Japanese without the hard parts

July 17, 2015 9:16 AM

So I know Mandarin Chinese, as in speak and read it pretty much as well as English. I also have a community of Japanese speakers I can tap to help me with the very esoteric task of learning Japanese from scratch. I don't have any incentive curiosity and time to kill, so given these factors, are there any things the almighty green would recommend to learn Japanese better/faster/smarter, especially from the unusual approach angle of a USian gaijin?

I am very aware of the differing functions of kanji in Japanese vs. Mandarin (vs. Cantonese vs. Vietnamese vs. Korean etc.). I don't anticipate too much difficulty with that though, given that I've coped alright with it in Chinese. Is this a complete misconception? Are kanji so vastly different in Japanese that I'll be learning them from scratch?

posted by saysthis to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

I don't believe Kanji will offer you many problems. A percentage of Japanese kanji don't overlap with the Chinese characters. It seems to me that Japanese characters are, in general, more simplified version of the Chinese characters.

I believe your knowledge of Chinese characters will give you a leg up on your studies. A text such as Henshall's "A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters," which gives a brief explanation of the main characters (and their ancient origins) will be helpful in orienting you to the Japanese use of Kanji.

Given that you have a good grasp of Chinese grammar, it seems likely that you'll be able to adapt to Japanese grammar. The two languages are not at all alike, of course, but your ability to learn a foreign languages probably has been enhanced. It's the grammar that you'll be learning from scratch. Be prepared for an alluringly simple apposition (this is a pencil) to be followed by a lesson in existential twirkiness (it is that this is a pencil). Context is the elephant in the room with Japanese. You'll love it.

It seems to me that you will advance your reading skills somewhat faster than your conversational skills. Talking with your Japanese-speaking friends will be extremely helpful, but keep in mind that spoken Japanese is quite different from written Japanese. At first you'll struggle with the grammar, but soon you'll be merely adding vocabulary items.
posted by mule98J at 10:10 AM on July 17, 2015

Japanese without the hard parts

I'm sorry, but learning a language is all hard parts. There's no royal road to Japanese or geometry.

Most people seem to like the Genki I and II books that The Japan Times publishes as self-study materials. I cannot comment on them because they were published quite a bit after I started studying Japanese. Whatever you do, I suggest finding a text and sticking with it. You cannot learn a language by "winging it". Follow a regimented course of study.

Speaking Chinese will be of approximately zero benefit because Japanese is not a Sino-Tibetan language. A little over half of Japanese vocabulary is Chinese-derived, but while Sino-Japanese words make up the majority of written Japanese, they are a minority in spoken Japanese. Japanese grammar, phonology, syntax et cetera are all quite different from Mandarin (and English). The Chinese-deprived words, for reasons discussed below, are pronounced quite differently than their Mandarin equivalents.

I don't anticipate too much difficulty with that though, given that I've coped alright with it in Chinese. Is this a complete misconception?

Not a complete misconception but a substantial one. Japan acquired kanji from China over the course of a few centuries that ended over a thousand years ago, and Sino-words in Japanese are classified as having Wu, Han, or Tang pronunciations, if that gives you any idea of their age. So, the words will usually be pronounced complete differently. For example, 学校 is xuéxiào in Mandarin but gakkou in Japanese.

The advantage that you will have is that kanji will not be a "big deal" for you like they are for Japanese learners who do not come from a kanji-using language base. You will already be used to ideas like stroke order, radicals, and so on and you won't complain about how complicated kanji are. The idea of kanji will "make sense" to you. But, you will still have a lot to learn. Some characters have different forms that their Chinese equivalents, either simplified or traditional. For example, 義 in Japanese is 义 in the PRC. Or we have 鐵 as the traditional character, 铁 as the PRC version, but 鉄 as the Japanese version.

Also, there are a lot of false cognates. For example, in Japan 手紙 is a postal letter, not toilet paper. 愛人 is an illicit lover, not a spouse. 娘 is daughter, not mother.

And, there some characters that are made-in-Japan, so you will likely never have seen them unless there are some of the characters that have made it from Japan to China (it has happened).

So, you don't get a free pass with kanji, but you get a head-start. There will still be a lot to learn from scratch, though, to reach an adult literacy level.

As a test, what can you make of this intermediate-level sentence? ラテン文字に代表されるアルファベットが一つの音価を表記する音素文字であるのに対し、漢字は一般に、それぞれが個別の意味を持ち音節に対応している形態素である。That's about as much as your knowledge of Chinese will help you.
posted by Tanizaki at 10:23 AM on July 17, 2015 [4 favorites]

I agree with mule98J that your knowledge of Chinese characters will be a huge help to you in what is often one of the most difficult parts of learning Japanese. When I lived in Japan I did a summer intensive Japanese course in Kyoto that blended students from all over the world to learn together in a class taught entirely in Japanese. My fellow students from Taiwan were significantly better at reading and writing, even if they had been studying Japanese for less time than those of us from Western countries. Yes, some characters mean different things and don't align perfectly, but I guarantee learning them will be easier for you than someone who has never encountered them before. You will not be learning from scratch.

In college we used the Genki books and workbooks, and I think they are great. I like the Remembering the Kanji book as well. My friend used the intelligent flashcard system of Anki to build his vocabulary enough to pass the highest level of Japanese proficiency test, and he really recommended that system.

I also found it really helpful to watch Japanese television (can you access NHK online?) or anime for listening practice and seeing grammar used in context. And if you are able to hang out with a group of Japanese speakers--preferably ones who don't know English or Mandarin very well so you don't default to using those when things get tricky--that's the best way to learn. I got much better at Japanese when I was in situations when I HAD to use it because the other person did not know any English. The biggest barrier to language acquisition for me was feeling shy about making mistakes and consequently not insisting on using Japanese when I was with friends whose English was stronger than my Japanese. If you already are proficient in Mandarin, you may have the advantage of being confident in your language acquisition ability, and boldness will serve you well.

I'm thinking you meant you DO have incentive, curiosity and time--I think those would be essential to learning a language!
posted by ialwayscryatendings at 11:22 AM on July 17, 2015

Best answer: Seconding Swiss Meringue Buttercream. If your Chinese is pretty fluent, it helps to learn Japanese using Chinese materials and explanations. For one thing, the grammar is a lot easier to understand when taught in Chinese. Probably because Chinese and Japanese grammar have more in common than English and Japanese grammar. Like 的 is similar to の in its usage. (Apparently it's even easier for Korean speakers to learn Japanese.)

Once you've memorized the hiragana and katakana alphabet, you'll probably find that you can read aloud words you don't understand, and sort of understand words you can't read aloud. :P
posted by aielen at 7:59 PM on July 17, 2015