<p>The reason why your plan won't work, is simply that Chinese is a <strong>language</strong>, and a language should not be equal to its writing system.<br />
What will consist a language? For most cases, there should be sounds(phonetics), words, phrases, grammar, and cultural context. What do you see from the above? The writing system isn't even essential. (Of course, we don't talk about languages designed for disabled people. ) That's the reason why you think your approach of learning Japanese is awful, and I strongly advise you not to do it again when learning Chinese.<br />
Another reason is the complexity of modern Chinese. Although historically a Chinese character <strong>is</strong> exactly a word, in modern days words in Chinese language are mostly consist of multiple characters. You may need to learn less characters to cover the common vocabulary, but it will also be a problem if you learn characters without seeing them as components of words or phrases - the order of characters play a much larger role than thousands of years ago. Furthermore, we have much less syllables available in modern Chinese than ancient Chinese, so you may be able to handle characters with multiple pronunciations, you're still facing tons of words with same pronunciation but different meanings. This can't be resolved without understanding the context, which can only be achieved by learning Chinese systematically.<br />
But don't be sad! It won't be quite difficult to master Chinese for you. The most challenging part in learning Chinese is the tonal system and Chinese characters, and given that you're a decent Japanese user, these won't bother you much. Also, Chinese is an analytical language, which means it has the least inflections and is considered simple grammatically. Finally, finding a language partner is helpful to you, and Chinese people are generally enthusiastic about helping others.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-13T09:34:30.260Z
2020-10-13T09:34:30.260Z
Winfred Huang
<p>Currently Japanese is my sole language focus, and I would consider myself at a rather advanced level (individual Kanji knowledge surely 2000+). But I got thinking, what if I spent some 100 hours or however many it would take to get a strong understanding of pinyin and pronunciation/tones in Mandarin (such that learning words wouldn't just be &quot;memorizing&quot; or mimicking them, but understanding the sounds that make them up. A strong foundation, essentially). After that, what if I learned 1-5 Hanzi per day (despite not really learning Chinese, just learning characters)?</p>
<p>The reason I ask is because when first starting Japanese, I actually took the approach of learning Kanji in isolation (and no other exposure to the language), which, in hindsight was an awful approach. With Mandarin however, I'm wondering if maybe that approach would be more plausible considering Hanzi is the only writing system, and most Hanzi only have one reading. Might it be as nice as it sounds, &quot;passively&quot; learning a few characters a day (while never really &quot;learning&quot; the language, instead focusing on Japanese), and having those learned characters accumulate over time? Or are there pronounced reasons as to why this wouldn't be the greatest that my currently naive perspective on the Mandarin language isn't able to catch?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>

<characters><learning>
Learning a Hanzi a day?
# Learning a Hanzi a day?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-10-06)

Currently Japanese is my sole language focus, and I would consider myself at a rather advanced level (individual Kanji knowledge surely 2000+). But I got thinking, what if I spent some 100 hours or however many it would take to get a strong understanding of pinyin and pronunciation/tones in Mandarin (such that learning words wouldn't just be "memorizing" or mimicking them, but understanding the sounds that make them up. A strong foundation, essentially). After that, what if I learned 1-5 Hanzi per day (despite not really learning Chinese, just learning characters)?

The reason I ask is because when first starting Japanese, I actually took the approach of learning Kanji in isolation (and no other exposure to the language), which, in hindsight was an awful approach. With Mandarin however, I'm wondering if maybe that approach would be more plausible considering Hanzi is the only writing system, and most Hanzi only have one reading. Might it be as nice as it sounds, "passively" learning a few characters a day (while never really "learning" the language, instead focusing on Japanese), and having those learned characters accumulate over time? Or are there pronounced reasons as to why this wouldn't be the greatest that my currently naive perspective on the Mandarin language isn't able to catch?

Thanks!

**Tags:** characters, learning


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2020-10-13. Score: 1

The reason why your plan won't work, is simply that Chinese is a **language**, and a language should not be equal to its writing system.  
What will consist a language? For most cases, there should be sounds(phonetics), words, phrases, grammar, and cultural context. What do you see from the above? The writing system isn't even essential. (Of course, we don't talk about languages designed for disabled people. ) That's the reason why you think your approach of learning Japanese is awful, and I strongly advise you not to do it again when learning Chinese.  
Another reason is the complexity of modern Chinese. Although historically a Chinese character **is** exactly a word, in modern days words in Chinese language are mostly consist of multiple characters. You may need to learn less characters to cover the common vocabulary, but it will also be a problem if you learn characters without seeing them as components of words or phrases - the order of characters play a much larger role than thousands of years ago. Furthermore, we have much less syllables available in modern Chinese than ancient Chinese, so you may be able to handle characters with multiple pronunciations, you're still facing tons of words with same pronunciation but different meanings. This can't be resolved without understanding the context, which can only be achieved by learning Chinese systematically.  
But don't be sad! It won't be quite difficult to master Chinese for you. The most challenging part in learning Chinese is the tonal system and Chinese characters, and given that you're a decent Japanese user, these won't bother you much. Also, Chinese is an analytical language, which means it has the least inflections and is considered simple grammatically. Finally, finding a language partner is helpful to you, and Chinese people are generally enthusiastic about helping others.


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