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Comment by LZ_Khan | Hacker News Reader

Chinese has easier character pronunciations? I find it hard to believe that. The tones are what makes Chinese the hardest language to learn.

Most people who learn Chinese will never be able to sound Chinese. To Chinese people they will look like some fool who has learning deficits (I know this is not true, but the lack of empathy in mono-cultural nations is quite high). I don't think there's any language in the top 20 most popular that punishes you as hard for incorrect pronunciation. While in English having an accent is quite common and charming, in Chinese bad pronunciation will make things incomprehensible.

For Japanese on the other hand I have multiple friends who after a couple years are indistinguishable from natives. The pronunciation system in Japanese is super easy in my opinion. It's almost a subset of the English language.

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Because each kanji can have 2-unbounded numbers of pronunciations whereas Chinese is mostly 1:1. That said yes, producing the sounds are easier. Also you might think they’re indistinguishable from natives but 99.9% of foreigners can’t get the pitch accent right and sound like foreigners forever

As @presentation already mentioned, Japanese pronunciation has more layers to it than you think.

Additionally, I think a foreigner who actually puts time into practicing Chinese pronunciation can sound very close to native. Most people learning most languages seem to only aim for good enough pronunciation and then focus on acquiring vocabulary instead.

I don't know what languages you speak, but I speak a good amount of Japanese and will occasionally have a hard time being understood in Japan, probably when the person I'm talking to is not used to talking to foreigners. On the other hand, I've had Chinese people compliment me on my Chinese, and I would not even pass HSK 1. From what I've heard from the Chinese people I've talked to you can get away with a lot of tonal mistakes and still be understood, although you will of course sound like a foreigner.

I'm fluent in Chinese and intermediate in Japanese. I'm aware of pitch accent but it's nowhere near as hard as tones. And one thing to be aware of is a compliment is quite relative if you're a foreigner speaking their language. "Nihongo jozu" is a pretty well-known meme and applies to Chinese as well.

In my experience, Chinese people are thrilled when non-Chinese people speak their language (even poorly), probably because it's pretty rare.

But yes, the tones are the hard part. The grammar is straight forward and similar to English, and characters are (almost always) pronounced only one way.

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