r/japanese • u/stelstelste • 1d ago

learning japanese and chinese at the same time - discussion

Hi,

My story:

I have been learning Japanese probably all my life, unfortunately it was never effective so that I could actually converse freely. I also studied Japanese culture and graduated with a N5. I remember a lot, but I also need to repeat grammar and characters.

Chinese I am halfway through the HSK1 textbook. I am keen to develop skills in this language. I like the sound of it, and learning the characters makes me happy.

Asian languages in general are my passion, I have surrounded myself with them and the culture since I was a child, but I would also like to have solid skills already. Especially after so many years... I would like to use them in my art career and open up to these markets.

Main question:

Do you think that Iearning two asian languages at once is possible? and if so, I want to know your stories and tips

6 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

3

u/vonikay のんねいてぃぶ @ <Australia> 1d ago

I started learning Mandarin when my Japanese was around N3 level, and I found that it took up a bit more time doing two languages, but overall they both helped each other! My kanji writing skills got much better, even though I was learning simplified.

The only downside is that sometimes I see JP kanji words that I haven't learnt perfectly yet, and my brain decides to 'fill in the blanks' with the Mandarin pronunciation, lol. (To this day I still try to read 抽選（ちゅうせん chuusen） as ちょうせん chousen, haha!)

3

u/kafunshou 1d ago

I once tried that because I thought it could have some synergy effects with kanji/hanzi and Chinese loanwords or onyomi pronunciation.

But instead it was very confusing and I stopped learning Mandarin after two weeks. Can’t recommend it therefore.

But it was quite interesting to see that kanji/hanzi can be a elegant, good writing system and not such a mess like in Japanese. 🙂 You immediately see that it was designed for Chinese and not at all for Japanese.

1

u/ToxicAvenger161 1d ago

I don't think they conflict alot except for the kanji part. I had more difficulty studying swedish and japanese at the same time than I had when studying japanese and chinese, but I only studied chinese for one course in uni, so my opinion isnt that valid.

But if you want solid skills, I'd focus on one language. At least until you can have basic conversations in that language.