In 2006 I decided to learn a second language as I wanted a mental challenge and to experiance a different culture. I also wanted a language that was widely used (to ensure opportunity to practice) and a language that may be useful to my career.
In 2006 I decided to learn a second language as I wanted a mental challenge and to experiance a different culture. I also wanted a language that was widely used (to ensure opportunity to practice) and a language that may be useful to my career.
I ended up researching more about Japanease, Cantonese and Mandarin. After listening to some samples of each I dropped Japanease, I had been told that Japanease has a lot of sounds that sound almost the same to a westener. As far as I was concerned this seemed to be true, I found it easier to pick out individual sounds from the Canotonese and Mandarin sentances (not very scientific but there you go).
I discovered that although I was likely to find more Cantonese speakers in England (particularly with the Hong Kong connection), Mandarin was the official language of China and spoken by many more people, with more materials on the Internet. The final clincher was that Cantonese has more tones than Mandarin (I guessed I was going to have trouble with these so the fewer tones the better).
That is how I settled on Mandarin, my reasons may not stand up to detailed analysis (how many of our big decisions do?) but they are reasons, and now I was committed to learning Mandarin.
1 comment:
I wish you luck with your studies! As someone who majored Japanese and has now been living in (Mandarin-speaking) Taiwan for three years, I can say that Mandarin has been a LOT harder for me.
As you said, though, a lot more people speak it. If you work through any Chinese textbooks, I'd love your feedback, so I can add it to my Chinese textbook reviews. You may also find my pinyin tone tool or my Chinese number converter useful, too. Once again, I wish you the best with your studies; we Mandarin students have to stick together!
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