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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...

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Luzion's post is VERY biased, since he is a already a native chinese speaker, so take his advice with a grain of salt.

The fact of the matter is that Chinese is much harder to learn than Japanese. When it comes to pronunciation, there are a lot more subtleties that you wouldn't be able to pick up as an adult because it's past your critical period for language development. An incorrect pronunciation of a syllable could change a word's entire meaning. And not to mention the written language is nuts.

I am studying Japanese myself and it is very easy to pick up.