Japanese is slightly easier to learn. But, Chinese is much more widely spoken. Both languages have their pros and cons. Ultimately whichever language pulls on your heartstrings the most is the winner.
Chinese and Japanese are two of the most popular languages to learn, Japanese is generally seen as being harder than Chinese due to its writing system and complex grammar structures.
Meanwhile, Korean grammar is likely the hardest, while tones in Mandarin are notoriously difficult for native English speakers to hear, and Japanese is the fastest spoken language in the world at over 7 syllables per second.
Generally speaking, we might assert that Korean is easier for an English speaker to learn than Mandarin Chinese. But this is very relative. In fact, the US Foreign Service Institute assigns Mandarin Chinese and Korean the same level of difficulty. Both languages are in “Category Four”.
Learning expert Scott H. Young states that speaking Mandarin is not only harder than speaking Spanish, but it is fundamentally different. Everything from tones, vocabulary, and character is vastly unique compared to the latin languages, and the learning curve would be quite steep.
Number of speakers
But Chinese does open more doors for you: Mandarin has 1.1+ billion speakers, and Japanese only has 126+ million speakers. Mandarin has almost 200 million non-native speakers, while Japan only has 121 thousand foreign speakers. (Numbers from Wikipedia.) This also goes town into job opportunities.
Of these, Spanish and Italian are the easiest for native English speakers to learn, followed by Portuguese and finally French.
If you're interested in learning Japanese with anime, J-pop, or because you love Japanese food and culture, then the choice is easy. On the other hand, for those interested in Chinese history and how it shaped many other Asian cultures, learning Chinese would be a great way to gain more insight.
Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
Japanese is one of the most difficult languages for English natives to master. This is because it does not have a lot of likeness in structure to English. Approximately it will take 88 weeks, or 2200 hours of studying, to become fluent. But this article shows tips and tools to expedite and make the process easier.
After reading through all the differences, Russian probably comes across as the easier language to learn. And it is! For native English speakers, Russian is categorized as taking 44 weeks to learn (or 1,100 hours), while Japanese takes 88 weeks (2,200 hours).
Anime (Japanese: アニメ, IPA: [aɲime] ( listen)) is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, anime refers specifically to animation produced in Japan.
It takes about 4-7 years (roughly 2200 to 4000 hours) to become fluent in every aspect of the language, if you spend at least an hour and a half to study every day. However, it's quite common for learners to become more fluent in some areas than others depending on how they allotted their study time.
English (1,452 million speakers)
According to Ethnologue, English is the most-spoken language in the world including native and non-native speakers. Like Latin or Greek at the time, English has become the world's common language.
The closest language to English is one called Frisian, which is a Germanic language spoken by a small population of about 480,000 people. There are three separate dialects of the language, and it's only spoken at the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.
If you compare both languages, you will notice that both of them are equally challenging. The Korean language's writing systems are hard to learn, whereas the Japanese alphabet is complex to understand. 40 Alphabets, which makes creating and understanding sentences easier. Easier as the writing system is more simple.
Learning Japanese provides a 'gateway' to other languages with a similarly-high level of difference from English. Chinese, Korean and Arabic, for example, would all become easier to learn if you have an understanding of Japanese.
Japanese are more likely to recognize spoken words from Shanghaiese, Hokkien, or Cantonese than Mandarin, but it would be difficult without preparation. Japanese can understand Traditional Chinese very well, but may struggle with Simplified.
Japanese is slightly easier to learn. But, Chinese is much more widely spoken. Both languages have their pros and cons. Ultimately whichever language pulls on your heartstrings the most is the winner.
Mandarin Chinese is generally considered to be easier to learn than French due to its simpler grammar, phonetic writing system, simpler vocabulary, and more logical structure.
1 Dragon Ball & Dragon Ball Z.