What Slows Chinese Students Down When They First Learn Japanese?
After spending some time in Japan, I noticed something interesting. At the very beginning, Chinese students often progress more slowly than students from other countries when learning Japanese in Japan.
After thinking about it for a while, I feel the main reason is that language schools teach international students as a whole. At the beginning, they focus heavily on kana and try to use as little kanji as possible. For Chinese students, this can actually make learning harder. When everything is written in kana, it feels a little like learning English from scratch.
The Kanji Advantage for Chinese Students
Overall, the basics of Japanese can be quick and relatively simple to get into. Classes also proceed step by step. Even if I could not understand the teacher at first, the content was basic enough that I could often guess what was being said.
To be honest, though, I learned slowly. I could not compete with classmates in their early twenties. As the lessons went deeper and the pace picked up, it became harder.
For Chinese students learning Japanese, I found that if kanji can be written from the beginning, learning becomes much faster. But of course, teaching cannot be designed only around Chinese students.
So I tried not to follow the teaching method completely. Whenever I could use kanji, I used kanji. I also changed my memorization method: first remember how the word is written, then match it with the pronunciation. After changing this method, my efficiency improved noticeably. Here are three examples.
辛苦了。
お疲れ様です。
おつかれさまです。
The all-kana version is hard to remember, but the kanji version is much easier. It contains 疲, and 様 also gives a clear sense of respect.
Another example: あけます and つけます both relate to “opening” or “turning on” in some contexts and can be confusing at first. If written as 開けます and 点けます, the difference becomes much clearer.
The same goes for particles such as を and が with verbs. Opening a door uses を, while saying the door is open uses が. This becomes easier to understand and remember with kanji and context.
何方神圣?
I cannot even remember whether Chinese teachers ever explained that because we are asking about a “distinguished person,” we use 何方 to sound more polite and respectful.
In Japanese, I find polite forms, honorific language, plain-form contractions, and similar topics quite painful. My brain automatically blocks them.
「何方」は「誰」の丁寧形です。
If the textbook simply taught it this way, it would be much easier for someone like me who used to enjoy studying Chinese carefully.
Endless Ways to Say Similar Things
For beginners, one frustrating issue appears very quickly: a phrase is taught one way today, then another expression with a similar meaning appears soon after, and not long after that, yet another version shows up.
This also happens in Chinese, but because we grew up with it, we do not notice it as much.
Back to Japanese: these expressions may look similar, but they are not always interchangeable. It is not simply a matter of saying whichever one feels easier.
For example, in Chinese you might say:
- Shall we go eat at that restaurant?
- I want to go eat at that restaurant. Do you want to come?
They seem similar, but the speaker’s intention is clearly different. The Japanese versions are:
- あのレストランへご飯を食べに行きましょうか。
- あのレストランへご飯を食べに行こうか。
The two Japanese sentences look close, but whether the ending uses ましょう or the volitional form creates a difference similar to the Chinese nuance above.
Put simply, with close friends or family, the volitional form can be more direct and show your own intention clearly. With people you are not that close to, it is often better to make the other person feel that you are deciding together.