Should I learn Mandarin or Japanese for Business?
One day I want to go work in one of the Asian countries because I am very interested with thier cultures. So I’ve decided possibly take up international business as my major when I reach College. My father said it’s really between learning Japanese or Chinese Mandarin as my best possible choice. In Japan, Im also intersted in their Fashion and music, but I can’t live off those, unforunately. And I do also like Chinese Culture. Please I really need some help choosing which to take up! ( By the way, I’m not just taking up this language for business, but also for fun and in hopes that I could live in either country one day :). ) So any ideas or thoughts? I’ve looked around the internet, and alot of the answers were split on which would be better :). Thanks!
Tagged with: alot • asian countries • chinese culture • chinese mandarin • cultures • fashion • international business • japan • learning japanese • music
Filed under: Learn to Speak Mandarin
lol.. none of those answers really attempt at answering your question >_>;;
I’m kinda in the same predicament as you and have been thinking about having Japanese w/ business, but i’m still real unsure about it all myself what i should do. :/ I’ll just say first off, you should definitely have either w/ business. it will be really good for job outlooks~ much better than either of those disciplines separately..
Getting back to your question.. The most important thing i can say to you is, which language and culture would you prefer? I like both countries as well, but I personally have a greater interest in Japan~ so I’m wanting to go into Japanese. Of course both are cool and fascinating, it’s important to ask yourself what you could more likely see yourself doing. (Of course, you could do both Chinese and Japanese at same time~ i know a couple universities i personally was looking at allows you to take a little Chinese and a little Japanese together for a degree, BUT 1) i don’t think it is as good as a "full" degree in a specific language, as you can only get soo into one language (as you’d be doing 2 languages for 1 degree) with that it wouldn’t seem you’d be as proficient in one of the languages, let alone 2 and 2) it could get confusing as hell! lol
But~ in the future you can always take the other language to add for another degree etc.. if money and time are no object.. though it always is~ x_x
On a specific business note~ Chinese would probably be better in this regard. The Chinese economy is huge and ever exploding. You’d more likely get a job etc.. i think (but of course, it’s just imho) The Japanese economy just seems to be shrinking (especially for foreigners, where the only jobs seem to be to teach English (only a 1-2 year thing for most people) or go in the IT field.. yeah.. China seems more foreigner friendly and more possible with a job~ especially now. Sadly, I’m much more interested in Japan~ and… it seems so impossible to work in Japan TT__TT
On the specific language points~ I’ve studied both and each have their challenges (I’ve studied Japanese longer though btw). Like the other answerers mentioned~ Chinese can be hard with the tones and a character mean many things, but luckily, no verb conjugation. Japanese on the other hand is soo easy to pronounce once you know what to expect, but there is verb conjugation etc.. (i hate grammar and such x__x)
Also, there are the separate alphabets besides the adoption of the Chinese characters in Japanese. The katakana and hiragana is real easy and once you memorize and learn them~ its much easier to read and learn to write Japanese. So, at first i found Japanese easier right off the bat in that regard. For Chinese, there are just the intricate characters (simplified or traditional~ doesn’t really make a difference) and when you begin, you just learn the pinyin (english characters) so.. it’s not like you can really begin to read or write on your own for practice until much later i find.
I’m in the same predicament and i totally understand how confusing and daunting this stuff seems >< Luckily.. you still have more time to research and look into this stuff (as you said you’re not in college yet)
yup.. hope i helped!! ^__^
Mandarin is REALLY! hard to learn. Japanese is simpler. But that is not the point. It all depends on what language YOU want to learn. I learned the Hebrew and Aramaic (base language of Hebrew and Arabic) alphabets, and very glad I did 😀
Both languages are hard to learn, and very different from each other, since neither is related to English or to the other (even Russian and Hindi are at least distantly related to English).
Japanese has a different sentence order (I think it’s Subject Object Verb, whereas ours is SVO, e.g. "I [S] hit [V] the ball [O]"–in Japanese that would be "I the ball hit"), whereas Chinese has the same as ours I think. OTOH, Japanese has a more familiar intonation–its intonation sounds like Spanish, whereas Chinese is just kind of alien. Also–and more importantly–Chinese is heavily dependent on tone. The same sound ("ma") can mean "mother", "sh**", or a couple other things depending what tone you say it in. There’s no exact equivalent in English, and that might be an obstacle to learning it.
Of course you know about Chinese writing. In Japanese you’ll have to deal with that AND their own alphabets (they have two, one mainly for foreign words I think, but they’re true alphabets).
One side note is that you may want to consider whether you prefer Chinese or Japanese green tea. They’re subtly different–I prefer Japanese ("sen cha"), myself. I wouldn’t mention it, except if you live there you’ll be drinking a lot of it.
there is no such country as Mandaria where all Mandarians must speak Mandarin…
learn Chinese Chinese spoken by Chinese people as the official language of China…
In the United States the Asian and Pacific Islander population is projected to grow 213 percent, from 10.7 million to 33.4 million, in the next 50 years, a substantial demographic shift. Chinese share of the nation’s population will double, from 3.8 percent to 8 percent.
If you are doing or plan to do business in China, if you export products or service to China, if you have strategic interest in Chinese language and culture, if you need Chinese Language Teachers to train your trainers within your organization. It becomes more important for you to learn Chinese language.