first of all, omg hi potsu! what an honor!! anyways yes, 雨 is high-low pitch in standard japanese, i got it confused with the kansai dialect which is where i used to live, totally my mistake 🙇
that first 海 was also in the Kansai pattern. immediately stood out to me bc i remember a teacher using うみ as an example for the pitch pattern differences between Tokyo/NHK and Kansai.
Language is culture, and culture is language. You won't understand one without the other. Japanese and Chinese cultures, norms, mindset, etc are extremely different from each other. So instead of trying to choose a language, choose the culture that you can relate to.
Yeah this is so true, I learned a lot of languages in my life and I think this is the right way to approach to language learning, you are going to learn faster and enjoy the process a lot more if you like and try to be part of the culture of the language you are learning. I have been learing german for profesional reasons for 4 years and it's been a struggle because I'm not in touch with the culture. But when I'm studing japanese it doesn't really matter if it has "a harder alphabet" or "a difficult grammar", what matters the most is if the language brings you joy and make you feel connected to other people. Haha just watched the video conclusion, yeah exactly what he says.
I picked both, both Mandarin Chinese and Japanese but found Mandarin Chinese easier due to its simple grammar, but Mandarin Chinese has more dialectical variation from region to region. Mandarin and Cantonese are the two main varieties of Chinese.
Man I wish I picked Chinese back then. The only reason I'm still focusing on Japanese is that I've already learned a lot and don't want that to go to waste.
Wait a minute at 4:40 for "ame" in Japanese, I think that's the opposite. The a-me (low-high pitch) is a candy, and a-me (high-low pitch) is rain, for the Tokyo/Kanto standard Japanese language.
I learned both, here's my quick thoughts: Chinese - hard to learn starting out due to tones and pure memorization of characters (hanzi). There's rarely any help in determining what the character means or its pronunciation unless you crack open a dictionary. Listening is super hard if you're unfamiliar with tones and have little to no vocab. However, after you get this down, Chinese is easy because it's just vocab building from there. Japanese - easy to start, a nightmare to master. Sure they give you two alphabets and furigana, but then you have the characters (kanji) that can have not one, not two, but like 12+ different pronunciations by itself or combined with other characters. Japanese people can't even read books aloud because they don't know how half the stuff is pronounced. They can't even read names without guessing. An absolute nightmare in trying to progress after getting the basics down and will continue to haunt you for the rest of your learning career. Chinese is even more versatile too. I was able to use it to get by in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Korea, and even several parts of the US. Japanese on the other hand is quite limited. However, my interests in vtubers, visual novels, manga, and anime saw a healthy use of the Japanese language so I don't regret learning it.
in japanese you do not learn how to pronunce a kanji in 12+ different pronunciations, you just learn a word and all kanji/hiragana that goes with that word. hiragana will give you a hint how to pronounce a character. 見る 見せる 勉強する
Also important to note that you might get really close to native level, but you still won't be as good as a native speaker in Chinese languages (in the cases I heard of at least)
7:46 true, i initially started learning 中文 because of how useful it is but i now find it addicting to learn new 汉子 + the grammar man i really like how “simple” it is
and most important... asian language tend to have no gender noun Kappa while female term were added recently due to western influence, it not required as the defacto term are genderless. i jest, but i do feel it good to not add problem to a language by making them overly specify that you need ask question before knowing what the correct noun to use.... xD
When you said Chinese doesn’t have honorifics it actually blew my mind- I’ve been learning japanese for a bit and i just assumed basically all asian languages have honorifics and that Japanese probably took it from ancient chinese or smth but no?? This was a cognisant choice they made? To make you have to learn a whole new separate set of vocabulary to work any sort of job?? I might just learn Mandarin out of spite now- (Jk i still prefer having an alphabet, but Chinese seems fun too)
But you need to know ~2000 kanji to understand 99% of japanese and ~3500 chinese characters to understand 99% of chinese, so there is a bit of a difference
What an interesting video, Rafi. It amazes me that the way a word is pronounced (low to high, for example), can completely change the word you are trying to say. I think that I would like to learn a new language but have no idea where to begin. Any suggestions? One other thing, your ability to switch languages "mid-sentence" is really cool and quite impressive. Thanks for sharing the video. Cheers, Rafi.
Bro just told me that as if I haven't just studied Japanese for four years... Jokes aside, I got into Chinese about half a year ago and honestly, just knowing Kanji to a decent level helps you so much to learn the other language. Like there are quite often sentences in Mandarin where I have no clue how to pronounce it, but it just makes sense since I know Japanese. So, if you're unsure just go what you're interested in and if you do decide to switch or add the other language to your bucket list it will help you
When talking specifically about tones in chinese, most chinese people arent totally strict about this because when they are speaking fast chinese, most tones are somewhat ignored anyway. so the faster you speak, the more natural youll sound
From a native Chinese standpoint, Japanese is hard in that it has more grammar (made-up rules) while Chinese is hard in pronunciation and sentence construction. In my opinion, learn Japanese, it's way cooler (in my opinion) to know Japanese than Chinese, it might also be more familiar (because of the stupid made-up rules) to European languages (kind of).
@@kimyi396 how learning japanese is cooler? Japan is a dying country with low birth rates and stagnating economy while china is booming and on its way to becoming a superpower
Chinese language learner here. This was a really interesting video, and very well thought out-even for someone who has already decided which language to study.
As a native Mandarin Chinese speaker who also speaks English and reads Japanese (yes, after years of learning I'm still unable to really speak or communicate in Japanese), I would say that even for native Chinese speakers who have already acquired Chinese characters and much of the vocabulary shared by both the Chinese and Japanese languages, it would still be difficult to learn Japanese grammar and to structure sentences (and thoughts) in a Japanese way, and even though both languages are very different from English, Chinese is structured in a more familiar and straightforward way for English speakers while Japanese is quite counter-intuitive in many aspects (at least for me). I think it would be a similar situation when a Japanese speaker is trying to learn Chinese or English 😂
learning one will make learning the other easier for sure. I started learning Japanese when I bought a genki textbook in eighth grade... I studied by myself until I got to an intermediate level. At that point, I really hated the rote memorization that comes with each kanji having at least two pronunciations, so I figured that since one of the pronunciations is based on Chinese, then learning Chinese would tackle two birds with one stone by teaching me the pronunciation and the meaning of the character. Ironically, now my Chinese is better than my Japanese, and I'm studying abroad in a place that speaks primarily Chinese. If I could say anything to someone considering one or the other, let it be this: It doesn't matter which one you choose at the beginning, just pick one and start learning. You can always change your mind later, but getting your foot in the door will inform your decision a lot. Don't be afraid of "wasting time". Any time invested in learning a language will at the very least improve your understanding of the world. You've got nothing to lose. Go!
if you pick a language that you're not motivated to learn, you will almost certainly not succeed. it's just (usually) too difficult to push through something like learning an entire language for no reason. but no matter how difficult a language is, if you're motivated, if you can stick with it, you'll eventually pick some of it up. so pick a language you like, because it's a long, LONG uphill climb sometimes lol.
Instructions unclear, now learning month. Been learning Chinese for a year and a half almost on and off, and now I find myself pivoting to Classical Chinese and Japanese so mg Modern Chinese is struggling. Will get back to it at some point though, I have bigger priorities atm so I'm taking language learning casually. But I'm in a situation where I do want to learn both to a relatively high level, learning Chinese has given me the tools to make me know how to approach learning Japanese. Also Classical Chinese helps with both
Absolutely nailed this video! Glad you emphasized that at the end of the day it's mainly about your interests 🤝 Learning a language in which you are not fully invested ends up being way harder, regardless of the actual difficulty of that particular language.
I learn both, to be honest, both have tremendous difficulites for foreigners. But, I do prefer learning Chinese, I hate memorizing the Japanese conjugations. It is just TOO much.... However, the pronunciation of Chinese is a living hell.
not that much, if you know a second language other than your native one, then your ears will be used to hearing another language and by doing a lot of listening in chinese you can get your ear used to tones, and if your native language has something similar to chinese tones (spanish or portuguese for example) it will not be that hard
@@rothschildianum yesyes, but i said a language that has something similar to chinese tones, in spanish the accents for example, some words mean something but if you say those same words without accents they mean another different thing For example papa and papá: papa without an accent in the last a means potato, but papá with the accent in the last a means father, just like some chinese words xd
@Estudo-q6b yeah pronunciation is the hardest part of chinese sadly 😿 The best we can do is train our ears to get better at that lmao Are you good at reading or listening? The chinese grammar for real is easy or it has its hard thing? 🤔
@@rafipuffI’m fluent and it barely felt off, I didn’t really care, just goes to show pitch accent isn’t that important 😂there’s only a handful of words that people tend to use as examples when they do pitch accent videos on UA-cam too. Overall sentence accent or pronunciation flow is 100x more important than individual words.
Sometimes I do wish I started with Chinese but I am currently more interested in Japanese overall than Chinese! But some cities in China are already Cyberpunked, living in 2040 🤤😍😍🫰🏻! Awesome job China. So I have to visit these cities in person! I do want to be a polyglot so I have a list of languages I want to grasp! Japanese is my main, Korean side, but everything else I am memorizing basic hellos, thanks you, and some memorizing the Alphabets like Greek, Hebrew, Tagalog (baybayin), Russian. Like I tell people that are interested in learning a language but are scared to start, if you learn one word a day (MINIMUM) for a year thats 365 words you know more than you did before that year. Does not seem a lot especially if you consider how many words we learn in elementary, middle, and high school (in 12 years)! But hey its still a good leap forward! Stay strong learners! 🫰🏻 ㅅㄹ,愛
@@Icarus975 I can’t sleep at night anymore, I lie in bed awake all night thinking “Is it 行きない or 行けない“ “What counter do you use for a certain thing?” I don’t find peace anymore, everyday is pain, I try to relieve my pain in anime but it’s never enough, it only reminds me of the pain and suffering the Japanese language gives me, I’m 2 days clean of studying Japanese but everyday is a battle, pray for me please and thanks for reading
1.) It takes at least 15 years to become proficient in Japanese. 2.) They never accept foreigner, are xenophobic, and you can only use it in Japan. 3.) Chinese can be used anywhere. Choosing Japanese can ruin your life if you are not elite with a high spec degree in a field that the Japanese government wants. Also if you have dark skin in general, Asians will hate you for no reason (they prefer white people).
“You don't actually need to learn how to write them” Yes exactly, if you are learn for fun, never force yourself to learn how to write if that's not something you interest in. I'm native Chinese speaker, and fyi most chinese learner with HSK2 level can write more character than me...
I am from Pakistan and I'm a lawyer. I speak three languages, Pashto my mother tongue and Urdu - the national language of my country - and English. Now i am learning Chinese for fun. 😅
it’s fascinating how you’re managing it while being a lawyer.. meanwhile I’m struggling while only being a student, do you have any tips or advices you can give?
I feel like I’d get much more use out of Japanese than Chinese because of my interests, though I would like to learn both and Korean too, and maybe more if I’m able
I learned both but I think Chinese is primarily useful if you are going into a business that deals with China. Outside of living in China, I have had very little reason to speak Chinese. I do watch movies and anime with subs so Japanese ftw.
First comment!!! 🫡 Its so cool to see you uploading even till this day! I have been watching you since your Japan exchange vlogs (5-6 years back ig). Keep up the work mate! 💪
yes mongolian is really cool, i made a couple mongolian friends when i was in japan and their language sounded amazing 😁 however the pronunciation is (in my opinion) the hardest out of all east asian languages haha
Mongolia is only geographically in East Asia, but it's more Central Asian than East Asian culturally...like how Australia isn't in the "West", but it along with New Zealand are western countries.
You totally got me with that old Death Note anime! It definitely was one of my favourite ones (and also only manga, first two issues, that I have). Japanese sounds just so cool!!! You can hear lot of emotions in the language, lot of melody. Which, interestingly enough, you don't hear that much in Chinese, which is a tonal language. Well, always wanted to learn Japanese but started learning Chinese some years ago, cuz it was taught in the college I was attanding and Japanese was not.
It was wild watching that for me. I've been studying Japanese for a little over a year now and it was cool to be able to understand a little bit of that. I've watched plenty of subbed back in the day, but only picked up like 5 words doing that.
@@banana53358 Became those who learnt both say so Also japanese Grammer is difficult, Japanese writing system consists of two types of alphabets plus hanzi
I think it is worth learning Korean. Korean has a very simple writing system that you can learn literally in a few hours. Although the grammar is more difficult, it is still the best language to start with if you want to learn an East Asian language. I'm kind of sad because Korean doesn't get the same attention as Japanese or Chinese.
Korean is definitely a fascinating language, but I don't agree that it's the best East Asian language to 'start with'. While the simple writing system is very enticing, the grammar is as difficult as in Japanese and the pronunciation is also quite difficult - not to mention it has the least amount of native speakers out of the three languages. I'd say Chinese or Japanese are better choices unless a person is particularly interested in Korean culture.
Even though I'm Korean I don't think the Korean language is the easiest to start in East asia for everyone. Right, the writing system is very reasonable and easy but I think the difficulty of learning a 'language' depends on how much you are interested in it. If you are familiar with K-pop, then Korean is the best choice, or you think the Anime culture is fascinating, then Japanese. And thank you for your interesting to my language👍🏻
Korea is getting the same attention honestly. Its become a cultural powerhouse in the past few years, only a couple more years and interest will be just as visible.
I pick japanese because personally its sound way cooler and i want to enjoy the mountain of untranslated treasure anime, games, variety show, tv show and movies that never translated to english
Yeah and this this the hardest part. If you take into consideration only country potential future, I would say you should learn Japanese if you have money or your own income and want to move into new world, or Chinese if you don’t have that but you’re ambitious and want to pursue international career.
The problem in learning Chinese is where you're from. Sure mandarin is what you're going to learn but if you're like me (Chinese-filipino) you're going to learn Mandarin + spoken dialect(hokkien) which is harder since you'll have to learn through speaking/listening since most Chinese school curriculum rarely have hokkien as a subject but the school faculty speaks hokkien (especially if they are old gen Chinese speakers)
I started learning Mandarin 3 years ago, because I love Chinese music... G.E.M.(鄧紫棋), Jay Chou(周杰倫), Percila Abby(蔡恩雨), ... I also love Chinese cooking, hotpot, xiao long bao, and egg fried rice are all fun to make, and I'd love to go to China someday, vs Japanese, I like some animes, Baki is the best show ever, but I only really like Death note, attack on titan, and Baki, and I like Idol, but it's the only jpop song I like.
I am learning mandarin with books, films and Genshin Impact game. There are a lot of possibilities to learn it. Even on Tiktok there are a lot of teachers, almost all my Tiktok turned into a mandarin learning Asian base (plus somehow a lot of dancing Vietnamese queen girls 😺😂) Understand some Japanese too, watched a lot of anime movies. I am a native hungarian.
I learn Mandarin and my best friend learns Japanese and we've had this debate on and off for a while. I'm like "yes tones are hard, but also no grammar or registers!" and she's like "but tones and only characters tho ew!".
Dora says porqué no los dos seriously though, language learning is a life-long journey and you might totally want to learn at least the basics of both, then use the one you end up in contact more. or you could totally dabble a bit in Japanese for the manga, learning how to handle kanji/hanzi, and then when you got the hang of how they work switch over to Chinese. your commitment should be engaging with (and enjoying) the language(s), not having your fate tied to one or the other for eternity.
I need a video between mandarin, japanese, korean, vietnamese, malay and tagalog... And maybe throw in russian, dutch, latin and arabic for good measure 😭😭😭💀💀💀
Chinese is helpful, and there are already 1 million native Chinese speaker living in everywhere in Japan and more and more japanese are learning Chinese
Traditional Chinese is the hardest between Simplified Chinese and Japanese 😂 Also Traditional Chinese (particularly in Taiwan), they don't use Pinyin (romanised phonetic symbols for pronouncing and typing), instead they use ZHUYIN which is like this ㄏㄢˋㄩˇㄘˊㄏㄨㄟˋ which looks a bit like katakana or hiragana. ZHUYIN was founded in 1913 in Mainlnad China. But no longer used, except for Taiwan. I've been learning both of Traditional and Simplified Chinese Characters which is tremendously challenging 😊. China and Japan simplified " Hanzi " , Japan only simplified a bit, not too extreme. But China simplified it really way too far. The Hanzi becomes unrecognizable and not esthetic at all. If you love Art, you'd probably choose Traditional Chinese Characters over the simplified ones. For example : 飛機 （Traditional Chinese Characters） 飞机 （Simplified Chinese Characters) 飛行機 (Japanese kanji) ................................. 學校 ( Traditional Chinese Characters) 学校 ( Simplified Chinese ) 学校 ( Japanese Kanji )
old 学 was arleady too complicated, 飞, chinese should have added 乂 to the empty part of it, 机, its simplier now than what it was before, but theres a good simplification: 為, looked like a kettle, now is 为, which looks like protogen's head.
It's the same thing.They still spell the same,even for native most of they wouldn't remember zhuyin.Only difference between traditional and simplify is just the words difference
Zhuyin is no longer use in most chinese community because of 2 problem: - both Zhuyin and Pinyin cannot reliably tell you want is written (because too many word sound the same in mandarin) - knowing Pinyin allow us to quickly romanised chinese name that can be used in an international setting (if you write in Zhuyin, foreigner still can't comprehend) this is why in other country that has official chinese standard, like Malaysia and Singapore, all standardise to Pinyin. with Singapore even attempting to rename chinese street name to Pinyin standard (somewhat unsuccessfully)...
I would learn to speak chinese but only learn to read and write Japanese. Reason: Japanese has no use to me for speaking but I love light novels but Chinese useful to me for speaking but not reading or writing because manhuas are boring aside some.
1:02 was that a Cambodian song? Caught me off guard to suddenly hear a I think maybe is a Khmer song but was wondering if it was purely a coincidence that you chose that background sounds
that's right! it's a cambodian song from the singer Ros Sereysothea! i felt it would be unfair if the intro song was chinese or japanese xd so I just put my favorite cambodian one lol
I think he only said that bopomofo is used in taiwan, and not in other parts of china, which is geographically correct, I don't sense a political stance
I would prefer to learn japanese since I want to visit there one day and if things go south at least try to emigrate there (assuming that the US goes under and I need to escape), mostly because of their trains and everything that makes them unique like their manga and pristine nature and clean cities/towns. If I wanted to learn mandarin, I would learn it for if I go to Taiwan, since I never plan on going to mainland china.
at 4:40 that's incorrect right? 雨 is high-low pitch pattern i always though,,
first of all, omg hi potsu! what an honor!! anyways yes, 雨 is high-low pitch in standard japanese, i got it confused with the kansai dialect which is where i used to live, totally my mistake 🙇
@@rafipuff omg UR GOOD! also whaaaat they switch it in kansai dialect??
@@potsubeats yes! many times the pitch accent pattern is reversed in the kansai dialect, it's a nice and friendly dialect in my opinion tho!^^
that first 海 was also in the Kansai pattern. immediately stood out to me bc i remember a teacher using うみ as an example for the pitch pattern differences between Tokyo/NHK and Kansai.
@@fariesz6786 damn living in kansai actually took a toll on me 🤣😭😭
Language is culture, and culture is language. You won't understand one without the other. Japanese and Chinese cultures, norms, mindset, etc are extremely different from each other. So instead of trying to choose a language, choose the culture that you can relate to.
Yeah this is so true, I learned a lot of languages in my life and I think this is the right way to approach to language learning, you are going to learn faster and enjoy the process a lot more if you like and try to be part of the culture of the language you are learning.
I have been learing german for profesional reasons for 4 years and it's been a struggle because I'm not in touch with the culture.
But when I'm studing japanese it doesn't really matter if it has "a harder alphabet" or "a difficult grammar", what matters the most is if the language brings you joy and make you feel connected to other people.
Haha just watched the video conclusion, yeah exactly what he says.
@@Promestein I am german and I still hate german grammar.
Japanese and Chinese "cultures" being extremely different from each other is such a stretch
This
I'm a Chinese person learning Japanese since 12 (im 28 now). Just having the weirdest ego wondering if my language is going to win lol
🤣🤣
倭寇 DETECTED
SAME LMAO that's the only reason why i clicked on the video
I picked both, both Mandarin Chinese and Japanese but found Mandarin Chinese easier due to its simple grammar, but Mandarin Chinese has more dialectical variation from region to region. Mandarin and Cantonese are the two main varieties of Chinese.
Don't forget hokkien
Forget about those dialects. If you can speak standard Mandarin, you can walk through China without any problem.
@@SunshineJeremyPretty much except for hong kong.
@@qiuyingli1189 Hong Kong's young generation is catching up, mandarin is more and more accepted.
Yoo just what I needed... Wanted to learn more about their culture as well. So was deciding which language to choose....
❤❤from India🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳
Man I wish I picked Chinese back then. The only reason I'm still focusing on Japanese is that I've already learned a lot and don't want that to go to waste.
Why?
Chinese is more helpful, I'm glade I closed Chinese.
@@awaiskhan9329 only helpful if you live in China/Taiwan
はとがの違うが分かる？
I’m Chinese and have learned some Japanese. You can learn both and the kanji knowledge will help you pick up Chinese and save you a lot of time
Spawn in one, learn another. Perfect.
that’s way too OP bro
Definition of comprise
Chinese is probably the more useful of the 2 and it can make learning kanji way easier also Chinese food is the best
As a Chinese person, I prefer Japanese food 😅
But make no mistake Chinese food is still very very good
Wait a minute at 4:40 for "ame" in Japanese, I think that's the opposite. The a-me (low-high pitch) is a candy, and a-me (high-low pitch) is rain, for the Tokyo/Kanto standard Japanese language.
yes you're right! my bad, all of my teachers were from kansai so i got it mixed up 😭
@@rafipuff ラフィー, are u partially or fully Japanese? I can't tell even though u kinda look Japanese.
@@rafipuff Oh shit. That’s why you chose _that_ accent instead. I thought it was completely accidental.
@@sandflakes007does he look japanese to you?
I learned both, here's my quick thoughts:
Chinese - hard to learn starting out due to tones and pure memorization of characters (hanzi). There's rarely any help in determining what the character means or its pronunciation unless you crack open a dictionary. Listening is super hard if you're unfamiliar with tones and have little to no vocab. However, after you get this down, Chinese is easy because it's just vocab building from there.
Japanese - easy to start, a nightmare to master. Sure they give you two alphabets and furigana, but then you have the characters (kanji) that can have not one, not two, but like 12+ different pronunciations by itself or combined with other characters. Japanese people can't even read books aloud because they don't know how half the stuff is pronounced. They can't even read names without guessing. An absolute nightmare in trying to progress after getting the basics down and will continue to haunt you for the rest of your learning career.
Chinese is even more versatile too. I was able to use it to get by in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Korea, and even several parts of the US. Japanese on the other hand is quite limited. However, my interests in vtubers, visual novels, manga, and anime saw a healthy use of the Japanese language so I don't regret learning it.
you nailed it!
in japanese you do not learn how to pronunce a kanji in 12+ different pronunciations, you just learn a word and all kanji/hiragana that goes with that word. hiragana will give you a hint how to pronounce a character.
見る
見せる
勉強する
Also important to note that you might get really close to native level, but you still won't be as good as a native speaker in Chinese languages (in the cases I heard of at least)
7:46 true, i initially started learning 中文 because of how useful it is but i now find it addicting to learn new 汉子 + the grammar man i really like how “simple” it is
and most important... asian language tend to have no gender noun Kappa
while female term were added recently due to western influence, it not required as the defacto term are genderless.
i jest, but i do feel it good to not add problem to a language by making them overly specify that you need ask question before knowing what the correct noun to use.... xD
When you said Chinese doesn’t have honorifics it actually blew my mind- I’ve been learning japanese for a bit and i just assumed basically all asian languages have honorifics and that Japanese probably took it from ancient chinese or smth but no?? This was a cognisant choice they made? To make you have to learn a whole new separate set of vocabulary to work any sort of job?? I might just learn Mandarin out of spite now-
(Jk i still prefer having an alphabet, but Chinese seems fun too)
Love your good vibes energy.
But you need to know ~2000 kanji to understand 99% of japanese and ~3500 chinese characters to understand 99% of chinese, so there is a bit of a difference
2000 is for general literacy.
@@danielantony1882 2000 for Chinese and 1000 for Japanese, according to the internet
Wth are you all talking about, only few hundred or at most a thousand hanzi are common used in day to day living
@@IsaacChoo88 few hundred is complete cap.
@@IsaacChoo88try picking up a novel only knowing a few hundred hanzi. It won’t go well
What an interesting video, Rafi. It amazes me that the way a word is pronounced (low to high, for example), can completely change the word you are trying to say. I think that I would like to learn a new language but have no idea where to begin. Any suggestions? One other thing, your ability to switch languages "mid-sentence" is really cool and quite impressive. Thanks for sharing the video. Cheers, Rafi.
Bro just told me that as if I haven't just studied Japanese for four years...
Jokes aside, I got into Chinese about half a year ago and honestly, just knowing Kanji to a decent level helps you so much to learn the other language.
Like there are quite often sentences in Mandarin where I have no clue how to pronounce it, but it just makes sense since I know Japanese.
So, if you're unsure just go what you're interested in and if you do decide to switch or add the other language to your bucket list it will help you
When talking specifically about tones in chinese, most chinese people arent totally strict about this because when they are speaking fast chinese, most tones are somewhat ignored anyway. so the faster you speak, the more natural youll sound
From a native Chinese standpoint, Japanese is hard in that it has more grammar (made-up rules) while Chinese is hard in pronunciation and sentence construction. In my opinion, learn Japanese, it's way cooler (in my opinion) to know Japanese than Chinese, it might also be more familiar (because of the stupid made-up rules) to European languages (kind of).
I learned Mandarin Chinese and couldn't be happier. (Coming from someone who tried to learn Japanese before.)
@@rayexception4590 开心就好，学了多久？
嗯
日语文法比较复杂，中文文法容易多了。
@@kimyi396 how learning japanese is cooler? Japan is a dying country with low birth rates and stagnating economy while china is booming and on its way to becoming a superpower
1:06 Happy to heard our popular Cambodian song in your video I'm from CAMBODIA love your video very much . ❤🇰🇭
Chinese language learner here. This was a really interesting video, and very well thought out-even for someone who has already decided which language to study.
As a native Mandarin Chinese speaker who also speaks English and reads Japanese (yes, after years of learning I'm still unable to really speak or communicate in Japanese), I would say that even for native Chinese speakers who have already acquired Chinese characters and much of the vocabulary shared by both the Chinese and Japanese languages, it would still be difficult to learn Japanese grammar and to structure sentences (and thoughts) in a Japanese way, and even though both languages are very different from English, Chinese is structured in a more familiar and straightforward way for English speakers while Japanese is quite counter-intuitive in many aspects (at least for me). I think it would be a similar situation when a Japanese speaker is trying to learn Chinese or English 😂
learning one will make learning the other easier for sure. I started learning Japanese when I bought a genki textbook in eighth grade... I studied by myself until I got to an intermediate level. At that point, I really hated the rote memorization that comes with each kanji having at least two pronunciations, so I figured that since one of the pronunciations is based on Chinese, then learning Chinese would tackle two birds with one stone by teaching me the pronunciation and the meaning of the character. Ironically, now my Chinese is better than my Japanese, and I'm studying abroad in a place that speaks primarily Chinese.
If I could say anything to someone considering one or the other, let it be this: It doesn't matter which one you choose at the beginning, just pick one and start learning. You can always change your mind later, but getting your foot in the door will inform your decision a lot. Don't be afraid of "wasting time". Any time invested in learning a language will at the very least improve your understanding of the world. You've got nothing to lose. Go!
Here I am, a Chinese native who started learning Japanese a while ago watching a video that has nothing to do with my current needs 😂
hahah wish you success with japanese! 😁
if you pick a language that you're not motivated to learn, you will almost certainly not succeed. it's just (usually) too difficult to push through something like learning an entire language for no reason. but no matter how difficult a language is, if you're motivated, if you can stick with it, you'll eventually pick some of it up. so pick a language you like, because it's a long, LONG uphill climb sometimes lol.
i think the hardest part about chinese is all those damn dialects.
Thats me (Mandarin speaker) trying to learn my dialect Teochew😭. Lets be real tho, many dialects are essentially completely different to Mandarin
@@dasi2957 That is why, linguistically speaking, we call them Chinese languages. Cantonese and Mandarin are mutually unintelligible, for example.
@@danielantony1882 Ye, from my understanding the use of dialects is only due to political reasons
@@dasi2957 Yes.
Not dialects but languages
It's interesting that after learning Chinese, you can understand the meaning of some Japanese sentences
Instructions unclear, now learning month. Been learning Chinese for a year and a half almost on and off, and now I find myself pivoting to Classical Chinese and Japanese so mg Modern Chinese is struggling. Will get back to it at some point though, I have bigger priorities atm so I'm taking language learning casually. But I'm in a situation where I do want to learn both to a relatively high level, learning Chinese has given me the tools to make me know how to approach learning Japanese. Also Classical Chinese helps with both
Absolutely nailed this video! Glad you emphasized that at the end of the day it's mainly about your interests 🤝 Learning a language in which you are not fully invested ends up being way harder, regardless of the actual difficulty of that particular language.
true words 🙂↕️🙂↕️
Well you got it right Rafi, I've been studying alot of Japanese lately
amazing video raf! i'm so glad you're back to uploading again
You read my mind, I was really in doubt between the two languages hahahahah Thanks for the video
I learn both, to be honest, both have tremendous difficulites for foreigners. But, I do prefer learning Chinese, I hate memorizing the Japanese conjugations. It is just TOO much.... However, the pronunciation of Chinese is a living hell.
not that much, if you know a second language other than your native one, then your ears will be used to hearing another language and by doing a lot of listening in chinese you can get your ear used to tones, and if your native language has something similar to chinese tones (spanish or portuguese for example) it will not be that hard
@@SebasLink9982 spanish and portuguese are not tonal languages!!! Vietnamese is a tonal language.
@@rothschildianum yesyes, but i said a language that has something similar to chinese tones, in spanish the accents for example, some words mean something but if you say those same words without accents they mean another different thing
For example papa and papá: papa without an accent in the last a means potato, but papá with the accent in the last a means father, just like some chinese words xd
@Estudo-q6b yeah pronunciation is the hardest part of chinese sadly 😿
The best we can do is train our ears to get better at that lmao
Are you good at reading or listening? The chinese grammar for real is easy or it has its hard thing? 🤔
@Estudo-q6b Também sou tuga e experimentei um pouco das duas línguas. Ambas são dores de cabeça... mas divertidas! 😵💫
Nice video! BTW, so you know, there's a mistake with the pitch-accents at 4:39
(雨 is high, low [ just like how rain falls down ] and 飴 is low, high)
oh my god you're completely right! i'm embarrassed by this mistake lol
*the way i explaned it would only be correct in kansai and other dialects
@@rafipuffI’m fluent and it barely felt off, I didn’t really care, just goes to show pitch accent isn’t that important 😂there’s only a handful of words that people tend to use as examples when they do pitch accent videos on UA-cam too. Overall sentence accent or pronunciation flow is 100x more important than individual words.
Sometimes I do wish I started with Chinese but I am currently more interested in Japanese overall than Chinese! But some cities in China are already Cyberpunked, living in 2040 🤤😍😍🫰🏻! Awesome job China. So I have to visit these cities in person! I do want to be a polyglot so I have a list of languages I want to grasp! Japanese is my main, Korean side, but everything else I am memorizing basic hellos, thanks you, and some memorizing the Alphabets like Greek, Hebrew, Tagalog (baybayin), Russian. Like I tell people that are interested in learning a language but are scared to start, if you learn one word a day (MINIMUM) for a year thats 365 words you know more than you did before that year. Does not seem a lot especially if you consider how many words we learn in elementary, middle, and high school (in 12 years)! But hey its still a good leap forward! Stay strong learners! 🫰🏻 ㅅㄹ,愛
Learning Japanese ruined my life but I still love it😔
How did it ruin your life
@@Icarus975 I can’t sleep at night anymore, I lie in bed awake all night thinking “Is it 行きない or 行けない“
“What counter do you use for a certain thing?” I don’t find peace anymore, everyday is pain, I try to relieve my pain in anime but it’s never enough, it only reminds me of the pain and suffering the Japanese language gives me, I’m 2 days clean of studying Japanese but everyday is a battle, pray for me please and thanks for reading
Why?
You're prob a weeb 🤢
1.) It takes at least 15 years to become proficient in Japanese. 2.) They never accept foreigner, are xenophobic, and you can only use it in Japan. 3.) Chinese can be used anywhere.
Choosing Japanese can ruin your life if you are not elite with a high spec degree in a field that the Japanese government wants. Also if you have dark skin in general, Asians will hate you for no reason (they prefer white people).
“You don't actually need to learn how to write them”
Yes exactly, if you are learn for fun, never force yourself to learn how to write if that's not something you interest in.
I'm native Chinese speaker, and fyi most chinese learner with HSK2 level can write more character than me...
I am from Pakistan and I'm a lawyer. I speak three languages, Pashto my mother tongue and Urdu - the national language of my country - and English. Now i am learning Chinese for fun. 😅
That's awesome!
@@Rumeel12708
谢谢朋友
Respects from Chile!
@@dieglhix
I'm grateful 🥰
it’s fascinating how you’re managing it while being a lawyer.. meanwhile I’m struggling while only being a student, do you have any tips or advices you can give?
you couldn't have picked a better time to upload this video bro ❤🔥 I was just trying to decide which language I should learn 😅
I feel like I’d get much more use out of Japanese than Chinese because of my interests, though I would like to learn both and Korean too, and maybe more if I’m able
such good timing bro
I learned both but I think Chinese is primarily useful if you are going into a business that deals with China. Outside of living in China, I have had very little reason to speak Chinese. I do watch movies and anime with subs so Japanese ftw.
First comment!!! 🫡 Its so cool to see you uploading even till this day! I have been watching you since your Japan exchange vlogs (5-6 years back ig). Keep up the work mate! 💪
5-6 years back that's a long time holy shii, thanks for keeping up with me to this day!
What about Mongolian? It's also located in East asia
yes mongolian is really cool, i made a couple mongolian friends when i was in japan and their language sounded amazing 😁 however the pronunciation is (in my opinion) the hardest out of all east asian languages haha
Mongolia is only geographically in East Asia, but it's more Central Asian than East Asian culturally...like how Australia isn't in the "West", but it along with New Zealand are western countries.
Learn Japanese, my personal favourite language
You're probably a weeb 🤢
3:59 Lol😂 I'll consider it
Thanks for the information
You totally got me with that old Death Note anime! It definitely was one of my favourite ones (and also only manga, first two issues, that I have). Japanese sounds just so cool!!! You can hear lot of emotions in the language, lot of melody. Which, interestingly enough, you don't hear that much in Chinese, which is a tonal language. Well, always wanted to learn Japanese but started learning Chinese some years ago, cuz it was taught in the college I was attanding and Japanese was not.
I know!! that death note speech is legendary XD
I disagree that Chinese lacks emotion
@@hayabusa1329 You have misinterpreted me little bit, I didn't say Chinese has no emotion (=lacks emotion), I said there is less than in Japanese.
@@jakubbriza7274 so what languages do you think display the most and least emotions?
It was wild watching that for me. I've been studying Japanese for a little over a year now and it was cool to be able to understand a little bit of that. I've watched plenty of subbed back in the day, but only picked up like 5 words doing that.
Both languages are considered the hardest along with korean and arabic for english speakers
you sure give up easily! haha
Japan is harder than Chinese, I'm learning Chinese now. I looks difficult from above but it gets easy with the passage of time.
@@awaiskhan9329 yes japanese's grammar s much harder than chinese but japanese has no tones on the other hand chinese has 4 tones
@@awaiskhan9329 Japanese is not harder than Chinese, how would you know if you never tried learning Japanese?
@@banana53358
Became those who learnt both say so
Also japanese Grammer is difficult, Japanese writing system consists of two types of alphabets plus hanzi
I am Chilean and I study both. But honestly, Japanese is 10 times easier😂😂
已經學了四年的中文了，卻還看這視頻。👍
I think it is worth learning Korean. Korean has a very simple writing system that you can learn literally in a few hours. Although the grammar is more difficult, it is still the best language to start with if you want to learn an East Asian language. I'm kind of sad because Korean doesn't get the same attention as Japanese or Chinese.
Korean is definitely a fascinating language, but I don't agree that it's the best East Asian language to 'start with'. While the simple writing system is very enticing, the grammar is as difficult as in Japanese and the pronunciation is also quite difficult - not to mention it has the least amount of native speakers out of the three languages. I'd say Chinese or Japanese are better choices unless a person is particularly interested in Korean culture.
The lack of Hanja is really not gonna help you with Chinese and Japanese later on, so I don’t think Korean is a good place to start.
Even though I'm Korean I don't think the Korean language is the easiest to start in East asia for everyone. Right, the writing system is very reasonable and easy but I think the difficulty of learning a 'language' depends on how much you are interested in it. If you are familiar with K-pop, then Korean is the best choice, or you think the Anime culture is fascinating, then Japanese. And thank you for your interesting to my language👍🏻
Korea is getting the same attention honestly. Its become a cultural powerhouse in the past few years, only a couple more years and interest will be just as visible.
They have alphabets so you can actually read it without knowing much context.
I don’t need to write Japanese, but I do it anyway cause I find it fun :P
I’d try calligraphy but I’m too broke for a 風で brush
how to read that? kaze de? fuu de?
I hate the fact that Japanese is popular among children, but I'm learning it anyway.
I pick japanese because personally its sound way cooler and i want to enjoy the mountain of untranslated treasure anime, games, variety show, tv show and movies that never translated to english
Yeah and this this the hardest part. If you take into consideration only country potential future, I would say you should learn Japanese if you have money or your own income and want to move into new world, or Chinese if you don’t have that but you’re ambitious and want to pursue international career.
YIPPEEE another good video, I wish you had posted this two years ago when I was deciding between Chinese and Japanese.
🤣🤣 my bad
Which did you end up learning?
Love this channel😂🤍
The problem in learning Chinese is where you're from. Sure mandarin is what you're going to learn but if you're like me (Chinese-filipino) you're going to learn Mandarin + spoken dialect(hokkien) which is harder since you'll have to learn through speaking/listening since most Chinese school curriculum rarely have hokkien as a subject but the school faculty speaks hokkien (especially if they are old gen Chinese speakers)
I started learning Mandarin 3 years ago, because I love Chinese music... G.E.M.(鄧紫棋), Jay Chou(周杰倫), Percila Abby(蔡恩雨), ... I also love Chinese cooking, hotpot, xiao long bao, and egg fried rice are all fun to make, and I'd love to go to China someday, vs Japanese, I like some animes, Baki is the best show ever, but I only really like Death note, attack on titan, and Baki, and I like Idol, but it's the only jpop song I like.
I am learning mandarin with books, films and Genshin Impact game. There are a lot of possibilities to learn it.
Even on Tiktok there are a lot of teachers, almost all my Tiktok turned into a mandarin learning Asian base (plus somehow a lot of dancing Vietnamese queen girls 😺😂) Understand some Japanese too, watched a lot of anime movies. I am a native hungarian.
You seem to have a deep understanding of Japanese and Chinese btw😊
The music in this video is great
thank you so much!! i always try to accompany my speech with suiting music 🥰
You look like leafyishere (when he was in his prime)
Super video, beware the background music volume tho, at some points it’s too loud and makes it harder to understand what you are saying :)
got it! the volume might have slipped somewhere, thanks!
おはようございます,Im going to attempt JLPT n5 this december,when they reveal the results im going to tell u guys!
is written here 'owayoogogiimasu'?
@@埊 what hahahaha
@@richardmaia8732 in 罗马字?
@@埊 yes it means "o" is gogoiimating right now
bro somehow can read what im thinking and make a video about lmao, thank you!
I learn Mandarin and my best friend learns Japanese and we've had this debate on and off for a while. I'm like "yes tones are hard, but also no grammar or registers!" and she's like "but tones and only characters tho ew!".
am i old
i still mostly use the chinese handwriting option 😭
I love how you just add ma to the end of a sentence to turn it into a question (I DON'T KNOW WHAT TONE RN)
yes hahah, it’s 吗 without a tone (sometimes called the 5th neutral tone)
Dora says porqué no los dos
seriously though, language learning is a life-long journey and you might totally want to learn at least the basics of both, then use the one you end up in contact more. or you could totally dabble a bit in Japanese for the manga, learning how to handle kanji/hanzi, and then when you got the hang of how they work switch over to Chinese.
your commitment should be engaging with (and enjoying) the language(s), not having your fate tied to one or the other for eternity.
I need a video between mandarin, japanese, korean, vietnamese, malay and tagalog... And maybe throw in russian, dutch, latin and arabic for good measure 😭😭😭💀💀💀
Chinese and Tamil. I wish I'd learned Chinese due to global economic shifts, but now I only understand Japanese, Korean, and English. I am sad.
Ok... Japanese sounds cool 😏
0:25 man you should've played the part 4 more seconds into the music video 😔😔 its my favorite part of the song
Chinese is helpful, and there are already 1 million native Chinese speaker living in everywhere in Japan and more and more japanese are learning Chinese
I'm a Chinese person... so this isn't even a choice for me... I'm learning Japanese for fun
Traditional Chinese is the hardest between Simplified Chinese and Japanese 😂
Also Traditional Chinese (particularly in Taiwan), they don't use Pinyin (romanised phonetic symbols for pronouncing and typing), instead they use ZHUYIN which is like this ㄏㄢˋㄩˇㄘˊㄏㄨㄟˋ which looks a bit like katakana or hiragana. ZHUYIN was founded in 1913 in Mainlnad China. But no longer used, except for Taiwan.
I've been learning both of Traditional and Simplified Chinese Characters which is tremendously challenging 😊.
China and Japan simplified " Hanzi " , Japan only simplified a bit, not too extreme. But China simplified it really way too far. The Hanzi becomes unrecognizable and not esthetic at all.
If you love Art, you'd probably choose Traditional Chinese Characters over the simplified ones.
For example :
飛機 （Traditional Chinese Characters）
飞机 （Simplified Chinese Characters)
飛行機 (Japanese kanji)
.................................
學校 ( Traditional Chinese Characters)
学校 ( Simplified Chinese )
学校 ( Japanese Kanji )
old 学 was arleady too complicated,
飞, chinese should have added 乂 to the empty part of it,
机, its simplier now than what it was before,
but theres a good simplification: 為, looked like a kettle, now is 为, which looks like protogen's head.
It's the same thing.They still spell the same,even for native most of they wouldn't remember zhuyin.Only difference between traditional and simplify is just the words difference
@@litatapita6767 Aifi is talking about aesthetics.
Zhuyin is no longer use in most chinese community because of 2 problem:
- both Zhuyin and Pinyin cannot reliably tell you want is written (because too many word sound the same in mandarin)
- knowing Pinyin allow us to quickly romanised chinese name that can be used in an international setting (if you write in Zhuyin, foreigner still can't comprehend)
this is why in other country that has official chinese standard, like Malaysia and Singapore, all standardise to Pinyin.
with Singapore even attempting to rename chinese street name to Pinyin standard (somewhat unsuccessfully)...
I choose to learn English first ，then Japenese-·-
Oh you're back
Hahaha I love Japanese, but indeed it is a pain in the ass to learn😂🇯🇵😂 とても難しい！Korean is also fun and difficult as well🇰🇷
Bro, you look like one of those wojak memes
both is correct. both have 漢字&very similar.
I would learn to speak chinese but only learn to read and write Japanese. Reason: Japanese has no use to me for speaking but I love light novels but Chinese useful to me for speaking but not reading or writing because manhuas are boring aside some.
Chinese obviously so i can read trash ass cultivation novels
lmaoo xd
Good video!
Loved the video too
Chinese >>>
1:02 was that a Cambodian song? Caught me off guard to suddenly hear a I think maybe is a Khmer song but was wondering if it was purely a coincidence that you chose that background sounds
that's right! it's a cambodian song from the singer Ros Sereysothea! i felt it would be unfair if the intro song was chinese or japanese xd so I just put my favorite cambodian one lol
yeah, it actually caught me off guard too, like damn this song sounds goo... wait, is that a Khmer song? good stuffs, good stuffs
Bro, you said taiwan like it is "not mainland china" implying it is just a satelite of china. Expect to never be able to go to china. Great vid tho
I think he only said that bopomofo is used in taiwan, and not in other parts of china, which is geographically correct, I don't sense a political stance
@@lihongzhi666 you included taiwan in china, "not in other parts of china" (idk much but i think chinese people or governement might be offended)
bro used 1:05 the cambodian song
yin & yang of human languages
I would prefer to learn japanese since I want to visit there one day and if things go south at least try to emigrate there (assuming that the US goes under and I need to escape), mostly because of their trains and everything that makes them unique like their manga and pristine nature and clean cities/towns.
If I wanted to learn mandarin, I would learn it for if I go to Taiwan, since I never plan on going to mainland china.
I learned both
Arabic of course
Arabic is super simple guyssss... absolutely no difference based on where it's spoken whatsoever😢
@@dasi2957really? this not satire right?
@@cyacyi779 It is lol
I freaking love Chinese
japanese for anime and culture
chinese for business and culture
your choice
中文为了古代师之举。
Nah Chinese is not important for business
Japanese companies：
Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Sony, Nintendo, Panasonic, Yamaha, Canon, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, etc.
I really wanna learn chinese, but idk where to start, and i can't pay for classes
And i also dont know how to self-study it
i am teaching a couple subscribers chinese in private lessons, msg me on instagram if you’re interested!
Just FYI, before anyone starts learning japanese, the language is totally different in daily life from how elegant and cool they sound in animes😂😂😂
Learning Chinese is easy to English speaker.
what's the anime in 0:33 and 0:35
it’s called FLCL
You should learn Magyar Language