New Language: Chinese or Japanese
 

I'm going to be a sophomore in college next year, studying engineering. I've got deferred admission for an MBA after I graduate and do a couple years of work.

I expect to do something with business/engineering.

Will it be useful to learn Chinese or Japanese? Which one will be more useful in, say, 10 years? I know Japan is big now, but it seems that things might be moving China's way.

I'm looking to probably use the Rosetta Stone software -- any opinions on this?

Re: New Language: Chinese or Japanese
 

Arabic!

Re: New Language: Chinese or Japanese
 

japanese. It is IMO one of the easiest languages to learn (except for the kanji). I have heard that chinese is one of the hardest to learn. Also japanese makes more sense for buisness related stuff.

Re: New Language: Chinese or Japanese
 

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japanese. It is IMO one of the easiest languages to learn (except for the kanji). I have heard that chinese is one of the hardest to learn. Also japanese makes more sense for buisness related stuff.

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I think your 15 years out of date. China is rocking economically these days. Since this is OOT, the japanese chicks are hotter but there are not as many of them. Just one more thing to consider...

Re: New Language: Chinese or Japanese
 

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japanese. It is IMO one of the easiest languages to learn (except for the kanji). I have heard that chinese is one of the hardest to learn. Also japanese makes more sense for buisness related stuff.

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That is silly. Japanese has a complicated writing system and grammar. Not to mention there are many ways to say things in differing levels of politeness. And "kanji" is a really big part of Japanese. I dont know how you can say Japanese is an easy language at all. Its one of the hardest imo, though definintely not as hard as Chinese.

I say learn Chinese. Choose Mandarin. Everyone knows that this is the language of the future. China will become more powerful and companies will be looking for people that can speak/write Chinese to become part of that boom. Plus, if you learn to read/write Chinese, you already have a large foundation in Japanese kanji.


Oh yeah, right now I am trying to learn Mandarin. I already speak Cantonese with pretty good fluency, so I am using Pimsleur to learn how to speak Mandarin. I downloaded the first three lessons of Pimsleur Mandarin on EMule hehehe... Later on Ill find something to help me learn how to read and write Chinese...

Re: New Language: Chinese or Japanese
 

Mandarin is the one that Rosetta Stone offers -- looks like i'll have to do some research to figure out which one would be best

Re: New Language: Chinese or Japanese
 

Chinese and its not even close.

seriously- not even close.

Re: New Language: Chinese or Japanese
 

Last semester I took a class called China's Challenges to the Global Economy. It was a Political Science class, but we also covered a ton of economic stuff. Learning Japanese may help more for the next few years still, but pretty soon Chinese will be far more valuable in the long run.

Re: New Language: Chinese or Japanese
 

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That is silly. Japanese has a complicated writing system and grammar. Not to mention there are many ways to say things in differing levels of politeness.

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i have to disagree. I took japanese for only 2 years in HS. My family is italian and my dads side is all fluent and speak it at family gatherings and stuff. I went to itally for 6 weeks. I took italian in college. I still know MUCH more japanese than italian. The gramar of japanese is actaully quite logical (and they actually do have very few exceptions, unlike engilsh.) The hardest parts of japanese are kanji (obviously) and the weird words they use for describing objects in plural (that [censored] doesnt make any sense).

Re: New Language: Chinese or Japanese
 

chinese