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Thanks for those insights - that is interesting and very helpful. Seems you have more Chinese background so you may be a tad biased but please give your honest

Thanks for those insights - that is interesting and very helpful. Seems you have more Chinese background so you may be a tad biased but please give your honest opinion (which is valued greatly, given your extensive experience!): which is more fun to speak & listen to, Japanese or Mandarin ? Also you're planning to visit/live in HK do you plan to (or already) learn(ing) Cantonese ?

KennyCason 9y ago
I have much more experience with Japanese. I started Japanese a year earlier than Chinese and studied them concurrently after that. I also studied abroad in Japan for a year. I have also written/read/used Japanese considerably more. While I did concurrently speak/use Chinese often during that period, I found I had to put less effort into Chinese. (We're still talking 1000s of hours). Nowadays, I use Chinese much more frequently because my wife is Chinese and our language-of-communication is Chinese. We've been married for 6.5 years, so that certainly helped my Chinese ramp up and overtake my Japanese. However, in terms of scientific vocabulary, only until recently, my Japanese vocab was greater than my Chinese. I've been reading many more books and forcing myself to write more in Chinese to build up my skills. (Have a few random posts on my blog) It's amazing how important all aspects: listening/reading/writing/speaking are important to learning a language. :)
- mrschwabe 9y ago
  Thanks again KC ! Inspiring stuff. Bookmarked your blog for future reading.
KennyCason 9y ago
In regards to learning Cantonese, I have no immediate plans to learn Cantonese and would rather continue learning Korean. But for the next block of foreseeable future I've decided to double down on Chinese/Japanese so that I'm not just maintaining, but am improving them. As to which is more fun to speak. This is difficult. I really enjoy both. I think because I have spent more time with Japanese people, and I find their culture to be a bit more wild, I have more fun with Japanese. Japanese are often conservative on the outside, and much more liberal/wild once you're on the inner group. I also find Japanese people to be more willing to hang with foreigners while Chinese are a bit more cliquish. Though much of this I strongly feel this is largely in part of my lack of long experience of living in China. I have noticed that the more I am in China and around Chinese people, I start enjoying it more as well. But at this point, it all just feels "part of my life", and I'm sure some of the appeal of Japanese was biased as it was my first major foreign experience.

KennyCason 9y ago

I have much more experience with Japanese. I started Japanese a year earlier than Chinese and studied them concurrently after that. I also studied abroad in Japan for a year. I have also written/read/used Japanese considerably more. While I did concurrently speak/use Chinese often during that period, I found I had to put less effort into Chinese. (We're still talking 1000s of hours). Nowadays, I use Chinese much more frequently because my wife is Chinese and our language-of-communication is Chinese. We've been married for 6.5 years, so that certainly helped my Chinese ramp up and overtake my Japanese. However, in terms of scientific vocabulary, only until recently, my Japanese vocab was greater than my Chinese. I've been reading many more books and forcing myself to write more in Chinese to build up my skills. (Have a few random posts on my blog) It's amazing how important all aspects: listening/reading/writing/speaking are important to learning a language. :)

mrschwabe 9y ago
Thanks again KC ! Inspiring stuff. Bookmarked your blog for future reading.

KennyCason 9y ago

In regards to learning Cantonese, I have no immediate plans to learn Cantonese and would rather continue learning Korean. But for the next block of foreseeable future I've decided to double down on Chinese/Japanese so that I'm not just maintaining, but am improving them. As to which is more fun to speak. This is difficult. I really enjoy both. I think because I have spent more time with Japanese people, and I find their culture to be a bit more wild, I have more fun with Japanese. Japanese are often conservative on the outside, and much more liberal/wild once you're on the inner group. I also find Japanese people to be more willing to hang with foreigners while Chinese are a bit more cliquish. Though much of this I strongly feel this is largely in part of my lack of long experience of living in China. I have noticed that the more I am in China and around Chinese people, I start enjoying it more as well. But at this point, it all just feels "part of my life", and I'm sure some of the appeal of Japanese was biased as it was my first major foreign experience.