easiest asian language? (1 Viewer)

[Hercules6]

hey

I want to learn an asian language at the ANU
are any known for being easier/harder than other?
at the moment I'm thinking either chinese or arabic
Furthermore, is there a particular language that is highly regarded/sought after by employers (particularly commonwealth agencies), In that, it could/would offer/open many/more and better employment opportunities?

Any ideas would be appreciated

cheers

smitty

 

[-tal-]

Cantonese is easier to learn than Mandarin (but, only because being Asian, I'm used to getting the right inflections for Cantonese. I've heard non-Asian friends say learning to speak Mandarin is easier).

Mandarin is more highly sought after I'd say, it's more commonly spoken in China.

Eh, don't know jack about Arabic.

 

[Davo1111]

imo indonesian (bahasa to malaysians).

Sammy_blue does jap

(Benefit of indonesian - the letters are the same as english)

 

[jas0nt]

chinese isn't a language mate.

cantonese is pretty much only useful if you want to work in HK.
Mandarin is useful if you want to work around asian countries.

so Mandarin >>>> cantonese in terms of usefulness. i'd honestly be surprised if ANU even offered courses on cantonese.

 

[lyounamu]

I reckon Korean is easy. But in terms of importance and other shit, I reckon it's best to go for Japanese.

 

[Animals]

Swahili.

 

[lionking1191]

I reckon Korean is easy. But in terms of importance and other shit, I reckon it's best to go for Japanese.

for usefulness its definitely mandarin > jap seeing the trend in global economy

that said i'll take jap over chinese in uni when i get the chance

 

[lyounamu]

for usefulness its definitely mandarin > jap seeing the trend in global economy

that said i'll take jap over chinese in uni when i get the chance

In terms of importance and other shit, I would go for Japanese..lol

But in a serious sense, Mandarin is extremely difficult to learn - considering all the kanji you have to know.

 

[Animals]

I don't understand the question. Isn't there only one Asian language and that's called 'Asian'?

 

[Sammy-Blue]

I've always found japanese quite easy. Although if you want to speak it properly you will have to religiously train yourself to pronounce everything correctly. Annotations and inflections and whatnot are much more important than in english. Another quirk of Japanese is that how things are written is not exactly how you say them in conversation, although this doesn't occur that often.

Other than that, the only difficult part is building up your vocab, which is just sit down and start reading until it sticks. Sentence structuring, verb/noun modifications, plain/polite forms etc. aren't that difficult to get your head around.

Right now, I'd choose mandarin over anything else. I'll probably pick it up next year as long as it doesn't clash with japanese.

 

[studynz2008]

I guess Korean is one of the most easiest
Second is Nihonggo (Japanese)
Mandarin/Cantonese is very much hard to learn

 

[bigboyjames]

hindi

 

[Hercules6]

I think I'll do Arabic.

I'm pretty sure it can be a major in the security analysis degree.

I want a language that won't be confined to one or a few countries.

Ideally i'd learn spanish, but you can't do that with security analysis. So seeing as arabic is spoken quite widely (west asia, north africa, middle east) etc, I think I'll go for that.

Thoughts?

p.s thanks a lot I'm really enjoying hearing everyone's ideas

Cheers

 

[stonearse]

Teo Chow for the win

 

[advanced sam]

japanese is the second easiest language to learn

 

[rochelleee]

filipino is the easiest cos its most similar to european (spanish), with the benefit of english characters and similarities..
but it's not very useful i admit.

do jap it sounds fun.

 

[AkaiHanabi]

Teo Chow for the win

LOL

But seriously. Teo chiew is very conversational in nature, and is quite difficult to pick up. I have heard of cases where people have picked it up after constant exposure to the language.

That aside, I would think that it'd be easy to learn vietnamese or indonesian, because they use the same characters as English. however, if you already have a background in Chinese for example, it'd be easy to pick up the other dialects of Chinese, or to learn Japanese.

 

[advanced sam]

english the hardest language to learn

 

[Animals]

Isn't Asian just one language? I thought like the China people spoke Asian. I'm confused. How can there be an 'easy' Asian language when there's only one?

 

[Nostalgia]

Cantonese is easier to learn than Mandarin (but, only because being Asian, I'm used to getting the right inflections for Cantonese. I've heard non-Asian friends say learning to speak Mandarin is easier).

No it isn't, Catonese has more tones than Mandarin, not to mention it is an extremely ugly language...
For the easiest Asian language, Malay or Indonesian, they use Latin Alphabets. Malay has more words from English origins hence it is more easier. eg; Kualiti-Quality Komputer-Computer Teksi-Taxi Informasi-Information Biskut-Biscuit Kaunter-Counter
Indonesian is similar to Malay and both languages are mutally intelligable but I suppose Indonesian has more words from Dutch origins....