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Old 2008-11-27, 01:39   Link #1819
DarkHonour
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Somewhere in the East
Age: 36
Quote:
Originally Posted by LeoXiao View Post
I agree with you fully. And it's not just because of usefulness that one should learn other languages; knowing more than one language can help you get a feel for other perspectives of the world.

Japanese seems actually pretty easy to me. It's not so grammar-oriented like German or Russian, but is definitely more complex than a language like Chinese, and that's probably just because of all the words used in different social modes.
I agree with that part on Japanese. Compared to Chinese, it's easier to read and I read it faster than Chinese.

Having only a mediocre proficiency (i.e. usage in most everyday situations but not professionally), I tend to be quite bad at reading Chinese.

Chinese does have a few social modes too but not as distinct as Japanese. At the professional level, Chinese does sound a little different because they substitute some words for others, and can be confusing to those who didn't learn it.

For example, the word 'sorry' i.e. 對不起 (dui bu qi) will be substituted as 抱歉 (bao qian) in formal situation. It's somewhat similar to Japanese 'sumanai' 「すまない」 and 'moushi wake arimasen' 「申し訳ありません」.
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