What makes Japanese a harder language to learn than Chinese?

I know enough Chinese to read modern novels in it and I started learning Japanese a month ago. One thing that nobody mentioned so far is that Japanese is much harder to understand when spoken, because a lot of syllables are dropped, while Chinese speakers usually have amazingly clear pronunciation. When I had just learned Chinese for half a year, I would sit on a bus near some Chinese students talking to each other and I could have written down every word they said (in Pinyin and sometimes unsure of the tone). I was far from understanding any of it of course, but still. Other than that, here are my impressions: Harder in Japanese * Writing system. In Chinese you need 3000+ characters for basic reading fluency as opposed to Japanese's 2100+, but at that level learning some more characters is not really hard, everything is a rehash of parts you had before. What makes Japanese harder is that every character has multiple pronunciations. Also, Japanese characters have more strokes than simplified Chinese characters. Finally, I find it much harder to memorize the Hiragana and Katakana compared to memorizing an equal amount of Chinese characters because the Hiragana & Katakana are random wiggly lines while Chinese characters have meaning and can at least partly be derived. * Vagueness. A lot of things are left unspecified. Chinese can do that, too, especially in literary language, but it's less common. * Politeness. This is a non-topic in Chinese. * Word order. As others have pointed out, Japanese word order is less like English word order, while Chinese tends to be similar. Actually, Chinese word order is very much like German word order, because we also like to put adverbials at the beginning of a phrase. * Grammar. As someone who has studied Latin, there is nothing I'd recognize as grammar study in Chinese. * Measure words. In both Japanese and Chinese you have to remember which measure word goes with which number. In Japanese however, the measure word can also modify the number, so that you have to learn different words for each number and choose the right one depending on context. Harder in Chinese * Pronunciation. Contrary to what a lot of people think, it's not so hard to learn the tones; I've taught people in less than two hours. Recognizing the tones is also not so difficult. However, it is hard to remember which tone goes with which syllable, and it is hard to apply that knowledge when talking at normal speed. Also, distinctions like q / ch, j / zh and consonants like r and x are hard for beginners. * Vocabulary. Chinese has less loan words from other languages, and there's the matter of memorizing the tone with every syllable, and the character. Japanese words can be longer, which makes them a bit harder to remember, but not enough to make up for this imho. Equally hard in both * Relative clauses, possibly the most counter-intuitive grammar chapter for a European * 4-character idioms (Chengyu / Yojijukugo)

First, a word on the premise. I agree that Japanese is harder than Mandarin, but to be fair, I've heard a lot of people express the opposite or say they present a similar level of difficulty (this has been the object of many debates on http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com, for instance). At the same time, very few people have studied both languages seriously. In this regard, I'm not sure to what degree I'm qualified to answer the question: I speak Japanese, but my knowledge of Mandarin is rudimentary, although it used to be better ages ago. I don't know if that's possible, but I would like show what a learner faces and present that information in a way that would allow readers to make up their own mind about which is harder. I can't guarantee the absence of a bias in my presentation, though. Writing system When a learner starts with Mandarin, there is no alphabet to learn. Right away, he is faced with characters that look like gibberish and appear meaningless. He will first learn how to deal with them (how characters are made up of different parts, how to establish the order and directionality of strokes, etc.) and will have to learn basic and common characters as he starts to learn words. To help guide him, he will also use pinyin, a romanization system that provides the pronunciation of the characters. Generally, each character has a single reading, ie. can only be read one way. In Japanese, the learner is first faced with 2 sets of syllabaries (unlike alphabets, each symbol is a syllable): one for Japanese words (hiragana:これはひらがなです), and one for (mostly) foreign words (katakana: コレハカタカナデス). They each contain over 50 symbols that look like a bunch of squiggly lines. Some may tackle kanji (equivalent of Chinese characters) right away, others wait a bit longer before starting with those. While kanji are essential to reading and writing Japanese, it's possible to use hiragana to write everything phonetically. The learner may use romaji to romanize the writing system while he isn't yet accustomed to hiragana and katakana. If and when he starts to learn kanji, one difficulty he will face is that most kanji can be read in several ways depending on context. For instance, the kanji for person, 人, can be read hito on its own (this is the kunyomi, of Japanese origin), but jin when used in certain compounds like nihonjin, Japanese person (this is the onyomi, the reading of Chinese origin -- jin is ren in modern Mandarin). Pronunciation Mandarin pronunciation is centered around the syllable: consonants can come before the vowel, few after, and there are 8 vowel sounds. Some vowels are challenging, but the consonants particularly so - plenty of affricates that don't exist in English. But all this becomes almost irrelevant when the students realizes that Mandarin has tones. Each vowel, therefore each syllable, can be pronounced in one of 4 (5 for purists) different, distinct and unpredictable tones. This means that when you say a, you either go up, go down then up, go down or say it with a level intonation. Take a breath and repeat. For.every.syllable. Like all things, you get used to it, but it's a real challenge. Japanese has few vowels, 5, but they can be short or long, and this is challenging. Few consonants too. The downside of this is that you end up with long words that sound the same. Also, Japanese has a kind of pitch accent, where every syllable is either high or low, and it changes from region to region, but teachers typically edit this info out and pretend it doesn't exist. Let's make a sentence Let's say 'I am Canadian'. You gotta start somewhere. In Mandarin, you take the word for I, 我 wo3 (number refers to tone), the verb to be, 是 shi4 and the words for Canada 加拿大 jia1na2da4 and person, ren2 and you simply assemble in that order. 我是加拿大人 Wo3 shi4 jia1na2da4 ren2 I be Canada person In Japanese, you take I, 私 わたし watashi (well you choose watashi, because you can also say watakushi, atashi, boku or ore depending on many things), the verb to be, だ da (ok, it's not really the verb to be, that would be either iru for animate subjects or aru for inanimate ones, but let's not get ahead of ourselves), and Canada plus person, カナダ人 kanadajin. And then you assemble, but not in that order. For one thing, word order is different, it's SOV, subject, object, verb, so I Canadian am. Then there are a few changes occuring. Watashi needs to be followed by the particle ha because it's the topic of the sentence (it's also the subject, but Japanese makes a distinction between the two - one that will likely haunt you for a long time - but the copula da usually has a topic). Then you add kanadajin. Finally comes the verb. If you are using informal Japanese, you can say da. If you are using formal or polite Japanese, then the form is desu. There are also several other possible forms when you get into more polite Japanese. So: 私はカナダ人です。 Watashi wa Kanadajin desu. I-topic Canada-person copula LHHH LHHLL LL (this indicates low or high pitch for each mora) Note that this uses kanji, hiragana AND katakana all in the same sentence. Another sentence: I think I want to eat there. Mandarin 我想我要在那里吃饭。 Wo3 xiang3 wo3 yao4 zai4 na4 li3 chi1 fan4 I think I want at there eat food. The place complement comes before the verb. Also, to eat is really just chi1, but Mandarin often adds a fake object to make a verb intransitive (not a very accurate explanation). Otherwise that's it. Japanese 私はそこで食べたいと思います。 Watashi wa soko de tabetai to omoimasu. I-topic there-place eat-want that think. LHHH HLL LHHL L LHHHL Just like ha was used to show the topic, de shows place. These are called particles and Japanese uses them all the time to show what role words play in the sentence. The verb to eat is taberu, but if you remove the -ru ending and add -tai it now means want to eat (but only in the first or second person). To means that and is used to link parts of a complex sentence. To think is omou, but the polite non-past form is omoimasu. I say non-past because present and future tenses are not distinguished in Japanese: taberu means both eat and will eat. I'll stop here. I'm sure one could present Chinese structures that are more complex than the Japanese ones, but at first, the difference is striking and it remains so in most cases. Also, forgive any potential mistake. What do you think? Which seems more complex?

This: http://jisho.org/kanji/details/%E7%94%9F The 29th most common character can be read 11 ways, plus 25 more ways for names. In Chinese, it has one reading.

I speak and read both reasonably well (I wouldn't call myself fluent in either but I am at the stage where what is needed is a couple of years living and breathing them to get there. ) In Chinese, it's more work to learn the characters. There are simply more of them and if you don't know the character, you literally can't write it down. (I knew Japanese first and it was still much more work to learn Chinese!) In Japanese, the writing is much easier. Fewer characters and for a lot of things it's simply possible to write it using kana (the Japanese 'alphabets') as many children or less educated / literate people may do. For both of them I found that the pronunciation and grammar are okay once you get reasonably far into it. Maybe Japanese is a little easier. However i did find that polite language (sonkei go, ken jou go)  in Japanese is genuinely challenging in a deeper cognitive sense than Chinese. It's almost more a cognitive and social challenge rather than a linguistic one.  Like learning how to say 'if it's not too much trouble, would it bother you too much to skim over this draft I threw together' rather than saying 'please read my letter', only much more so. Being competent at this type of language in my view is essential to being respected as a mature adult in Japan - but it also requires at a minimum a lot of sympathy for a very Japanese mindset that incorporates both an incredible sense of humility and obligation towards others, and an acute sense of hierarchy in relationships. While I think I got reasonably good at understanding that mindset intellectually after spending enough time in Japan, I still found it very emotionally taxing to fit into that mould (as indeed many Japanese may find it as well I suppose. ) I would love to hear of others experiences in this regard.

Chinese is far easier than Japanese! Tones put aside the writing system is simplified, and there is no 上下関係 which refers to the multiple levela of herarchial or honorific Japanese. Korean is similar to Japanese in thi regard but let's take the word to do for example. In its standard ditionary form it is する or suru in romanized characters. Assuming formal Japanese it becomes します、shimasu なさいます, nasaimasu or いたします, itashimasu in both forms of honorific forms 尊敬語 and 謙譲語. This is of course dependent upon your assumed positon of status to the speaker and context before multiple variations of conjugation takes place. The style of speech can also chage quickly. In Mandarin other then indicating tense this honorific speech doesn't exist meaning that you would speak to your child at least in terms of a simple idea the same way you would to the President. Furthermore the State Department when training their staff in foreign language proficiency pior to sending them abroad allocates far more time to Japanese than Chinese. Under a year for Chinese over a year for Japanese. In fact Korean and Japanese learners receive more time as compared to any other language. Therefore empirical evidence and experience leave no doubt in my mind that Japanese is a far more difficut language to learn than Standard Mandarin!

I haven't learned Chinese so a direct comparison is not possible. There are however some socio-linguistic features of Japanese that are inherently unnatural to a Western learner. If you hear a Japanese person speaking a Western language you will often notice that they hardly ever use personal pronouns nor relative pronouns. Instead Japanese achieve the same linguistic goals through a "hierarchical grammatical structure", unfortunately, from the view of the Western learner, those carry the epithet of "respect language" (尊敬語) respective "humble language" (謙遜語), the former uses verbs and grammatical constructions that are applied to second and third person whereas the latter does it for first person.   In the Western notion the concept of "respect" and "humility" is a conscious value choice. You as an individual have the right to chose whom you prefer to respect and humiliate yourself in front of, rather than being expected to express those traits. The Japanese too, does that choice as a personal preference, but will not let that choice be reflected in language usage. Hence, a Japanese person may very well disrespect someone yet use honorific language when talking to her, this intuitively seems disingenuous to the Westerner and it takes a long time to overcome that hurdle.   Those socio-linguistic features are fairly unique to Japanese (Korean have it too, I have been told) and while it might not be difficult to grasp the concept of a hierarchial structure, the learner are faced with some endogenous resistance to its usage.

It's diffiuclt to judge learning Japanese is harder than Chinese. Generally, The Japanese and Chinese(Asia languages) are difficult to learn for English speakers, because there are a lot of Kanji/Kana in these languages. But it is not important, it's hard or difficult depends your interesting ,the importance of foreign language or your learning environment. If you are working in Japan, or are interested in Japanese/Japanese cartoon/Japanese cluture, learning Japanese is a piece of cake:)

I don't think that Japanese is harder than Chinese. Both are difficult in different ways. Both have insane writing systems and lots of cultural background to learn. For learning Chinese you have to memorize Chinese characters, you can't spell it out like English. But Japanese actually has something similar to the English alphabet. I think both are equally difficult.   http://www.chinesesphere.com/

I speak fluent Japanese and I have a good command of Chinese... and I have to say Japanese is way easier than Chinese.