Origin Of Japanese Language

[lexico]

Short comment on the map...

Hi, Maverik!

The map is from US Geological Survey at Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Coastal & Marine Geology Program, USGS CMG InfoBank Atlas: Global regions, Pacific West Coast Map.

Roughly the light-green area now below sea level used to be land or land bridge in the Late Glacial period until the last major deglaciation raised the sea level between 11,000 and 5,000 yrs BP. Until then, Korea and Japan were neither peninsular nor insular but continental with much wider land area as well as easy transportation via land routes.

Paleolithic and Neolithic remains have been found...

Obviously homo sapiens and homo sapiens sapiens have moved into these regions more than once, and the ethnic, cultural, and linguistic elements must have gone through quite some change. Without a basic vocabulary and time frame of local cultures, it appears difficult to analyze these elements with much precision. Nevertherless, we could concieve various models to rationalize what we already know. Let's keep talking!

 

[maverick]

Lexico,

If you show me the map with a view to rebut/help my previous comment, please focus on what ToMach said. it is true that "Korea and Japan were neither peninsular nor insular but continental" then, but at the same time, there were neither Korea nor Japan at all then.
Korean history and Chinese history date "only" back to around BC 2,500 even we are generous enough to accept both myths. Japanese history is even shorter.

Please remember, ToMach mentioned the situation in Yayoi period.

 

[ToMach]

It is quite fun to see that most Japanese people still hesitate to accept the influence from Korea.

This not true, the influences of Korea are well known and accepted as a historical fact even in Japan.

I do not know exactly why ToMach said "the theory that the Japanese language arrived with the new immigrants from the continent" instead of "from Korea."(Of course I have a very very good guess, though)
ToMach, can you name the period when the meaningful number of people arrived at the Japanese islands from "the continent" other than "Korea"? At the moment you mentioned "immigrants from the continent" I totally lost interest in your remarks.

I was talking about Yayoi period, and I didn't say "Korea" because the origins of the Yayoi rice farmers is problematic, and if they indeed came directly from the Korean peninsula, and not just "through" it, I'd rather not use the name "Korea", because there was not such a thing as a Korean nation at the time, and it is more reasonnable not to be too much precise : the immigrants could also have come from places outside the limits of modern Korea, or only from a tiny part of Korea. It is safer to say that they came from Northeast Asia continent, a broad area englobing Korea.

Korea was not only a bridge, no matter what you learnt in a Japanese class. It had its own powerful culture which directly influenced Japanese one significantly for many centuries.

Don't worry about what I learn't, for Yayoi, Korea was maybe a bridge or a temporary location, or perhaps the true homeland of the immigrants. What you say is not proven to be true for Yayoi, it is a hypothesis, but it is true for later periods. It is well known that a good number of immigrants from Paekche came to Japan and had a great influence.

 

[lexico]

If you show me the map with a view to rebut/help my previous comment, please focus on what ToMach said.

No, I didn't mean to either rebut or help your argument, but only to help the argument of this thread in general. I had been meaning to add the map at some point, and I took your demanding historical precision as a good chance to introduce the "prehistorical" factor into this language thread. Sorry if I made you wonder.

it is true that "Korea and Japan were neither peninsular nor insular but continental" then, but at the same time, there were neither Korea nor Japan at all then.

Korean history and Chinese history date "only" back to around BC 2,500 even we are generous enough to accept both myths. Japanese history is even shorter.

Please remember, ToMach mentioned the situation in Yayoi period.

Good point, that is quite true given the limited scope of extant historical records. This also happens to be the tricky point for our discussion. Although all the linguistic evidence available to us comes from the historical period, and most of our arguments are based on these "scientific" facts and interpretations, I happen to believe that the greater influence that played the major part in the formation of the so-called "national language families" of Northern Asia s.a. Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Ainu, Nivx, Manchu-Tungus, Mongolic, Eskimo-Aleut, Chukot, and Yenisey-Ket existed primarily in the prehistorical times of the early neolithic period.

Unfortunately many archeological sites that might give valuable insights as to what really happened in those times are under water, as yet to be studied when improved archeological methods become available and applied to the previously inaccessible areas. One interesting example would the rather controversial discovery of the underwater megalithic structures off the shores of Okinawa . Was it a natural formation or man-made? If it was man-made, how does that fit in with our current historical understanding of the kingdoms of Wa, Ryukyu, or the mythological island of the south? What was its language, and how is it related to the other languages of NE Asian-NW Pacific region?

The migration of distinct populations from the Korean peninsula to the southern Japanese archipelago in the historical period is only the frosting on the cake so to speak. Nevetheless, because we can speak with relative certainty of the following migrations, that is what scholars do mostly. I just happen to see doing exclusively that as greatly lacking for any kind of serious study into the history of the languages under scrutiny.

1. the Kaya/Mimana peoples in the 3-4th century
2. the dissolution of the Kaya Confederation under Sillan invasion 512 CE
3. the fall of Paekje capital, 661 CE
4. the fall of Kokuryo capital, 669 CE
5. the fall of Palhe capital, 998 CE

Please forgive my lack of understanding in ancient Japanese history; I am in no position to either support or criticize anyone who knows more than I do in that regard.

 

[If time can talk...]

I always thought Chinese influenced many Asian languages in ancient times,esp.its neighbors,esp.Japan.Nowadays most Chinese people can understand Japanese articles very well,though they don't know Japanese.

But maybe there exist some doubt...

 

[lexico]

Good question you ask...

I always thought Chinese influenced many Asian languages in ancient times,esp.its neighbors,esp.Japan.Nowadays most Chinese people can understand Japanese articles very well,though they don't know Japanese.

But maybe there exist some doubt...

No doubt the Chinese language and culture DID influence many Asian cultures, which can be likened to the Roman influence on Eurpoean cultures. This can be seen in the vocaulbary of English which would become quite different if we took out all words of Latin origin. Yet if Latin was the only way to study Eurpoean civilization, we would end up with a vary imperfect and shallow understanding. The many Germanic languages and the Celtinc languages are as important as Latin in this regard.

Many people in the 19th-20th century found Latin easy, Greek difficult, and said "that's Greek to me" to express unfamilarity with the subject. Without Greek, which the Romans turned to for advanced learning, the very beginning of European civilization would be incomprehensible. Before the Greeks were the Pheonicians, the Egyptians, the neo-Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Hittites, the Elamites, the Sumers....These languages are all important for a better understanding of Ancient Europe.

Chinese was the lingua franca of East Asia from the Former Han to late Tang, and because of that, much is indeed shared by Japan, Korea, China, and (Old) Vietnam. This thread does not ignore that, but only attempts to expand our knowledge base of the origin of Japanese which has many indigenous elements at its core.

As you can see in the map three posts back, your neighborhood of Shanghai was indeed connected to Taiwan, Ryukyu, Korea and Japan via a land route until around 5,000 years ago. In the historical period, travel by boat also connected these areas.

When we are able to discuss the ancient peoples of this east Asian region, we expect to find great diversity of peoples, cultures, and languages. Just how exactly they interacted to become what we have today is the one of most intiguing questions of historical linguistcs, and also one that will make us learn many new things. Here we strive to drop as much nationlistic propaganda as we can, and to learn more about historical truth, what really happened. I'm glad you showed interest in the subject. Let's talk!

 

[Sally_Hawn]

The Chinese language is very different from Japanese.

Nowadays most Chinese people can understand Japanese articles very well,though they don't know Japanese.

Without learning the language, most Chinese people CANNOT understand Japanese articles AT ALL except a few kanjis which sometimes even have different meanings.

I myself always mix up Japanese and Korean although I listen to J-pop on a daily basis. Sometimes when I hear a song on HK radio, I have to ask my Japanese/ Korean friends what language it is (they sometimes get mad 'cause they think I should have known by now).

But sometimes, I say sometimes, Korean and Japanese really sound very much alike!?

 

[If time can talk...]

Without learning the language, most Chinese people CANNOT understand Japanese articles AT ALL except a few kanjis which sometimes even have different meanings.

I myself always mix up Japanese and Korean although I listen to J-pop on a daily basis. Sometimes when I hear a song on HK radio, I have to ask my Japanese/ Korean friends what language it is (they sometimes get mad 'cause they think I should have known by now).

But sometimes, I say sometimes, Korean and Japanese really sound very much alike!?

Here I'm not talking about the pronunciation of each language,I'm talking about reading.There's no doubt that some kanjis have different meanings,but mostly similar to Chinese ones.So people can easily guess it out.As for the problem whether people in China understand Japanese articles if they haven't learnt the language,well,many students in my school read Daily Yomiuri as a hobby,but they are not Japanese major.
I do understand that you mix up Japanese and Korean,that's because you're not Chinese.A Frenchman may find it easy to learn Spanish,a Englishman may do quite well in learning German.That's because they're of the same origin.So for Chinese people,Japaese is undoubtedly easy to understand,let alone there are so many words which are same as Chinese.

I'm not saying Japanese's origin is Chinese.Actually I know little about this.

That's just my opinion.

 

[lexico]

Hi, Sally_Hawn, I've learned to enjoy your unique sense of humor!
J-Bot, the talking robot tries to imitate that style, I think, but yours is impossible to copy!

But sometimes, I say sometimes, Korean and Japanese really sound very much alike!?

As much as I would like to answer your half statement/question, it's such a good one to waste given my verbose and untidy style. I'd much rather someone else respond to that....

I'm talking about reading. There's no doubt that some kanjis have different meanings, but mostly similar to Chinese ones. So people can easily guess it out......So for Chinese people, Japaese is undoubtedly easy to understand, let alone there are so many words which are same as Chinese. I'm not saying Japanese's origin is Chinese. Actually I know little about this.

I didn't know you were talking about the written language. The study of the classics, recompiled by Confucius and the Han scholars, used to be a major part of the traditional education system of Japan is what I understand. I'm just a little puzzled myself that modern Japan seems not too much interested in the Chinese classics, which not surprisingly provides the common vocabulary for several Asian countries.

In Korea, it used to be super strong during the last four dynasties, but interest declined during the westernizing period. There is a recent surge of classical studies here. How is it in China, the classical studies?

 

[Sally_Hawn]

Easy to pick up, difficult to master.

I am Chinese and my last name is the Cantonese ﾅ?ﾃ? but I still get phone calls from Korean telemarketers.

I know how to write Chinese in both simplified and complex characters. I also know many ancient characters by learning calligraghy.

There are a group of "Chinese" who can speak, read and write Korean , but that's because they are 窶卍ｩ 窶朗 窶伉ｰ . No such group of "Chinese-Japanese" in China. (I am not talking about those Japanese expats who live in Shanghai).

Without learning Japanese, an average Chinese person CANNOT understand it. I've known many Shanghai and Taiwanese people who can speak and write some Japanese. It is because they have taken classes before. I also know this Singapore-Chinese guy who's managed to teach himself Japanese by using audio tapes and textbooks. Now he can communicate with Japanese people without any major problem.

I have never learnt Japanese myself, but from my observation, Japanese is a language which is easy to pick up, but difficult to master. Therefore, maybe those Chinese people you are talking about have learnt it for six months, and make out most of it by using a dictionary or translation software. I know many mainland Chinese students can study like crazy. So I won't be surprised if a Chinese person can learn how to read Japanese in a very brief period.

In terms of pronouncaition, actually there are some Chinese dialets (e.g. 窶｢ﾅｸ ﾂ静 ) sound similiar to Japanese too.

And you know what? I have a Korean friend who was born in Canada. Her parents don't speak much English. They almost always speak in Korean. And one time I played this song to my friend and asked her whether it was Korean or Japanese. It took her about three minutes to figure that out. So, sometimes, I say sometimes again, Korean and Japanese sound so similiar that even a Korean cannot tell the difference right away.

 

[kevinsano]

I don't know much about this whole Korean/Japanese problem. I know that Korean (grammatically) looks a lot like japanese.(or vice versa) I've come across some words that resemble japanese words, but most of them are Chinese loan words:

korean - japanese(english) - chinese - kanji

yeonpeel-enpitsu(pencil) yanbi - 窶ｰ窶昶?｢M
haggyo-gakkou(school) xuexiao - ﾅ?wﾂ校

I only know mandarin readings and I'm not sure about the tones.
I have noticed that a lot of x/h pronounciations in mandarin are k/g pronounciations in japanese.

hanzi-kanji
xuexiao-gakkou(gaku+kou)

 

[stupidumboy]

Koreans and Japanese sound comepletely different.

But gramatically correspondent in many ways.
Many words pronouncely sound similiar but thats just because both language adopted many Chinese words.

About 70-80% of the modern using Korean words are made up by Chinese chracters.

 

[ToMach]

I don't think an average Chinese speaker can read and understand but a few words of a Japanese text. The characters have not always the same form, some don't exist in Chinese, and some don't have the quite the same meaning, and all the grammar of the sentences is written in kana. The reverse is easier : most of Japanese have learned in high school the basis of classical Chinese, called in Japanese "kanbun" ﾅ?ﾂｿ窶｢ﾂｶ.
Chinese indeed was a lingua franca in eastern Asia, but it was written classical Chinese, not the spoken language. Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese didn't have any writing system before they adopt the Chinese script : they wrote everything in classical Chinese before they adapt the Chinese writing to their language. By adopting the Chinese script, they also borrowed an incredible number of Chinese words, often with their Tang pronunciation.

Japanese and Korean have striking similarities in the structure of their grammar : you can translate morpheme to morpheme. But their pronunciation is very different : more vowels in Korean, distinction of voiced/unvoiced consonnants in Japanese, aspirates in Korean, pitch accent in Japanese, distinction of long and short vowels in Japanese, closed syllables in Korean, etc.

 

[lexico]

I have a Korean friend who was born in Canada. Her parents don't speak much English. They almost always speak in Korean. And one time I played this song to my friend and asked her whether it was Korean or Japanese. It took her about three minutes to figure that out. So, sometimes, I say sometimes again, Korean and Japanese sound so similiar that even a Korean cannot tell the difference right away.

I agree with most of the comments about the comparison of Japanese and Korean which come from very exacting, high academic standards. Just as a footnote let me add on the more colloquial and practical aspect of a rough comparison;

1. Korean core vowels (conventional 8, colloquial 7) and Japanese vowels (5) are all monophthongs, those which correspond are very close in sound quality.

2. looking at the spoken patterns in everyday speech (which happens to be what pop songs often use for the lyric) not too many words of classical Chinese origin are used. In the indigenous words, the open syllables of CV does take up the majority in frequncy of use in Korean.

3. As for the ratio of classical Sino-Korean, the figure I have is very close to 50% in the (ﾅ?ﾃ?ﾅ｡ﾂ?ﾅ津ｪ窶佚･ﾃｧ窶?窶弋, but depending on how one does the statistics, the figure may vary. But whether the figure is 50% or 70-80%, the fact remains the majority of classical Sino-Korean exist as doublets; that is having the indigenous Korean form as well as the Sino-Korean form.

Combining these three factors, it is not surprising the the predominantly open syllable structure should sound similar in songs that your friend had a tough time determining even if we disregard the shared musical styles and the recent loans between Korean and Japanese (there aren't that many when compared to classical Chinese). Also can be noted that many sound habits are shared among Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese; as a result of convergence rising out of georaphical proximity over a long period of time.

 

[Sally_Hawn]

Thank you for all your input.

Stupidumboy,no matter what you say, many Cantonese still cannot tell the difference between Korean and Japanese just by their sounds. For Japanese and Koreans, common sense tells me it's just natural for you guys to be able to tell the differences. However, even for an oriental like me, it is only when I hear common words like arigato, kimochi, kokoro, then I know that it is a Japanese song for sure ^-^ !

And I am not the only one. Many Hong Kong people (the ones who never learnt Japanese nor Korean) have a hard time distinguishing the two languages despite the fact that we watch a lot of Korean soap operas and listen to a lot of Japanese songs.

Note: I don't know anything about the origin of Japanese. I just want to point out the fact that even a lot of Chinese think Korean and Japanese sound alike.

 

[stupidumboy]

Its very interesting to hear ,thank you very much for telling @Sally hawn. ^-^

Sally Hawn,I have a question.

As you are a Cantonese,assuming you never learned any Mandarin(I meant Beijing standard Chinese language),can you understand the mandarin ?

Thank you.

 

[Sally_Hawn]

Off topic:

Yes, I can understand and speak Mandarin without any formal lessons, but I speak it with a crappy Cantonese accent. Most of my Cantonese friends cannot understand Beijing standard Chinese though. However, after I had taken (added-up less than one year) French lessons, I could also get an A- in a university intermediate FSL course with other students who had taken it from grade schools all the way to universities.
So, it really depends on the person too.

Hmmm... basically I am a talkative person, and I started learning English at the age of four. Given that I already have the experience of learning a second language, I think I have an edge in taking up other languages. Mandarin? A piece of cake. Singing karaoke in Mandarin is good enough. No need for me to take classes for that purpose.

By the way, I am also aware that Koreans cannot understand Japanese by default. And the reason why there're so many Korean and Taiwanese students in almost every introductory Japanese class in North-American universities is because Korea and Taiwan used to be Japan's colonies and thus they have parents who can speak Japanese. There you go one easy credit! However, since I don't know either language, I have a hard time telling which is which because I think they have very similiar intonation.

 

[lexico]

just to add a little fuel to the fire...

Mandarin and Cantonese are mutually unintelligible for most people without bilingual exposure. They are only distantly related, and should be considered distinct languages rather than dialects of one language from a strictly linguistic point of view, cultural and political claims notwithstanding.

Not only are the sounds (consonants, tones, and vowels) different, but also the syllable structure, syntax, and vocabulary show wide discrepancies. Some words in Cantonese do not have a traditional Hanzi ﾅ?ﾂｿﾅｽﾅ｡ to represent them.

Customarily the split between Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese Chinese is assumed to have occurred after the 601 CE Qieyun compilation of rhymes, but that has also been proven to be only an abstraction.

It is more likely that the original inhabitants of the region, the Yue 窶ｰz and Southern Yue 窶愿ｬ窶ｰz peoples were non-Han in ethnicity, and their original language non-Chinese; some people classify the language group Austro-Asiatic which properly includes current day Vietnamese ﾋ??窶愿ｬﾅ津ｪ/窶ｰz窶愿ｬﾅ津ｪ. This Yue 窶ｰz and Southern Yue 窶愿ｬ窶ｰz regions became increasingly sinified during the late Warring States period. Vietnam on the other hand, resisted full sincification, having expelled the brief incusions and political control by the Han, Tang, and Song polities, and succeeded in preserving both linguistic and political identity despite heavy sinicizing.

This dual ethnolinguistic makeup can be likened to the Franks' speech, originally speaking a Germanic branch of Indo-European, being overlaid with Latin, which deveoped into Modern French. The French are a Germanic people who ended up speaking a Romance language. Of course, the Celtic Gauls also played a role though their linguistic role is hard to trace except in toponyms.

A more extreme case of remote linguistic relationship would be the Min languages of Fujian and Taiwan, which still carry the most divervent linguistic features among the languages spoken in PRC. See Jerry Norman for more on the Min "Dialect."

 

[lexico]

Off topic:

Yes, I can understand and speak Mandarin without any formal lessons, but I speak it with a crappy Cantonese accent. Most of my Cantonese friends cannot understand Beijing standard Chinese though...So, it really depends on the person too...Mandarin? A piece of cake. Singing karaoke in Mandarin is good enough. No need for me to take classes for that purpose.

Do your parents speak Mandarin when necessary? If you didn't grow up in a (even a partially) Mandarin speaking community, and took no classes, where did you get your tingli ﾃ｣ﾃ｣窶氾 in Mandarin? The Mandarin vowels are highly discrepant with Cantonese vowels; that does not allow easy guess work.

I am also aware that Koreans cannot understand Japanese by default. And the reason why there're so many Korean and Taiwanese students in almost every introductory Japanese class in North-American universities is because Korea and Taiwan used to be Japan's colonies and thus they have parents who can speak Japanese. There you go one easy credit!

Just for the record, Sally. I can't speak for Taiwanese families, but I'm not sure what you mean by saying Korean parents can speak Japanese, and hence their children can, too. My mother can't speak a word of Japanese, and although my father can speak it, he never uses it in the family, but only in the presence of a Japanese guest, which me and my siblings do not bother to pick up. I have not picked up one word of Japanese from him. Technically he should be a native speaker of Japanese as a second language, but I happen not to consider him a genuine native speaker of Japanese due to his loose speech habit. As an older member here, I seriously doubt your statement will apply to hardly any Korean member in the age bracket of 25 give or take 10.

 

[canadian_kor]

Haven't been on this thread for a long time. I found all your posts on this topic interesting. I think lexico is right, we cannot know for certain right now whether Japanese is categorically in the Altaic language family (just like Korean is tentatively categorized as Altaic). However, I believe that there is a genetic relationship between Japanese-Korean and the larger Altaic language group. In fact, if you look at the facial characteristics of Japanese and Koreans you will see that they more or less belong to the Northern Asiatic group (much more so than the Han Chinese and South-East Asians). Thus, the only reason I can think of why a few Japanese would deny the genetic relationship between Japanese and Altaic is because they do not want to be associated with the primitive nomads living in Siberia (a lot of Koreans feel the same way too, so I'm not picking only on Japanese people here).

P.S. Lexico, very insightful posts. You said you are Korean. Are you a Russian-born Korean or a Korean-born Korean living in Russia?

 

[Sally_Hawn]

No need to add more fuels into the fire.

Many Japanese (customers, friends, friends' friends and ex-classmates) tell me they've already known that Chinese and Korean people hate them. Therefore, I don't think Little Me can "ruin" anything between these three countries. If there's friendship, it is fake anyway. Nothing to worry about.

However, I don't even care about the origin of Chinese, not to mention Japanese, so this would be my last post on this thread.

(The reason I participated in the first place because there was a major mistake regarding Japanese and Chinese in the above).

To answer Lexico's questions:

1. My parents don't speak Mandarin at all. But my family used to own a business in the United States, and all the people we hired were Mandarin speakers from mainland China. Since my parents were too old to learn a new language, I was the one who communicated with these employees. I wanted to cut costs by hiring mainland Chinese. I wanted to have an idea of what mainland Chinese were like. I wanted to be able to close deals in both Mandarin and Shanghainese.

Furthermore, sometimes I've watched K-drama with Mandarin dubbings and listened to a lot of Taiwanese-Mandarin songs. I wanted to learn and be entertained at the same time. So, although I didn't take formal classes, I intentionally created a lot of exposure in my environment. After all, MOTIVATION is very important in learning anything.


2. This is what my Korean classmates (from other classes) told me. They said that their parents were forced to speak Japanese, so parents could tutor them Japanese when it was necessary. But when I asked why they were taking Japanese classes then? (This time nobody forced them to, and neither would their parents offer to teach them voluntarily). They told me they wanted to pull up their G.P.A. because Korean and Japanese were similar. They were confident that they could do better than the average Caucasian students in Japanese.

Taiwanese students? They are known to be Japan's No.1 fans in Asia. (Oh, well, not all of them, but many). And some of them have really learnt Japanese from their grandfathers. I know because they like to show off by singing Japanese songs in karaokes.

Okay... this is getting long... gotta go.

 

[stupidumboy]

@Sally Hawn

Thank you for your kind answer and I hope you would often join our discussion whenever we neeed your help.

Actually I have many things to ask you about Cantonese history(attaching my importance to immigration & emigration history and developement in the 'Pearl river delta' region)if you don't mind.

Thank you.

 

[Sally_Hawn]

This is really my last post.

I am from Hong Kong, not Canton. The only thing I know about 'Pearl river delta' is -
there are many cheap prostitutes from Northern China, servicing businessmen from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. It's all over H.k. news. Look, I am a regular lazy Chinese who is more interested in entertainment news than HISTORY .... Sorry, can't help you there.

 

[ToMach]

I think lexico is right, we cannot know for certain right now whether Japanese is categorically in the Altaic language family

Yes, this is still unproven, and the very existence of such a family is hypothetical.
But I think you made several big mistakes :

However, I believe that there is a genetic relationship between Japanese-Korean and the larger Altaic language group

You indeed seem to believe, to have faith in this theory, but we should care about real facts : can this theory can proven? My answer would be no.

In fact, if you look at the facial characteristics of Japanese and Koreans you will see that they more or less belong to the Northern Asiatic group (much more so than the Han Chinese and South-East Asians).

Irrelevant : a linguistics relation ship can only be proven by linguistic evidence. Any historical or anthropological fact does not constitute evidence at all, it can only potentially add some credibility to a theory.

Thus, the only reason I can think of why a few Japanese would deny the genetic relationship between Japanese and Altaic is because they do not want to be associated with the primitive nomads living in Siberia.

This is unfounded prejudice. And Altaic is more often associated with the empires of Mongols and Turks or with the Manchu emperors of China, which is rather prestigious, than with some obscure nomads.

 

[lexico]

I was the one who communicated with these employees. I wanted to cut costs by hiring mainland Chinese. I wanted to have an idea of what mainland Chinese were like. I wanted to be able to close deals in both Mandarin and Shanghainese.

Furthermore, sometimes I've watched K-drama with Mandarin dubbings and listened to a lot of Taiwanese-Mandarin songs. I wanted to learn and be entertained at the same time. So, although I didn't take formal classes, I intentionally created a lot of exposure in my environment. After all, MOTIVATION is very important in learning anything.

I appreciate sharing your personal experience which contributes to a better understanding of the language learning process. I totally agree with you that motivation is a strong fractor of success in learning a foreign language.

wanted to pull up their G.P.A. because Korean and Japanese were similar......were confident that they could do better than the average Caucasian students in Japanese.

As much as they might have hoped to entertain their ideas of an easy A, I personally think they were dead wrong in so thinking as they should have found out before the end of their school term. I myself tried to complete one semester of introductory Japanese, but ended up withdrawing from the class for the simple fact that I was overwhelmed. I happen to speak Korean better than the average Korean.

Even when I took Chinese, nothing was taken for granted just by me knowing a couple of hanzis, and I had to jerk every second of my time to get any linguistic precision, only after which I was able to get a little closer to the native language speakers' sense of communication. I was also surprised by how many so-called white students in the CJK classes would not only excel in the languages, but go further to develop a deep sense of appreciation of the languages they were studying often deeper than those of the native speakers.

Again for the record, native language or ethnic origin has little to do with how a person can/will be successful in learning a foreign language as you stated. I think personal motivation and personal ability to learn a foreign language are far stronger factors than mother tongue or color of skin. You are right in that, and your Korean friends are quite wrong from what I observed.