Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, or Korean?

Which East Asian language to learn? Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, or Korean? Which is more useful, valuable, or easy? This article will help you to choose between three!

Why Learn East Asian Languages?

Learning a new language has become an essential aspect of the career and economic life of most career-oriented people.

Globalization has made it impossible for people to rely solely on their mother tongue. That’s the reason career choices in languages are higher today than ever.

The countries are now closer than ever, which has resulted in integrating the Indian economy with the outside world, particularly with countries of East Asian origin.

With so many options, choosing the right foreign language to learn is more crucial than ever. The three most sought-after East Asian tongues are Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and Korean.

The East Asian countries are some of the most vibrant, dynamic, diverse cultures and intellectually rich regions globally. Realizing the Asian Century, the rising importance of East Asia in the 21st century offers exciting career opportunities.

Thanks to the emergence of Japan, South Korea, and the People’s Republic of China in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the East Asian economic powerhouses, with their giant international companies, expanded their business footprints in India and globally.

They took advantage of India’s government’s new economic liberalization business policy. This has brought these countries and the need to learn these languages in preference to the famous European languages into sharp focus.

China, Japan, and South Korea are among the top five countries with the most international patent applications. East Asia’s growing importance in the 21st century offers exciting opportunities and challenges to students seeking successful careers in every field.

It enhances your potential business and job opportunities, not only in Chinese, Korean, or Japanese firms. It also helps you deal with companies in China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and other East or Southeast Asian countries.

The reason is the excellent pay package and comparatively lesser competition.

Language jobs are paid well since there aren’t many people who know them. Learning might help you to get a job in various sectors and industries.

Today, there is an ever-increasing demand for translators and interpreters in many international businesses.

The need to learn East Asian Languages couldn’t have been higher than it is today. This is why several Indian universities and learning centers offer Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean classes.

Chinese, Japanese, or Korean: Which one should you learn? 

If you wish to study one of the East Asian languages, the first question that comes to mind is: “What is easier to learn: Mandarin vs. Japanese vs. Korean?”

Is Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, or Korean the same, or what is the difference? Is it hard to learn any of these languages?

1. Popularity and Where is it spoken?

More young Indians are studying Chinese these days for obvious reasons. Chinese is a group of languages spoken by over 1.3 billion native speakers worldwide.

Mandarin is considered a native language by about two-thirds of China’s inhabitants and is the most commonly spoken language on the planet.

It is widespread in mainland China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, and Mongolia.

The vast population means new business opportunities, as you will most likely meet one Chinese in every three Asian people.

Many countries worldwide are interested in business with China and are actively involved in learning the Chinese language to understand and enhance business opportunities.

The Japanese language has 127 million native speakers, most of whom love to travel and invest in the Indian market.

Japanese is the most popular in India, followed by Chinese. Learning Japanese in India will help enhance your career prospects in the global job market.

On the other hand, South Korea boasts 80 million native speakers, a figure that would rise above 100 million if North Korea’s 25 million indigenous population were added. Korean is the third language of choice in India.

Learning a second language, such as Korean, is an intellectual and personal achievement that will provide many advantages to your professional career.

2. Economic strength and importance on the global stage

China is a superpower when it comes to economics. The Chinese economy is the second-largest in the world in terms of GDP after the United States. It’s the largest economy in the Asian continent and the largest in the world regarding purchasing power parity (PPP).

The Chinese market is enormous. The ‘Silk Road,’ ‘One Belt,’ and ‘One Road’ define the extensive Chinese economic global reach network.

China’s trade with India rose to $18.7 billion in 2017, and the country is already poised to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy in the next few decades. China’s export drive makes it a priority for people to learn the language in order to compete in the global economy.

China’s economic and population strength make Mandarin the preferred language to learn, ahead of Japanese and Korean. The future of Mandarin is full of career opportunities.

On the other hand, Japan is another economic powerhouse in Asia and the world. It is among the fastest-growing economies and one of the top five largest economies in the world. Most leading Japanese MNCs, especially those in the automobile and electronics sectors, directly invest in India.

If you are fluent in the Japanese language in India, it could help you if you are established in a career. But it could also open doors to new jobs for you.

The Korean economy is widely known for its ultimate contribution to high-quality consumer goods millions of people enjoy in India and worldwide.

Even a child in the belly knows something about Samsung, the world’s biggest mobile company. The Posco Giant talks about India’s most significant foreign direct investment—Hyundai, the second largest car manufacturer globally, and LG. The Korean economy has a strong presence in virtually every home in India.

Looking for courses? → (i) Japanese classes in Delhi (ii) Learn Japanese in Bangalore (iii) Top Korean institutes (iv) Korean learning centers in Delhi (v) Mandarin institutes in Delhi (vi) Chinese programs in Bangalore (vii) Study Chinese in Mumbai.

3. Career Scope associated with Korean, Chinese, and Japanese

All three languages allow you to improve your employment chances because the nations where they originate are tech giants.

So, if you are in the tech sector, either language offers you the best in technology. Translator and interpreter as a career option is the first choice due to limited supply and ever-increasing demand.

Japan delivers better quality than China, one reason India loves it so much. These days, many KPOs and BPOs are present in India, and jobs could involve email writing, speaking skills, customer care, and more.

It is where the Korean and Japanese languages offer excellent job opportunities for Indians.

Hundreds of well-known Korean companies have their presence in India.

These firms operate in almost every sector, i.e., Information Technology, business research, consumer electronics, R&D, life sciences, media, automobiles, construction industry, trading, finance, tourism, services, etc.

Today, India and South Korea’s trade records have increased tremendously, and many Korean companies are operating in the Indian market.

Korean companies prefer fluent candidates as their head offices are in Korea, and they need to communicate with them regularly. In the last few years, Career options in Korean have gained momentum.

China is your best bet if you are looking for a more substantial and vocal export and import market. To compete effectively, you need to learn Mandarin.

Mandarin is one language that is assuming a globally dominant position. It is gradually becoming a cultural force of reference and objectivity for the 21st century.

Furthermore, students can choose the Chinese language to secure employment in banking, trade, finance, diplomatic work, academics, news media, tours and travel, content management, etc.

For job seekers, Mandarin is the language of the future and, thus, job opportunities.

4. Hospitality, Travel, and Tourism

With such a large population, China rules in these sectors. Thousands of Indian businesses are profiting considerably from setting up shops near Chinese tourist destinations in India.

Moreover, more Indians are traveling to China than to Japan and Korea. Learning Chinese will make your journeys less stressful and more enjoyable if you plan to go to East Asia.

You can act as a linguist tour guide, translator, or interpreter to these tourists and make a massive profit from customer support personnel for businesses in the hospitality sector.

You can utilize your skills to work in the industry, assisting foreign travelers, communicating with them, and working in various travel, tourism, and hospitality sectors.

Notwithstanding, the Japanese and Korean languages offer vast market opportunities for people in the Hospitality and Tourism sectors. You should learn if you want to visit South Korea or Japan to travel or live.

When you speak the native language, you’ll immediately see considerable benefits in your everyday life. Thanks to simplified visa rules, More than three hundred thousand Indians visited these two exotic and fascinating countries in 2017.

5. Cultural awareness and the love of Music & Movies

Once again, the population of China creates a wide variety of cultures all over the country. The Chinese Dragon Festival, the Great Walls of China, Chinese films, and more are fascinating cultural reasons to learn Mandarin.

Hardly anyone doesn’t love Chinese karate and kung fu movies, especially those set in villages.

China’s culture is unique, colorful, and multi-layered, having evolved over the last 5,000 years. Good knowledge of Mandarin can allow you to watch these movies and TV series without needing a translation.

You may like — (i) Movies to Learn Korean (ii) Best Chinese Movies (iii) Learn Japanese with Movies.

If you love anime and manga, you need to learn Japanese. Japanese culture is governed by a spiritual principle known as Shinto, which states that all nature has a kami (god). As a result, environmental preservation and the turning of the season are widely cherished.

The ability to Speak Japanese can open your perspective on Japan’s values, customs, religious beliefs, ethics, manners, traditions, and aesthetics. No discussion of Japan is complete without mention of its unique and delicious cuisine.

You might find a new way to order your Sushi, Yakitori, or Tempura. There are temples to visit, sumo to watch, and mountains to climb. The list is virtually endless!

But if you are among the millions of people worldwide thrilled by Korean K-Pop, you have reasons to learn Korean. You will understand it better and enjoy every bit of it.

Korean Esports scenes, like League of Legends, Korean dramas, songs, and movies, are people’s favorites worldwide. Knowledge of the language will make it more exciting for you to learn.

Which is the easiest to learn?

Regarding computers, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean scripts share a common background, collectively called CJK characters. Occasionally, Vietnamese are included in making the CJKV abbreviation since Vietnamese historically used Chinese characters.

While linguistically unrelated, all four can be written horizontally and vertically, using Chinese characters.

The CJKV characters often include hànzì in Chinese, kanji, kana in Japanese, hanja, hangul in Korean, and hán tự or chữ nôm in Vietnamese.

Mandarin Chinese

Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language. Pronunciation in Mandarin Chinese is complicated because there are four tones and one neutral tone.

For distinct meanings, the same syllable can be pronounced with different sounds. One has to practice lots of listening to acquire the intonation and rhythm of the language.

You’d have to learn a staggering 3,000 to read a newspaper (out of around 50,000 in a Chinese dictionary).

Nowadays, Chinese media use fewer characters. To understand 90 percent of the content in publications, you need to know about 1,000 of around 50,000 individual hanzi made up of Written Chinese.

While the Chinese language has only one script, hànzì, at least two traditional and simplified versions are actively used worldwide.

The simplified form is officially used in the People’s Republic of China, Singapore, and Malaysia. On the other hand, the Republic of China, i.e., Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and overseas Chinese communities, tend to use traditional characters.

You can learn Chinese and take the official Chinese proficiency test. It is also called the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (汉语水平考试 (also known as the HSK).

You only need to show knowledge of 2,600 characters to pass the exam at the highest level, i.e., HSK Level 6 (Advanced). With 2,600 characters, you can read almost 98% of the written Mandarin Chinese language every day.

Chinese grammar and vocabulary are much more straightforward than pronunciation. Each word has a fixed and single form. Nouns or verbs do not take prefixes or suffixes, which show the tense, person, number, gender, or case of the subject.

Mandarin has little or no bound morphology, and there are no grammatical paradigms to memorize. Now, would this relieve you a little bit in your Chinese language study? Hope so! Try the HSK exam in India.

Japanese

Japanese writing is also an exquisite script, and it has evolved from its original Chinese script beginnings to become something intrinsically Japanese.

It has three alphabet systems. Hiragana (ひらがな) for native Japanese words, Katakana (カタカナ) for foreign words, and Kanji (漢字) adopted classical Chinese characters.

One can speak the language, at least a basic level, with the help of Rōmaji (Romanized Japanese). It was developed to describe Japanese sounds in the Roman alphabet for those who have not mastered the three main scripts.

Nouns have no gender, articles, or plural forms: only two verb tenses, present and past.

The language is relatively easy to pronounce, with only five vowel sounds and consistent phonetic spelling.

2000 kanji provide almost complete coverage of Japanese, and one can pass the Japanese language proficiency test, i.e., JLPT.

Contrary to what most people say, Japanese isn’t that tough language to learn. The pronunciation is moderately simple, and the basic grammar is not too complicated either.

You must practice listening, reading, and speaking like any other language. You can pass level N3 of the JLPT in two years.

Korean

Hangul is one of the world’s most scientific and logically designed writing systems. The alphabet’s hangul (한글), grammar, verbs, and pronunciation make it an incredibly straightforward tongue to acquire.

Armed with the right language learning approaches, materials, and motivation, you can master and pass a Korean proficiency test, i.e., TOPIK.

While the higher levels are challenging, you can crack Intermediate Level 4 or Advanced Level 5 of TOPIK in 2-3 years, not a decade as many imagine.

You do not learn the language by memorization. When the learning process is less stressful, you can take the information in and retain it. Thus, studying the Korean language with greater ease than you thought possible.

Conclusion

• Chinese: Pronunciation – Hard, Grammar – Easy, Listening – Hard, Writing – Moderate, Honorifics – Easy
• Japanese: Pronunciation – Easy, Grammar – Hard, Listening – Moderate, Writing – Hard, Honorifics – Hard
• Korean: Pronunciation – Hard, Grammar – Moderate, Listening – Hard, Writing – Easy, Honorifics – Easy

So what are you waiting for? There is much to learn from East Asian countries and their complex writing system.

Take Mandarin Chinese or Japanese or Korean classes and discover the fascinating new world. It will add feathers and wings to the résumé of the more ambitious in any career planning.