishment, I had not only seemingly cut in line, but the damn thing was actually twice as long! Off I trudged, the embarrassed gaijin, no doubt confirming the stereotypes that oh so many Japanese hold towards us.
It can happen to any of us! But in Shanghai, I've had a person cut in line at a register in a book store when we were the only other ones waiting. I get the impression that some people (and maybe this is more common with people coming in from other regions, rather than native shanghai folks) are able to switch off their public embarrassment when it comes to strangers and getting on with doing what you need / want.
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ReplyDeleteI still miss living in Japan sometimes. Even living in Tokyo. There's plenty of ways in which life there is superior to my own country. Of course, part of that is convenience, or the level of development. Especially compared more specifically to my city, which has a pop of only 2 million and is very spread out and car based. There's the great train network. The sheer volume of places to go and things to see. There is access to high quality products at reasonable prices (beer, books, clothing etc.) In Australia, nearly everything is exhorbitantly priced, and of rough and shoddy quality. But most people don't notice or care. Food is also simply better in Japan (and in East Asia overall). Manners and service are generally better. People generally hold themselves to a higher standard. Etc. Sometimes its just those little things I miss, like a certain kind of snack, or a smell in the air in a particular season.
I can also appreciate how things might have worked out differently for past generations of foreigners when times were booming. The money was good. The Japanese were happier. You could fall backwards into opportunities you might not have had back home. There's hippies who have become well paid, more or less respected academics because they had an education and learned to read Japanese in the 70s when this was a rare thing. The question is: why on earth subject yourself to the place today? I know for some people, they still feel like the sacrifice is worth it. I had a few friends from places like the Ukraine or eslewhere in Eastern Europe, who loved the reliability and security of Japan. I get that. But even so I suspect they would have an easier time in China or Korea. I also understand uprooting and heading off to teach English etc. can be a step up, too, for people in shitty situations in Australia, the U.S. or Europe. Again though, China and Korea would seem to be better options for that. Learning Japanese is not at all useless. Living in Japan is not the worst possible thing to do. And neither is learning Japanese. It's just that there seem to be better options, more rewarding options.
So yep, after all that work and effort, I can easily say that I'll be damned if I ever want to live there again in the future. Especially Tokyo. It is a trap. And what is waiting there for wave after wave of hopeful foreign students and workers is exploitation and dissapointment. It will work out for some (and they will loudly tell anybody who wants to hear), but for most human beings the Japanese way of doing things (study, work, socialising) is simply... inhuman, frustrating, obtuse, and mind-maddengly dull and pointless. The fastest route to happiness in Japan is to accept that, stop caring, and making friends with foreigners and social outsiders. To understand that you can't nourish yourself with the same bread that the Japanese eat, as it were. Too many foreigners attempt to become Japanese, and instead just become depressed instead. Actually, after leaving I think it took me nearly a year to finally feel like a half-happy normal person again.
Wow, I can't count how many times I've seen this situation up close. A trapped foreigner, sucked in by the good life, suddenly realizing he or she has no job prospects at home. Your comment is well written. I feel it is indeed a trap. I also feel, regarding China, that too many laowai have zero intention of returning to their home country, as life in China is simply better, much better than their own home country.
DeleteThe Africans in Guangzhou come to mind. The South African with all his youtube videos on China, etc. These are the folks that say "fuck it, I'm staying". They learn to drive. Realize the only woman they can marry is a peasant(no problem with that), don't care and figure out how to survive until they get kicked out.
I've been very, very careful with my oldest daughter. I'd like her to go to Japan and teach English for a year. But the countryside, maybe Hokkaido. Most definitely not Tokyo, or another large city. Too addictive, with no return in time spent.
Yeah that is a difficult one. Japan has super strong cultural pull these days in the states, australia, etc. (It's interesting that it's shifted from nerd culture to hipster authenticity / foodie stuff). So it's very appealing for young people as a destination for getting out there and living somewhere 'exotic.' But young people don't necessarily understand what they are setting themselves up for.
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ReplyDeleteLet me just give a couple of examples from a tech company I used to work for in Tokyo. We had quite a lot of foreigners in our company. We had maybe 20% foreign workers, which was quite a lot. We did lots of outsourcing to Malaysia and Thailand, and deals with larger US companies. The CEO spoke fluent English and had grown up in Hawai'i I think. Once while I was there we even had a TV crew stop by to film a piece about this "international" company.
Now, the general idea was that past income sources, which relied on domestic spending, were becoming unstable. The answer was to expand a different segment of the business that was more foreign market focused, and this segment required new techniques and technologies, which foreign workers were often more adept in. In order to try and be at the cutting edge, we even had a small sub-company established inside our company, with a few foreign bright sparks innovating away on some new stuff that would, effectively make everything go faster, and therefore make more money. The problem? Well, as you can imagine, the Japanese have "their way" of doing things. This is not about good or bad. Fast or slow. The way that things are done is the way that things are done. Having an established protocol means that people don't step on eachothers toes, nobody gets their feathers ruffled, and the work gets cranked out without any serious misshaps. It's reliable. And it works with respects to the ways in which Japanese people are used to dealing with eachother. You can slowly iterate and improve things by focusing on quality, but if you try and make quick structural changes the system you end up with a disruption of the existing harmony. It's terribly inconvenient. It can cause embarrasment for higher level people who aren't able to adapt to the new system, and who developed the old system. And it can cause uncertainty from the younger staff, who are trained to follow the older staff. If your basic orientation is towards protocol and harmony, you just can't readily take in real changes without a lot of pain.
This is where I think the Chinese, or the European, or the American (or pretty much anybody else on the planet who comes from a country with developed industries and experience with problem solving), will be on the same page. Somebody finds that X is three times faster, and so the decision is made to bring in X. A simplifcation of course, ignoring power dynamics and politics, but the reasoning is clear. A Chinese, especially, I imagine, a young Chinese, is not going to suck their teeth at such a proposal, and silently telegraph: "no, shut up, know your place, and lets all just get on with the established program."
That is Japan. That is their cultural way of doing things. It cannot be changed, I'm afraid.
DeleteSorry, there was some repetition with the previous comment and the bot capcha or something... Anyway, the book is coming to an end...
ReplyDeleteSo anyway, there was a lot of discord amongst the Japanese staff about the changes being made to the work flow, and a general annoyance at having to deal with foreign colleagues (which I can in part appreciate in the case of some of the louder or obnoxious people). Eventually, after I had left the company, it apparently got to the point where the decision was made to mostly give up on the planned changes, fire most of the foreigners who hadn't quite out of frustration, and just try to muddle along as best as possible without them. Yet, after this, it soon became apparent that the Japanese staff were way out of their depth with the technology (it was a fast changing industry), and they started to miss all of their project deadlines. To put it simply, the company would have failed to meet its clients requests, and might have had to restructure / fire more people etc. to survive. So, after first firing the foreigners, it was forced to turn around and ask them to please come back. Of course most were not interested. Not a few had left the country altogether to go and work in more reasonable environments. -Some- they managed to get back by substantially increasing their pay. All in all, a complete debacle. I heard from one of the people involved, who later went on to work at a larger company, that at his new work everybody was able to cooperate according to the shared understanding that problems need to be solved, and new approaches and technologies actively incorporated in an ongoing way. He claimed that his new job was three times as busy, but far, far less stressful.
One more example. Smaller, but I think it sums it up nicely. When I started work at this company, I noticed we had a large window near our work section that had the blinds shut. Outside was a nice bit of garden, dug into the side of the hill. No sharp light or passersby. No reason at all, in other words, for the window to be shut, denying us a more pleasant environment. Now, did I ask why the window was shut? Of course not! The temerity! The-way-things-are-is-the-way-things-are. Do not question. Do not be proactive. Do not seek to improve. Know your place. Months went on. I didn't give it any thought. Then, one day, the above mentioned mini company within a company which was staffed by the foreigners was shifted so that they were seated near us, by that window. The day they moved there they opened the blinds, and my work environment instantly became nicer. Now, if the Japanese can be like this when it comes to opening a window, just imagine what they can be like with other things. This, among other reasons, is why I would dread having to live and work there ever again. I'm far happier living in a more barbaric but sensible place. Although I'm also not against trying out China for a few years.
I think it also has something to do with the fact that Japanese considered incompetent or not a good fit are forced to sit by windows. They are ignored. Your comment about firing the gaijin first is spot on. In fact, it just happened a month or so ago. A large Japanese company took a loss and fired all their Thai workers. In Japan, we are still considered deck chairs. The first things thrown overboard.
ReplyDeleteNice write-up, and comments above. I am the original reader who requested the write-up. Sorry about the double posting before, and I am still looking forward to the rest of the Zhou En Lai write-up.
ReplyDeleteMy case is similar to other commenters. I took up Chinese after reaching a high level in Japanese both speaking and reading/writing. It was helped by my circumstances of working in a Japanese company in Tokyo as the only non-Japanese. To me Chinese has been so much easier. Basically getting over the tones/difficult sounds was the biggest hurdle. The characters were not such a big deal with my Japanese background, especially since there are only one or sometimes two readings for a character in Chinese. Even some of the "harder grammar" in Chinese like Topic/Comment and Classifiers is also in Japanese too. The Japanese grammar is ridiculously harder than Chinese for various reasons.
The bigger issue I experienced with learning Japanese or Chinese is more related to interactions and getting a chance to speak, and to your point of Chinese being more like Americans. I am in China regularly, and outside of dealing with the typical young Chinese girl who loves laowai, and only will speak English no matter what; most Chinese people if you are even remotely good in Chinese are happy to speak in Chinese. I never have really had the issue many people talk about where the Chinese only talks to the Asian person in group. Chinese are more outgoing like Americans. In Japan, especially Tokyo (better in Osaka, and in the country though) I had a problem for years in having good speaking opportunities. You have to be really good in the Japanese language as Japanese people expect certain word usage, body language, etc. in any circumstance or they just freeze, or try to speak English. There is way less flexibility than in Chinese where no one actually speaks 普通话 as their native Chinese.
Lastly, in terms of the discussion above on Japanese culture. It is possible to "get it" in terms of reading the tea leaves if you will here in Japan. It takes a long time and most non-Japanese either don`t care enough, leave, or never graduate beyond being the Japanophile type who loves everything about Japan. I have but it is just a product of my experience. Though I agree with you Francis that if could have learned Japanese to a higher level everything would have gotten better for you. You may heard stuff you don`t like as the case with knowing Chinese, but it makes life much easier in Japan.
I would also enjoy reading more on Japanese experiences beyond older posts if you ever decide to share with the readers. Keep up the good work!
Glad you're back! Sure...I will be happy to find the time to leave "my lane" for a bit and talk briefly, ever so briefly about my time in Japan. I will make the effort! Happy to see you able to speak both languages....I hope your company appreciates it!
ReplyDeleteMy company does appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteHoping to read more on Japan experiences in the future.
Everytime I start to learn Japanese I remember how long it took me to learn Chinese and my Chinese is still pathetic, this instantly stops me after a week or two. Cant bring my self to study so hard again.
ReplyDeleteHowever, english speakers can learn Japanese in about 2000-4000 hours where as Chinese can do it in half that apparently.
Kurt btw,
DeleteAlso what is living in Japan like vs China, I have been thinking very hard about moving to Japan for a year or so and trying to live there. I have been to Tokyo many times and really enjoyed it. However, I have also heard that it is next to impossible to make Japanese friends. Even harder then Chinese>?
Yes! Much harder. You have to remember, the Japanese stopped demonizing the West circa August 1945. The Fascination is gone. The Exoticism vanished. Just like in Korea. However, I encourage you to go to Japan. It will alter your perception of China, and that is a good thing.
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