What do you guys think of this (https://youtu.be/pG7Uqq6a6cw)? Especially with the famous notion of “***Chinese people already knew kanji, so it’s easy***”.
It’s easier, because you have massive character knowledge.
But it’s not easy! Grammar, vocab, culture, and more are different. It’s still hard, but not as hard.
I’m a white guy but I know some Chinese learning Japanese, and I talked to them about it a few times. From those conversations, I agree with many points overall in this video.
That said, here are some things which this video missed:
* Another advantage you didn’t talk about is that Chinese often know more than one language already, and being bilingual or more makes language acquisition easier.
* Another advantage you didn’t talk about is some idioms are from China, and you will know how to use it properly.
* A third and most important advantage is that Chinese education system teaches students proper study habits. I’m sure if you look you can find some Chinese who can’t study, but it’s not like the USA where most people can’t even sit down and spend an hour studying, they have no concept of how to even do that. So many questions here on this sub are basically boiling down to, people have bad studying habits (or no study habits at all).
Anyway, worrying about this will get you nowhere. You can’t get their advantage, so nothing to wish for.
Please keep in mind, Chinese had to suffer through many years of strict schooling to get their massive character knowledge. Have you had many Chinese friends who actually went through the entire Chinese education system? It seems really rough compared to the USA (though USA has many problems).
Not speaking any Chinese language, so I could be wrong, but the vocabulary part seems to gloss over very quickly the fact that there is a massive shared vocabulary, if I’m not mistaken? Like sure there is a lot of false friends, but there is still dozen of thousand of 漢語 with basically the same definition?
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Key point is, “easier”, does not mean “easy”
It’s easier, because you have massive character knowledge.
But it’s not easy! Grammar, vocab, culture, and more are different. It’s still hard, but not as hard.
I’m a white guy but I know some Chinese learning Japanese, and I talked to them about it a few times. From those conversations, I agree with many points overall in this video.
That said, here are some things which this video missed:
* Another advantage you didn’t talk about is that Chinese often know more than one language already, and being bilingual or more makes language acquisition easier.
* Another advantage you didn’t talk about is some idioms are from China, and you will know how to use it properly.
* A third and most important advantage is that Chinese education system teaches students proper study habits. I’m sure if you look you can find some Chinese who can’t study, but it’s not like the USA where most people can’t even sit down and spend an hour studying, they have no concept of how to even do that. So many questions here on this sub are basically boiling down to, people have bad studying habits (or no study habits at all).
Anyway, worrying about this will get you nowhere. You can’t get their advantage, so nothing to wish for.
Please keep in mind, Chinese had to suffer through many years of strict schooling to get their massive character knowledge. Have you had many Chinese friends who actually went through the entire Chinese education system? It seems really rough compared to the USA (though USA has many problems).
Not speaking any Chinese language, so I could be wrong, but the vocabulary part seems to gloss over very quickly the fact that there is a massive shared vocabulary, if I’m not mistaken? Like sure there is a lot of false friends, but there is still dozen of thousand of 漢語 with basically the same definition?