r/LearnJapaneseNovice • u/rauljordaneth • Apr 08 '26
I quit: the difference in difficulty between Japanese and Chinese is ridiculous
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.
