so for my language for my BA i am going to take either chinese or japanese.

i would like to take japanese because i would rather go to japan then china one day so it would be useful in that sense. i love the japanese culture.

on the other hand, chinese would be more applicable in social/business settings. i am going for teaching and chinese is becoming popular as a language to be taught in schools. if i ever went into the buisness field it could be to my advantage as well.

what do you think, realistically?
i don't know if it's mandarin or cantonese!

it's just chinese 101!

we learn to read pinying (think that's what it's called) and pronunciations.

personally, i would learn mandarin chinese. china's economy will surpass ours one day, it is a mathematical certainty. go for the cash.

i'm quite offended when ppl think japanese should be preferred cuz its cooler, but hey, if things are taken on a whim, then u aren't gonna be getting anywhere

anyhow, although chinese is extremely hard, japanese is arguably harder, since kanji is still used IN ADDITION to the alphabets (this isn't really an issue with korean);

and chances are, chinese 101 is mandarin, since cantonese is very rare (i speak canto^^) in school settings

anyhow, good luck!

Definitely Chinese. The written Japanese language is based off Chinese, so once you learn Chinese you'll be able to comprehend some Japanese characters. And a lot of Japanese culture is taken from Chinese culture as well.

take both if you can!!!

Take Chinese. I spent the last two years in China. A wonderful culture and people. It would be great for business and a fun place to visit or even live for a while. You could go there and teach English.

Chinese will prove more useful in today's settings.

For all practical purposes Chinese woulld be best. Are you going to take Mandarin or Cantanese? I personally just took Spanish; it just seems like the best way to go.

u should take chinese bcuz even though u may want 2 visit japan some day, u still have the rest of ur life for teaching and u never know there may be a day when a little chinese kid walks in and doesnt speak english OR if u have enough time in ur schedule take both bcuz japanese is also popular even though chinese is spoken more in the US

Okay, please allow me to give you some helpful advice. First of Chinese and Japanese are very different, both culturally, ethnically, their foods, their writing, and their language.

In terms of their language, the Chinese language is much closer to English with subject verb object, just like English. Japanese is one of three languages that doesn't belong to any family of languages and has no common link. Thus Japanese grammar is especially different. It goes subject, object, verb.

Now tones are important in both Chinese and Japanese and speaking either flat will not suffice. Mandarin Chinese has many tones and Cantonese even more so. Japanese usually only has three tones (high, flat, low). Japanese is also very vowel rich so pronunciation is quite easy as there are only five vowel sounds. Japanese will give you more lax in terms of tones. If you are in a restaurant and you ask Japanese if you ask for haSHI it is likely someone will bring you chopsticks (HAshi) and not a bridge. Chinese has much shorter words than Japanese and thus why it's pitches are more important. In Chinese 'ma' can be 'horse,' 'hemp,' 'mother,' to name a few.

In terms of Chinese and Japanese's writing, Chinese is significantly harder. It is entirely character based and there are quite literally thousands upon thousands of characters you will need to know. Japanese acknowledges 5,000 characters in total, using only 2,500 (the other 2,500 are considered archiac and for names), and of the 2,500 in use only 600 are needed for every day life. However in both languages you will need to know two or more readings per each character depending on it's use in a sentence or clause. Japanese also has two phonetic alphabets (one for their native words and one for foreign words) and the native alphabet can be used to spell out a word if you don't know a character. In Chinese you're screwed. Also, the alphabets following a Character can tell you how to read a character especially in the case of verbs and adjectives.

Ex. The character for life, birth, rebirth, revival, growth. All sounds before the period are the character, all after are the phonetic alphabet. This is all the same character.

i.kiru - to live; i.kaseru - to revive; u.mu - to give birth; u.mareru - to be reborn; o.u - to grow; ha.yasu - to grow.

Now one thing in Japanese is there is lots of non-verbal communication. Growing up with a Japanese grandmother and even meeting Japanese people my whole life, I don't always understand it. Heck, some Japanese claim they don't even understand it.

I hope that gives you a good idea of what you are getting into before you decide which of the two languages to take. Though please allow me to continue in terms of functionality.

Due to the complexity of both languages (Chinese more because of tones and writing; Japanese more because of the obscure grammar) both will be admirable.

First off, before you choose either, what country do you live in? If in Europe, this will most likely make you a jewel and you will get by on this skill alone. If you live in the Americas (particularly the States) however, you will need a useful skill such as international business or international law to back this up. Foreign relations will be useless. If you are into education, I honestly would recommend you get certified in English Second Language teaching. This could promise you employment for life in almost any country.

Now Japan is the capitol of electronics, animation, cars, and gadgets. Knowing Japanese and business would open many doors for you as Japanese people have trouble entirely grasping English because of the complexity of English sounds. Remember, Japan only has five vowel sounds whereas our letter 'a' can represent that many sounds alone.

Knowing Chinese will help you, especially in the future but again, you will need a skill to back it up (such as international business or law). As China is modernizing more rapidly, they will soon overcome any economy in the world. China already does the majority of the world's banking and with the manpower they have, they will become a powerhouse of industry and business.

Both will be a challenge for you and I hope this helps you in your quest to find a language to assist you. Ganbatte (please persevere).

um... i've never seen Japanese writing, but Chinese is really really complicated for the beginner who has no background knowledge about the language. Chinese is all about memorizing: the characters, calligraphy (which strokes you write first), and the pronounciation. Eventually, you'll need to memorize about 3000 charaters. lol. Good luck if you're going to take any of them though. =)

note: Mandarin and Cantonese are the languages in China. Both are almost similar in writing, but different when you say it.

Also, when you speak Chinese, it is different when you write it. lol. Like I said, it's very complicated. Still not sure about Japanese though...