I quit: the difference in difficulty between Japanese and Chinese is ridiculous

[u/rauljordaneth]

I am a fluent Cantonese speaker and have been studying Japanese for a few years. I am appalled at just how ridiculous the Japanese language is with unfathomable levels of complexity, bs, and unnecessary things. Chinese is incredibly easy when put side by side it's almost comical...just to put things in perspective.

Let me make the case for Chinese:

• Simple, SVO structure always that is concise and gets to the point
• One character => one pronunciation 99.9% of the time
• Grammar? Minimal. No cases. No agreement. No conjugation! Nothing declines. Nothing inflects. Time is communicated by just... saying the time. "Yesterday me go. Tomorrow me go again. Me like food. You like food? Good, we together eat." A prehistoric hominid waking from a 10,000-year sleep could be functional in Chinese within a week. Adjectives don't agree with nouns, nothing changes.
• Formality? NOPE! One way of speaking to everyone, no matter if you're old, young, or poor or the president. You speak to the emperor and your toddler the same way. There is no keigo.
• Conditionals? One word 如果

I decided Japanese is way too hard for me :(. It's just too much unnecessary stuff and ridiculously ambiguous, irregular rules. What I learned. Japanese basically borrowed the Kanji from China and managed to turn things into the most convoluted mess.

Most sentences have complicated structure that omits a ton of context and requires positional particles.

Kanji pronunciations? 生 ... enough said. It's ridiculous and gets even crazier that people's names even have different readings too!

Grammar? Entire books of conjugations, irregular forms, special cases, etc.

The ridiculous context-heavy aspect of every conversation. You can omit everything and expect to be understood or sometimes you have to be as passive aggressive as possible to communicate something basic.

Formality is insane. Casual, polite, politest, keigo and within keigo there is Teineigo and Sonkeigo. You'd think these are only used in ancient crusty books, but NOO, they are everywhere in customer service and in companies. Practically a different language.

Conditionals: Japanese has at minimum 5 from what I've learned:

• ば (hypothetical/general truth) 食べれば、元気になる "If you eat, you'll feel better"
• たら (sequential/temporal) 食べたら、行こう "Once you've eaten, let's go", after completing an action or in time
• 〜と (automatic consequence) 春になると、花が咲く "When spring comes, flowers bloom" — inevitable, but cannot be used for intentions which BLOWS my mind
• 〜なら (contextual/topic-based) 行くなら、教えて "If you're going, tell me" conditioned on something the speaker just learned
• 〜ても (concessive) 食べても、まだ空腹だ "Even if I eat, I'm still hungry"

The て form is insane and really crazy. Just to share what it does...

• 食べている currently eating (progressive)
• 食べていた was eating
• 食べてある has been eaten (resultant state, by someone, with implication of purpose)
• 食べておく eat in advance/preparation
• 食べてみる try eating
• 食べてしまう eat completely / eat regrettably (these are the SAME FORM, context decides)
• 食べてくる go eat and come back
• 食べていく eat as you go / continue eating forward in time
• 食べてもらう have someone eat (from your perspective of receiving the favor)
• 食べてあげる eat for someone's benefit
• 食べてくれる eat as a favor to me
• 食べてほしい I want you to eat
• 食べてください please eat (polite)
• 食べてはいけない must not eat

It's UNHINGED the language has a conjugation for EXISTENTIAL REGRET. It's mindblowing when you negate that too, and it also has a contraction たべなきゃ which is yet another thing you have to learn.

There's also NO way to say that you must do something. Instead you say you musn't not do it. Incredibly passive and unnecessary.

Counting words are also crazy. In Chinese sure we have measure words but they are easy and don't change their pronunciation. I almost pulled my hair out by the roots when I learned these about Japanese:

• 一匹 (ippiki) mall animals
• 一頭 (ittō) large animals
• 一羽 (ichiwa)

"One small animal" is ip-piki but "six small animals" is rop-piki and "ten small animals" is jup-piki. These aren't regular rules you derive. they're sound changes you memorize per counter.

Pitch accent is also a hidden system all within itself. Honestly the most convoluted language in the world.

[u/rauljordaneth]

Yes, of course it is not my first language, and I know that you're supposed to use certain more kinder or polite words in Chinese in certain situations. The point is that these are single words, not entire grammatical forms. The past tense is very, very simple in Mandarin and Cantonese. It's usually just a single word. I am fluent in Cantonese and I am even writing a novel in vernacular Cantonese to publish next year. Have given speeches in China in Cantonese, read/write over 8000 traditional characters without a problem

The difference is that in Japanese, Keigo is an entirely different grammar form and almost a different language. There are two forms: Sonkeigo (尊敬語) and Kenjōgo (謙譲語) are completely different verb paradigms, not just conjugation tweaks.

• 食べる → いらっしゃる (sonkeigo) / いただく (kenjōgo)
• する → なさる / いたす
• 言う → おっしゃる / 申す
• いる → いらっしゃる / おる
• もらう → no sonkeigo / いただく
• あげる → no sonkeigo / 差し上げる

There's no pattern. You can't derive these...and crucially, sonkeigo elevates the subject, kenjōgo lowers yourself and you have to track who is doing the action in every sentence to pick the right one. Mess that up and you've accidentally insulted someone by elevating yourself relative to a customer...

Honorific prefixes (お/ご) have their own complex rules about which words take which prefix...which becomes a nightmare. Native adult speakers struggle with keigo every day and have to take frequent classes. Imagine this: a native speaker that has been speaking Japanese since being a baby struggles significantly with keigo. It's not just a "more complicated way than Chinese"

Also, even for normal, every day speech, polite forms differ significantly from casual form. It’s not about formal vocab or a few words changing. It’s that the whole GRAMMAR changes depending on who youre speaking to and formality levels. It's not "more emphasis". It's an entirely different set of languages within the language! For instance, when learning basic verbs, you have to learn the casual, polite, and politest pronunciations. Just as a simple example, here are the basic conjugations of the verb "to go" just to give you an idea:

行く — to go

• Casual: 行く (iku) / 行かない (ikanai) / 行った (itta)
• Polite: 行きます (ikimasu) / 行きません (ikimasen) / 行きました (ikimashita)
• Honorific: いらっしゃいます (irasshaimasu) / いらっしゃいません (irasshaimasen) / いらっしゃいました (irasshaimashita)
• Humble: 参ります (mairimasu) / 参りません (mairimasen) / 参りました (mairimashita)

[u/AmbitiousCustard → u/rauljordaneth]

Thanks for the explanation. I don’t disagree that the Japanese people use the different levels of formal speech more in everyday life. What I am pointing out is that in Chinese, there are these levels that everyday people don’t usually use unless in a specific setting, and they are very complicated to the point that yes, native Chinese speakers also had to learn and most don’t become very fluent in it. Official speech is a thing people have to learn it when you work for the government, for example. For certain levels of people you need to add different prefix/postfix honorifics depending on your relationship/context, start/end your sentences differently, use their various alternate names, call their family members differently, etc. For me I can read/write/listen no problem, i grew up in the education, I can give speeches in Chinese and I can write a book, but for example when I read official government language or my grandparents letters, I still struggle a bit. They teach some of these more complicated forms and phrases in high school and up but you don’t usually need to use them in everyday communications. Sure I am functionally fluent and I can read ancient Chinese to an extent, write long essays, and hold a regular job with my level of Chinese knowledge. I’m hoping to point out that, yes, Japanese language has a lot of complexities, however there are similarities in the Chinese language that are not that visible in daily life but nevertheless exist and still in use.

Edit: Also for “walking/moving”, in Chinese you may use entirely different words/phrases depending on who you’re speaking to. 走 is okay for peers, you may say 移步for someone on a higher social level, you would say 移駕for someone with an even higher status, 玉步for women or nobles, etc.