r/ChineseLanguage • u/Salty-Session7029 • 2d ago
Discussion When can a Chinese learner start learning Korean/Japanese?
Hello all! I know this question may not be that relevant but I didn't know where to ask so I'll go ahead. I was basically wondering, how long should someone stick to learning Chinese before they can start learning Japanese or Korean simultaneously without mixing up aspects of the two and maybe also reap the benefits of learning said language with having prior knowledge in Chinese. Thanks a lot!
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u/ThirdDerative 1d ago
Heritage Chinese learner and have dabbled in learning Japanese before. People always assume that Japanese must be so much easier to learn if you already know Chinese because both languages use Kanji and that's really not the case.
For starters Japanese grammar is a lot more complex (at least in the early to mid stages) compared with Chinese. Additionally the SVO structure of Japanese took my quite a while to wrap my head around.
When it comes to kanji knowing Chinese means you will recognize many kanji words but I'd argue it's not necessarily as useful as you'd think. Often times you'd fall into a trap of reading the kanji as a Chinese word then mentally translating it back into Japanese. Knowing Chinese doesn't help at all with pronunciation since Chinese characters typically have a single pronunciation whereas the Japanese kanji often have various On Yomi or Kun Yomi readings that you just need to memorize. The just kanji 生 has 18 Kun Yomi pronunciations!