Indian Politician Tells Kids To Learn Chinese & Japanese

[Mulboyne]

[jim katta]

After years of travel to Japan, and now living in Japan, and having the ability to speak and read Japanese, I can tell any young person that learning Japanese will not help you crack the Japanese business matrix in any majorly meaningful way. Understand it? YES. Enter it as an equal participant? NO. If you want to do business in Japan from overseas, hire a Japanese person, you'll save yourself a lot of time and annoyance. Of course if you are into self flagellation, go for it. Bottom line, outside of Japan, Japanese is almost totally useless and won't "really" open any big doors in business as most Japanese ready to deal with you in global business style will probably insist on speaking English anyway. I'm sure that business-to-business "within" Japan there are numerous exceptions to what I'm saying, but in regards to doing specifically 'global' business, I stand by my assertion.

On the other hand, learning Chinese will open an entire new realm for your business pursuits, as they generally value business/cash over cultural rigidity. Your time is better spent on Chinese.

[GuyJean]

After years of travel to Japan, and now living in Japan, and having the ability to speak and read Japanese, I can tell any young person that learning Japanese will not help you crack the Japanese business matrix in any majorly meaningful way. Understand it? YES. Enter it as an equal participant? NO. If you want to do business in Japan from overseas, hire a Japanese person, you'll save yourself a lot of time and annoyance. Of course if you are into self flagellation, go for it. Bottom line, outside of Japan, Japanese is almost totally useless and won't "really" open any big doors in business as most Japanese ready to deal with you in global business style will probably insist on speaking English anyway. I'm sure that business-to-business "within" Japan there are numerous exceptions to what I'm saying, but in regards to doing specifically 'global' business, I stand by my assertion.

On the other hand, learning Chinese will open an entire new realm for your business pursuits, as they generally value business/cash over cultural rigidity. Your time is better spent on Chinese.

I agree with your assessment of Japanese..

But what about Chinese? Why would it be different? Since the culture is so relationship based (Confucianism), would it be better to have a native Chinese as a business partner, rather than learning the language to 'convince' the Chinese you're serious?..

Maybe I'm just a lazy fuck. Well, no. No 'maybe' about it..

GJ

[Samurai_Jerk]

[The Chinese] generally value business/cash over cultural rigidity.

So true. It often amazes me how the Japanese with insist on doing something the "right" way (and I'm not talking legally or ethically) over the most profitable or commonsensical way.

I have a kind of silly example but it illistrates my point. Several weeks ago my girlfriend and I wanted to get some noodles and gyoza for lunch. We went to a ramen shop that has gyoza on the menu. We sat down and ordered two lunch sets with a side of gyoza but were told that gyoza were only available at dinner.

We decided to leave and go to a Chinese-run restaurant down the street. There was a noodle dish I wanted that wasn't on the lunch menu so we asked if it was possible to order it anyway. The lady looked like at us it was a crazy question and said we could. I leaned over and said to my girl friend, "That's one thing I like about the Chinese: money talks."

[GuyJean]

.. We decided to leave and go to a Chinese-run restaurant down the street. There was a noodle dish I wanted that wasn't on the lunch menu so we asked if it was possible to order it anyway. The lady looked like at us it was a crazy question and said we could. I leaned over and said to my girl friend, "That's one thing I like about the Chinese: money talks."

I think 'practical' comes to mind.. Damn. Now I'm hungry..

GJ

[ghostunit]

[Takechanpoo]

[Samurai_Jerk]

[omae mona]

I always like looking back at the guidelines published by the U.S. Foreign Service for guidelines about language learning difficulty.

Of course the difficulty of learning a new language depends on what your native language is. The page referenced above is for native English speakers. Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese are all listed in the hardest category (Category III). But Japanese has an asterisk next to it indicating "typically somewhat more difficult for native English speakers to learn than other languages in the same category".

So the US Foreign Service thinks Japanese is a bit harder than Chinese.

[Behan]

I've never studied Chinese so I can't say but all of my native English speaking friends who've studied both Chinese and Japanese have said they found Chinese easier. Grammatically it's much simpler and the characters don't have multiple wildly different readings. And let's face it, whether you need to remember 2000, 3000, or 5000 characters, you're pretty much fighting an uphill battle. Of course phoenetically they all think Chinese is tough.

For me the four tones of Mandarin were tough to hear and reproduce. But I agree with your friends about the easier grammar and standard pronunciations.
The first time I heard Cantonese I was surprised by how different it was from Mandarin. More like a different language than a different dialect.

[Samurai_Jerk]

The first time I heard Cantonese I was surprised by how different it was from Mandarin. More like a different language than a different dialect.

Differentiating a dialect from a separate language isn't black and white. I'm not sure why one would consider Cantonese and Mandarin dialects of Chinese if Spanish and Portuguese are different languages. There's got to be some politics involved there.

[Behan]

Differentiating a dialect from a separate language isn't black and white. I'm not sure why one would consider Cantonese and Mandarin dialects of Chinese if Spanish and Portuguese are different languages. There's got to be some politics involved there.

That could be. Maybe it's more politically expedient to have Mandarin and Cantonese thought of as being dialects of the same language. If they were different dialects perhaps a case could be made for their speakers being different ethnic groups.

[IkemenTommy]

After years of travel to Japan, and now living in Japan, and having the ability to speak and read Japanese, I can tell any young person that learning Japanese will not help you crack the Japanese business matrix in any majorly meaningful way.

You'll always increase your shot at getting a job at a customer service center taking complaint calls from Japan.