I studied in Qingdao, at Qingdao University. It’s a beautiful city with a history of German and Japanese occupation. Great cheap beer, beaches are close to the university, and it’s rather clean for a Chinese city.
I’ll consider making a study log!
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Haha I like your username, LaDuZi.
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Hey, I’m not a native English speaker so I hope it’s still okay that I reply.
I tried studying Chinese for a hot minute before switching to Japanese. The reason I stopped was mainly because I found it impossible to self-study the tones in Chinese. Yet being able to self-study was a main priority for me in choosing the language. If that isn’t something you’re concerned about there’re definitely some well produced youtube channels out there where people share the study resources they used and talk about their respective pros and cons.
That being said as someone that loves videos for textbook recommendations, Japan it seems has great textbooks to study Chinese. The youtube channel Ari no Yume talks about the Japanese resources she uses for studying Chinese regularly. So if you’re still thinking about studying one before the other maybe that’s a place to get inspiration from.
Aside from that I do emphasise with what you said about the weebs as well. To me it’s not about them being anime fans as much as it seems those people often never successfully studied a language before, yet they present themselves and the, more often than not, questionalble ideas they came up with as epiphanies. And worst of all they often hold some terror reign over Japanese language forums and reply to language questions with arrogance and deconstructive criticism. 
Yes, ‘madokassmallandsofttittiesowner62’ I heard you and your cronies recommending me and everyone else that didn’t ask for it that “all you gotta do is immerse” yet here I am still working through this textbook, yeah I’m dumb, I’m sorry, please go away
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Boy, it sure took me a while to get back here. Been away focusing on other things for a bit, sorry!
I’m not necessarily a ‘good’ example, but I guess I can offer a unique perspective: I’m a native English and Chinese speaker. Chinese has always been my secondary language though. Mainly used it in Chinese class, and while watching TV and ordering food. As for Japanese experience… well, I have an N1, for what that’s worth. Didn’t score that well, but I passed comfortably with fairly little time to study. I’ve also been living in Japan for almost 5 months now, and fairly regularly discussing robotics research in Japanese with my internship colleagues, and somehow getting by. There’s still a ton I don’t know, but I can definitely handle most everyday things and chat easily with my Japanese friends.
Which do I prefer? Hard to say. I think I prefer Japanese culture to modern Chinese culture, but traditional Chinese culture is pretty rich and has its own appeal. Chinese history is also very interesting for some people, so there’s that. If we’re talking about science and tech, I’d say that today, Chinese scientists make a more consistent and speedy effort to translate new concepts into Chinese, probably because there’s only one writing system in Chinese, whereas Japanese can accommodate loanwords with katakana, meaning Japanese science is filled with katakana English for cutting-edge concepts. It’s slightly ironic though, since we owe a lot of technical ‘kanji-ification’ to Japanese scholars translating Western texts, especially during the Meiji Era. In that regard, I guess I prefer Chinese, albeit old Japanese translations that are very close to the original etymology are super impressive.
If we’re talking about the languages themselves and their features… I think Chinese grammar is simpler? It’s also a little more intuitive for English speakers because Chinese is fundamentally subject-verb-object, just like English, whereas Japanese is subject-object-verb, meaning Chinese sentence structure is a bit more like English’s. Chinese character readings are also typically easier to learn since they aren’t as numerous per character, don’t have multiple origins and tend to follow more consistent rules. Japanese does use fewer kanji though, and I think communicating with poor pitch accent mastery is easier than with the wrong tones. The reason is just that wrong tones + the wrong rhythm really throws people off (I’ve struggled massively to understand some of my Chinese-learning friends even though they hadn’t made any grammatical mistakes), whereas wrong pitch accent usually results in slight confusion at the worst, and I really haven’t heard many people – no matter how new they are to Japanese – who completely botch Japanese pronunciation and rhythm. That makes sense since Japanese also doesn’t have diphthongs – every word is just a chain of beats/syllables with at most one vowel each – and most Japanese sounds are fairly close to other sounds in English.
I’d say it’s probably easier to focus on one language at a time, but language maintenance is definitely a thing: you can do things to stay engaged with Japanese in order to avoid forgetting how to use it even while learning Chinese or some other language. I personally would pick the language I care about more, and for which I have more reasons to learn it. Chinese and Japanese actually overlap a lot in terms of kanji and traditional expressions though, particularly since Chinese culture used to be extremely influential within East Asia. For example, a lot of traditional Chinese proverbs have equivalents in Japanese that are essentially direct translations, and you’ve even got proverbs that are written in Classical Chinese but read in Japanese like 時不待人 (ときひとをまたず), though you usually find those on tapestries and the like. Chinese and Japanese also share a significant amount of vocabulary, and a lot of words that exist as on’yomi kanji compounds in Japanese also exist in Chinese, though sometimes with slightly different meanings. Point is, you can use Chinese to learn Japanese, and vice versa. My Chinese knowledge has helped me a lot with learning Japanese.
Yeah, sadly, the ‘toxic weeb’ archetype is fairly common, though I’ve been lucky enough to avoid most of those people. I love anime, but most of the stuff I watch isn’t particularly mainstream (One Piece? Yeah, I know I saw it once on TV as a child, but I was never a fan and know almost nothing about it. Same with Jujutsu Kaisen and just about any major anime series hahaha), and I don’t think you should have to be into it just because you like Japanese or are learning Japanese. The people who think Japan is a utopia that’s wonderful in every way possible are also delusional – I’ve literally just had a few deep convos with a Japanese friend about my concerns when we met up over the long weekend a few days ago – even if there are things to like about and enjoy in Japan.
I guess I’d say just try not to let them ruin the experience? If you have a meaningful personal reason for learning Japanese, just keep going, and I hope you enjoy the ride. The WK community is pretty supportive, so I think you’re in good hands if you ever have any problems or questions. Also, while this might sound kinda snooty or elitist, veeeery frankly, from personal experience… most of the people who are the stereotypical otaku/weebs never reach a high level of Japanese proficiency. I’m not saying this to be insulting, and frankly, they can – heck, most of my Japanese ability is purely thanks to anime + dictionary searches lol – but it’s a fact that they usually don’t. The reason is just that they don’t have a system for learning the language beyond whatever fad they’re following, and unless you have really broad tastes, honestly… anime alone won’t cover your vocabulary needs if you want to communicate like an educated Japanese person. As an example, I love fantasy, isekai and rom-coms. Throw me an anime on war or history? I’ll probably struggle a bit. Food or sports? Even worse. You get the idea. I’m proficient enough overall that I’ll probably manage somehow, but media or conversations outside our areas of interest are always going to be harder, and that’s even worse when you’re someone specifically obsessed with just one aspect of Japanese life or one genre of Japanese media.
Anyway, I really should get to bed soon, and I’ve rambled a lot more than I should have, but uh… yeah, hope that gives you some ideas, I guess? I have no clue what textbooks to recommend if you want to study Chinese – I think the official HSK series is fairly popular, and I seem to remember a ‘Bo Ao’ series or something like that, but I can’t find it anywhere when I search – but just check out reviews and sample lessons if you’re interested in something. That should help you choose. Good luck!
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Quick update: finally found it. It’s Boya. Seen some other Chinese learners recommend it, though I’m not sure if it’s for beginners. Worth a look though, in my opinion.
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Thank you so so much for your helpful reply and taking the time to share your insight, I really appreciate it 
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I wouldn’t recommend studying both in tandem. It’s better to pick one language and reach a level of mastery where you can have casual conversations and read the newspaper. This advice is coming from a native English speaker who’s been been acquiring Mandarin on and off since I was 3-4 years old with a couple years of formal education in between.
I started self studying Japanese last year and the hardest part is overriding the Mandarin readings of kanji, and replacing it with onyomi or kunyomi readings in my head. WaniKani is helping me overcome this hurdle.
I had an advantage coming into Japanese with a higher level of reading comprehension because of my Chinese studies but it also gets in the way of reaching Japanese fluency. In the long run, learning either one will help with the other, but it’s better to stick to one until you feel it’s firmly cemented.
As for picking which language to focus on - since you’re looking to work in one of the countries, I recommend doing more research about the culture and work environments to figure out which is a better fit.
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I know this post is a month old, but I just joined so I thought I would chime in as a native English speaker who’s studied both languages. Echoing @Jonapedia and @catwithcookies, I would recommend getting to an intermediate level in one language before diving into the other. Maybe you could pick language to study more actively while getting exposure to the other through media that you like?
As far as which language to choose, it might be better to continue with Japanese so you don’t lose momentum. If Chinese is where your heart is then of course you can switch, but I will say from personal experience that my first year of Mandarin classes just felt like dipping my toe in the water. If you haven’t already, consider checking out some free online Mandarin resources.
Having a solid foundation in Chinese gave me more confidence when I began Japanese, and knowing kanji helped a lot. I’m sure the same would be true going from Japanese to Chinese; Chinese pronunciation is hard at the beginning, but the grammar is more straightforward. I think the key to learning both is to get one language to the point where it can give you a leg up in learning the other, rather than having to struggle through both at the same time.
Even now that I can consume a lot of native media in both languages, maintaining them and continuing to learn is a bit of a balancing act. I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel equally fluent in both, but I’ve met enough other non-native speakers of both to know that getting to a relatively advanced level is definitely possible if that’s your goal. Good luck, 加油, and 頑張って下さい！
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Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! I’m at intermediate Japanese now I think, I finished Genki 1 and 2 and am working from Quartet/Minna Chyuukyuu. I’m still keen to study Mandarin so I guess then I’m at a good place to start? I was thinking of studying it for a couple of months or so and see if I enjoy it.
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This is a pedantic point, and I’m sure others can correct me if this is not true, but I am pretty sure Japanese people write “wwwwww” to mean hahaha. Not sure why.
Cool you’re studying more than one language though. I might pick up another one if and when I have time. Unlike you, I am learning Japanese partially for manga, but perhaps not the ones that you have in mind (I like Goodnight Punpun, Monster, Vagabond, etc). Though I want to read Dazai, Akutagawa, Souseki, etc in Japanese too!
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Oooh I think you’re right I remember seeing that now! wwwww I’ll remember that from now on lol
And yes, never heard of any of those manga lol
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They do, or 草 or 笑. The w comes from wara (笑). The 草 comes from the wwwww looking like grass.
For what it’s worth though I’ve also seen Japanese people type ははは, though it’s far more infrequent and is more like an actual onomatopoeia rather than just “lol”
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Oh wow, that’s a lot of progress for a year! If you’re using 中級 materials then you should have no problem. It just occurred to me that you could even look for Chinese-learning resources aimed at Japanese speakers. I have a few Japanese textbooks from Taiwan that I really like, and I’m sure there are good resources for Chinese on Japanese Amazon.
Btw, have you thought about whether you’d like to study traditional or simplified characters? Some simplified Chinese characters are the same in Japanese, like 国 vs. 國, but usually the traditional characters are more similar (although sometimes all three are different, like 関, 關, and 关). If you’re planning to live or work in mainland China then simplified is probably best, but knowing traditional might be more helpful for Japanese. Just some food for thought!
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That post was 10 days old.
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