As a Chinese who is learning foreign language, I have to say that you have really shown me how hard it is to learn Chinese for foreigners. When I used to hear foreigners say that Chinese is hard to learn, I thought to myself, “Chinese is not hard to learn, but your language is hard to learn too." Let's hope we all have a smooth journey in learning a foreign language!🥰
In the end I think everybody has their own unique experiences when learning a new language, and what interests me are the journeys during the processes, not the end results (although the results can be impressive). Wish you luck on whatever foreign language you're studying at the moment!
English is my native language, so Euro languages always felt easy for me at first. I'd then encounter similar problems to what you're experiencing where words that seemed like they should mean the same thing in French or German meant something quite different in English. It's interesting to see the problem is similar amongst other related/connected languages. I've been casually learning Chinese for four years now. It is definitely challenging, but I love it. :D
Don't stop at "what can I do?" You're learning an entire mentality and view of life/the world that will enrich your own! And you have so many tools to do it.
生气 in Mandarin can also mean lively energy, but normally in combinations like 生气勃勃. I am learning Japanese and I admit there are many differences in meaning for the same word in both language. I know little about Korean but I guess it's closer to Mandarin than Japanese in meaning of the same word. If you do find a shared Hanzi word with meaning at odds, in most case it's colloquial vs. written language. Taking 生气 for example, when it takes the angry meaning it's mostly for colloquial usage, and when it takes the lively energy meaning it's mostly written language.
東西 pronounced ㄉㄨㄥㄒㄧ means "East and West." 東西 pronounced ㄉㄨㄥㄒㄧ˙ means "things." 朝 pronounced ㄓㄠ means "morning," as in 朝日 (ㄓㄠㄖˋ), which means "morning sun." 朝 pronounced ㄔㄠˊ means "imperial court" and, by extension, "dynasty." As a co-verb, it means "towards." It is also part of the geographic name 朝鮮 (ㄔㄠˊㄒㄧㄢ), referring to "Joseon."
Chinese: Tones, thousands of hanzi, too many homophones. Japanese: Thousands of kanji with multiple pronunciations, polite language keigo just makes sentences unnecessary long and complicated. Korean: Lack of Hanja. Come on, I have studied Kanji and Hanzi for so many hours, why have you decided to abandon Hanja? 😂 Latin: I can't find native speakers. Kurdish: I can't decide between Kurmanji and Sorani. Thai: Many letters have exactly the same pronunciation. Vowels are complicated. Russian: Stressed syllables are not marked, you need to guess. Greek: 5 different ways to write the "i" sound. Persian: 4 different ways to write the "z" sound. English: You need to rely on IPA to learn the correct pronunciation.
As a Chinese native speaker, I find your Chinese tones/pronunciation quite good compared to western people. I'm guessing it's because you are Asian Korean.
It's super interesting. I'm an American who is learning Korean, and I also have an interest in Japanese and Chinese. From the very beginning I disliked Hanja. It is super cool how they work, and the characters themselves are awesome, but the meanings are ridiculous. They will be like 朝東 means facing east... but like morning east would be like Sunrise, so why would you want to face in that direction?!? It's always like that. That's why I really don't believe in Koreans using Hanja. It's very, VERY unnecessary. For Japan it makes sense because they have less sounds. They could easily do it if they wanted, but in Korea it's a done deal. So yeah the Hanja/Kanji/Hanzi are always like that. They will be like... this character means flat, and this one means eat, and together it means PANCAKE lol or something like that. It's confusing a f. Even for Koreans it's confusing. I know like 50 characters in KOREAN but that doesn't mean they mean they same things in JApanese or Chinese. It's confusing.
Thanks for the comment and love your enthusiasm in the languages. I plan to make videos on English language as well so hope you find that one interesting too!
@@icebreakLC Sweet. I'm sure someone will find it interesting, like if you pointed out the things Koreans find confusing. That would be a cool video. It's just that English everyone knows so it's not as intersting lol. How did you learn English in the first place? You're from Korea right? Seems like most younger Koreans are fluent now. Like their English is better than my Korean even. Like you're basically a native speaker.
Sounds to me like your struggles arise from trying to compare/tie it to languages that borrowed and then diverged from Chinese. Just a suggestion but maybe stop doing that? I'm a native English speaker who's been studying Chinese for nearly 5 years, it's really not that difficult if you don't try to force it to match or align with another language.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
As a Chinese who is learning foreign language, I have to say that you have really shown me how hard it is to learn Chinese for foreigners. When I used to hear foreigners say that Chinese is hard to learn, I thought to myself, “Chinese is not hard to learn, but your language is hard to learn too." Let's hope we all have a smooth journey in learning a foreign language!🥰
In the end I think everybody has their own unique experiences when learning a new language, and what interests me are the journeys during the processes, not the end results (although the results can be impressive). Wish you luck on whatever foreign language you're studying at the moment!
English is my native language, so Euro languages always felt easy for me at first. I'd then encounter similar problems to what you're experiencing where words that seemed like they should mean the same thing in French or German meant something quite different in English. It's interesting to see the problem is similar amongst other related/connected languages. I've been casually learning Chinese for four years now. It is definitely challenging, but I love it. :D
Also 朝 means dynasty, and with its double meaning with morning is extra confusing because it has the moon radical 月.
you're right. There's a moon in there 😂
Don't stop at "what can I do?" You're learning an entire mentality and view of life/the world that will enrich your own! And you have so many tools to do it.
生气 in Mandarin can also mean lively energy, but normally in combinations like 生气勃勃. I am learning Japanese and I admit there are many differences in meaning for the same word in both language. I know little about Korean but I guess it's closer to Mandarin than Japanese in meaning of the same word. If you do find a shared Hanzi word with meaning at odds, in most case it's colloquial vs. written language. Taking 生气 for example, when it takes the angry meaning it's mostly for colloquial usage, and when it takes the lively energy meaning it's mostly written language.
Thanks, I didn't know! Distinguishing by colloquial vs written is very very helpful
東西 pronounced ㄉㄨㄥㄒㄧ means "East and West."
東西 pronounced ㄉㄨㄥㄒㄧ˙ means "things."
朝 pronounced ㄓㄠ means "morning," as in 朝日 (ㄓㄠㄖˋ), which means "morning sun."
朝 pronounced ㄔㄠˊ means "imperial court" and, by extension, "dynasty." As a co-verb, it means "towards." It is also part of the geographic name 朝鮮 (ㄔㄠˊㄒㄧㄢ), referring to "Joseon."
Chinese: Tones, thousands of hanzi, too many homophones.
Japanese: Thousands of kanji with multiple pronunciations, polite language keigo just makes sentences unnecessary long and complicated.
Korean: Lack of Hanja. Come on, I have studied Kanji and Hanzi for so many hours, why have you decided to abandon Hanja? 😂
Latin: I can't find native speakers.
Kurdish: I can't decide between Kurmanji and Sorani.
Thai: Many letters have exactly the same pronunciation. Vowels are complicated.
Russian: Stressed syllables are not marked, you need to guess.
Greek: 5 different ways to write the "i" sound.
Persian: 4 different ways to write the "z" sound.
English: You need to rely on IPA to learn the correct pronunciation.
Esperanto:
Czech: Everything has gender
German: Everything also has gender but sometimes it's different from Czech
@AthanasiosJapan you hit the nail on the head. By the way, thanks for being interested in Kurdish.
As a Chinese native speaker, I find your Chinese tones/pronunciation quite good compared to western people. I'm guessing it's because you are Asian Korean.
thanks! I feel bit more confident
It's super interesting. I'm an American who is learning Korean, and I also have an interest in Japanese and Chinese. From the very beginning I disliked Hanja. It is super cool how they work, and the characters themselves are awesome, but the meanings are ridiculous. They will be like 朝東 means facing east... but like morning east would be like Sunrise, so why would you want to face in that direction?!? It's always like that. That's why I really don't believe in Koreans using Hanja. It's very, VERY unnecessary. For Japan it makes sense because they have less sounds. They could easily do it if they wanted, but in Korea it's a done deal. So yeah the Hanja/Kanji/Hanzi are always like that. They will be like... this character means flat, and this one means eat, and together it means PANCAKE lol or something like that. It's confusing a f. Even for Koreans it's confusing. I know like 50 characters in KOREAN but that doesn't mean they mean they same things in JApanese or Chinese. It's confusing.
Thanks for the comment and love your enthusiasm in the languages. I plan to make videos on English language as well so hope you find that one interesting too!
@@icebreakLC Sweet. I'm sure someone will find it interesting, like if you pointed out the things Koreans find confusing. That would be a cool video. It's just that English everyone knows so it's not as intersting lol. How did you learn English in the first place? You're from Korea right? Seems like most younger Koreans are fluent now. Like their English is better than my Korean even. Like you're basically a native speaker.
Sounds to me like your struggles arise from trying to compare/tie it to languages that borrowed and then diverged from Chinese. Just a suggestion but maybe stop doing that? I'm a native English speaker who's been studying Chinese for nearly 5 years, it's really not that difficult if you don't try to force it to match or align with another language.