CHINESE VS JAPANESE LITERATURE

[Anonymous No.22511979]

Ill be learning one of these languages, convince me which one should i pick. Which one has best literature?

[Anonymous No.22511983]

*exterminates your clan*

[Anonymous No.22511992]

>>22511983

This is xianxia isnt it?

[Anonymous No.22512005]

>>22511979
lol. you will never reach a level where it'd actually matter.

[Anonymous No.22512014]

>>22512005

I just want to read. Dont be faggot

[Anonymous No.22512034]

>>22512014
you just made a dopamine fueled larp thread and deserve to be shit on
anyway, pick chinese then

[Anonymous No.22512046]

You can have both but if you want to choose one, I suggest picking up Chinese first. It will make transition to the Japanese easier, because of the character readings. When learning Chinese, take time to learn both traditional and simplified characters and search for materials that contain both. This will help you with your Japanese as well because Japanese characters mostly have a traditional form only. As far as literature goes, Chinese novels tend to spiral around themes like Jianghu, martial arts or wuxia, cultivation, internal alchemy, perfecting yourself, immortality, Chinese folklore, some mild form of homoeroticism. Japanese light novels have a greater variety (many genres) so it may appear to be richer. In regards to historical and philosophical writings, Chinese literature may be the better choice.

[Anonymous No.22512053]

>>22511979
Japanese if it's just for literature. The Chinese are soulless.

[Anonymous No.22512057]

>>22512046

But is there a literary chinese world outside of webnovel goyslope, like actual significant works of art in fiction/non-fiction? Or is impossible because it becomes instantly censored?

[Anonymous No.22512060]

>>22512046

Also thanks for helpful answer

[Anonymous No.22512067]

>>22512053

Please explain your answer

[Anonymous No.22512071]

>>22512005
>>22512014
>>22511979
>>22512034
>>22512046
ur a faggot for even making this thread. youll never learn either, like every other faggot who makes superficial language threads.

the suggestion to learn chinese to transition to japanese is more wasteful and stupid than transitioning from a man to woman.

[Anonymous No.22512073]

>>22512071
>the suggestion to learn chinese to transition to japanese is more wasteful and stupid than transitioning from a man to woman.
by which i mean it still takes a decade to learn the other, regardless of which you started with. they have as much shared vocabulary and english and greek (less than 10%).

[Anonymous No.22512095]

>>22512071
>>22512073

Hey dude. Dont know why you so sad and pathetic, but dont worry ill be here learning these languages, see you

[Anonymous No.22512105]

>>22512095
learn english first faggot

[Anonymous No.22512118]

Chinese for picrel

[Anonymous No.22512122]

>>22512118
theyre already translated into english. why learn a language for something you already have in english?

[Anonymous No.22512154]

>>22512057
There is and it's not censored. It's just that Chinese, like the Japanese, don't bother to propagate their literature abroad. If you want the fruits you must learn the language. It's more of a national pride thing. Plus when you learn the language, you will understand why some works are difficult to translate into English. Also if you learn Chinese, keep in mind that there is a Literary Chinese, and a Vernacular Chinese. Modern works are in vernacular, older works are in literary language. There are many differences between the two, making the translations harder.

[Anonymous No.22512189]

>>22512154
Are you saying there are literary webnovels? What's a good example? I understand that they can't really be machine translated due to specialty terms, but that's somewhat of a good thing.

[Anonymous No.22512195]

>>22512046
There is some old hostorical Chinese literature, but most everything modern (released in last 100) has gone through ccp filter (shit).
Japanese literature might as well not exist. It's frankly garbage. I do not know how a nation so advanced have not produced anything of value.

If you HAVE to learn one of these languages then go with Japanese just so you can go to Japan and talk to Japanese people. If all you care about is literature then learning any of these two will be a massive waste of time and effort

[Anonymous No.22512197]

>>22512154

Thanks man

[Anonymous No.22512208]

>>22512195

I know that for example, reverend insanity was banned, and it was just a webnovel, so i fant even imagine the censorship in publications

[Anonymous No.22512210]

>>22512195
>Japanese literature might as well not exist. It's frankly garbage. I do not know how a nation so advanced have not produced anything of value.
Its national frontispieces are pieces of shit, or boring, or the product of a cowardly writer, or by a faggot, I agree.

[Anonymous No.22512457]

>>22511979

Chinese will be a lot easier to learn so stick with that first.

[Anonymous No.22512487]

>>22511979
Chinese grammar is super easy. There is no conjugation, no tenses, no cases. Learning chinese ultimately amounts to vocabulary.

[Anonymous No.22512489]

>>22511979
I've read some japanese literature when i was in high school but Chinese litearture requires high entry level compared to the japanese.

[Anonymous No.22512495]

>>22512489

[Anonymous No.22512506]

>>22512046
>Chinese novels tend to spiral around themes like Jianghu, martial arts or wuxia, cultivation, internal alchemy, perfecting yourself, immortality, Chinese folklore,

They got the best crime novel imo.

[Anonymous No.22512524]

>>22512506

What is that?

[Anonymous No.22512545]

>>22512457
>>22512487

Thanks, have you tried learning chinese?

[Anonymous No.22512550]

>>22512489
>>22512495

What are these books?

[Anonymous No.22512574]

>>22512550
Maybe you would know if you could fucking read Chinese.

[Anonymous No.22512587]

>>22512574

What are they about?

[Anonymous No.22512742]

>>22512545
I'm bilingual

[Anonymous No.22512751]

>>22512742

What do you know about censorship in chinese literature? Is it a big problem?

[Anonymous No.22513656]

Bump

[Anonymous No.22513799]

>>22511979
Eh chinese might be the way to go solely because of the classical chinese canon.

[Anonymous No.22513826]

>>22513799
This. Dumb question

[Anonymous No.22513953]

>>22512751

If it was a problem all those dissidents would never have been published.

And if they really had a problem getting published in mainland they woudl just go to HK or Taiwan.

[Anonymous No.22514463]

>>22511979
French+Italian+German+Spanish

[Anonymous No.22514630]

>>22512071
you are gay in the ass

[Anonymous No.22514695]

CHINESE GANG!!! DOWNLOAD READIBU AND START LEARNING NOW!!!

[Anonymous No.22514726]

>>22512506
>immortality
I like this, why don't western authors ever write anything like that, it' always lived happily ever after (and then died of old age)

[Anonymous No.22515782]

>>22513799

What is the classical chinese canon and why is more relevant?

[Anonymous No.22516699]

>>22515782
Classical Chinese poetry is really good, like peaks of ancient human achievement good. Like all poetry, however, it's also completely untranslatable.

[Anonymous No.22516709]

>>22515782
As the other anon said, Classical Chinese Poetry is some of the best stuff ever written. The imagery, symbolism, philosophy, and emotions are very strong for such short works, they shine through even in English. Then there is the I-Ching, Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu, Confucius, Mencius, Mo Zi, the big novels…

[Anonymous No.22518091]

>Chinese is easy
>Learn Chinese for literature in Classical Chinese!
>Learn Chinese for its pre-modern literature!
>Great Chinese literature is basically spread across 3 major period dialects, not to mention the dozens of classic works that use regional dialects with their own completely different vocabulary and grammar, which aren't even covered in learner-material dictionaries

Why are you people like this? Speaking as someone who's been learning Chinese for years, this is the shit that discourages people who had naive expectations. I eventually realized how I have to learn basically 3 entire fully developed languages that are called Chinese just to cover famous works that even Chinese-native specialists in their fields have trouble deciphering.

[Anonymous No.22518870]

>>22518091
The only “people” replying are native speakers pretending to newcomers. That you even got baited into learning their language as a westerner is funny enough, though the real humor in this thread is how the deluded posters spurn their Japanese superiors. I’d critique this hollow shill thread further but I’m laughing at you for learning their gutter-speak to satisfy your lust in mainland rice pickers.

[Anonymous No.22518955]

>>22518870
Chinese is an impressive language, it's just too much for me.

I don't know if Chinese literature is better than Japanese literature, but the Japanese certainly have more variety for modern stuff.

[Anonymous No.22519905]

>>22518091
As one of the chinklit shills, I've never understood this either. Chinese is not an easy language to learn, especially I you have a hard time with rote memorization. With Classical Chinese, even more so since you cannot even practice it conversationally and the cultural context for many metaphors can be unclear, even to native speakers.

[Anonymous No.22519954]

>>22511979
>Which one has best literature?
Chinese, because they have a much older literary tradition. There are some great Japanese novels, but you'd be learning an entire language for what basically amounts to a year of reading. After that you'd be stuck with reading light novels. There's plenty of good Chinese stuff for a lifetime of reading, and a lot of it hasn't been translated

[Anonymous No.22520595]

>>22519954

Are you a speaker?

[Anonymous No.22522159]

>>22511979
If you learn Chinese for literature, learn traditional. There's good lit in the mainland don't get me wrong. But the Taiwanese scene is superior in my opinion. There's tons of old classics to read in Chinese, too. Dream of the Red Chamber is great. Journey to the West is insane.

[Anonymous No.22522187]

>>22511979
YELLOW PERIL

[Anonymous No.22523377]

>>22511979
Whatever you do, focus exclusively on input. Use Anki, 20 words a day and you’ll be at literature level in ~3 years. You’ll be able to read basic stuff like To Live 活着 and Three Body Problem 三体 in 1-2 year and better stuff in 2-3. If you keep up the 20 words a day in Anki, you can move onto ancient literature in 3-4 years (assuming you bother to find a grammar book which will be in standard mandarin which you’ll be able to read now)

Don’t waste time with spoken unless you 1 want to marry a Chinese girl or 2 want to go to China for a long time

Also, always listen to the audiobook after reading or you accent, when you start speaking, will be 屎

[Anonymous No.22524022]

>>22523377
>You’ll be able to read basic stuff like To Live 活着

That's the nice thing about Chinese. You'd never be able to do that in Japanese.

[Anonymous No.22524081]

You're better off hanging yourself. Which you should do for making this stupid retarded thread. You're an arrogant, sheltered and pampered westerner (likely the most pampered and moronic type, an american) who has never even so much as engaged with a second language to the degree in which I write in English right now. And you think you have the guts to learn a language in your 20's. I once met a Christian missionary in China and he told me after having lived there 20 years it was still a chore to both speak and read in mandarin, or whatever fucking dialect or variation he learned. You should probably start with Japanese, based on his account. And the fact that you're a sweaty weeb who thinks of himself very japanesy and wants to learn it after watching too much anime, but obviously wanted to appeal to the /lit/ crowd by making it seem as if your interest is more high culture and literary and as such you included chinese in your options without knowing the two languages are as close as modern english and latin respectively .

You make me sick and I shouldn't even have made this post warning you in the first place since you deserve to waste your time, you dumbfuck. you and people like you are civilization ending scourges kys

[Anonymous No.22524484]

>>22511979

Chinese but only specialized élites should study them, because it's a huge waste of money and time.
If you want to read good literature just lern 2 o 3 european languages.

[Anonymous No.22524489]

>>22524081

blabla
it's just a waste of time. For new languages to learn you have:
- UN official languages are always a good choice
- your country's neighbors or biggest trading partners
- don't look too far away, European languages are everywhere

[Anonymous No.22524508]

If your language won't choose you, it wasn't gonna happen...

[sage No.22524515]

>>22524081
kys furry

[Anonymous No.22524526]

>>22512122
Chinese novels are impossible to read in romanized translations because all the names are the same

[Anonymous No.22525073]

>>22524022
That’s definitely not true. This guy was able to make it there in ~6-9 months for Japanese working on it part time with an input based method.

https://youtu.be/16jWtC0T5cQ?si=dD78db7K5wFE0ARH

You could make it through Tae Kim grammar book in 1 month and then 20-30 words a day which is more doable in Japanese due to Japanese only having 2-3k characters, which is what really slows memorization, instead of basically infinite (average Chinese native speaker recognized about 9k and educated native speaker more like 12k).

[Anonymous No.22526379]

>>22524081

Im Argentinian

[Anonymous No.22526394]

I never thought there would be so many chinese enthusiasts on /lit/. Kinda based

[Anonymous No.22526407]

>>22525073
The hard part about reading Japanese is the readings, not the characters. If you are reading about Christians and see 主 you have to know it’s shu, not nushi or aruji. If you can’t read aloud then your experience of literature is so stunted, you might as well be reading in English.

>op
Japanese novels are universally trash. Reading Classical Chinese in kundoku is fun but hard as fuck, it would probably be easier to just learn the Mandarin readings. No Asian language is really great for literature, despite the deepest wishes of the orientalists.

[Anonymous No.22526520]

>>22526407

>No Asian language is really great for literature, despite the deepest wishes of the orientalists.

Why is that?

[Anonymous No.22526625]

>>22511979
Do they have their own Robert E. Howard? I'm basically asking if they have any good sword and sorcery.

[Anonymous No.22526709]

>>22525073
>Chinese native speaker recognized about 9k

I doubt you would need 9k characters to read To Live. Most modern Chinese literature at that level that is just dealing with common people doesn't use fancy language. You can tell even in translation. Wonder if theres' a tool that will actually tell you how many different characters are in a work. It would be interesting to see, but my guess is no more than 2k characters in a novel like To Live.

And as the other anon said, in Japanese you would need not just 2k characters for same, but at least 4k readings of those same characters and on top of that you have to deal with a much more complicated grammar and another two character sets to keep straight. Anybody that claims they learned Japanese in 6-9 months is lying. Even a savant could not do it.

[Anonymous No.22526733]

>>22511979
japanese literature is superior in every way
they have old epics like the tale of genji, haikus are fun to read attempt to translate and ponder, theres a very long tradition of playwriting, theres more modern poetical forms from the 19th c onward, early 20th c japanese literature is very good (soseki, kawabata, mishima, dazai, etc), murakami is a contemporary author everyones heard of who Im sure is fun to read, they have an old buddhist philosophical tradition but in the early 20th century there were the Kyoto school philosophers who adopted and built upon the Western tradition, many of whom including the school's founder, Nishida, studied in Germany with eminent thinkers of the time
then beyond literature, there are manga which are fun light hearted entertainment, Japanese film and animation, etc

China doesnt even hold a candle to Japan, I dont know how this is even a choice in your mind

[Anonymous No.22526748]

>>22526733
>China doesnt even hold a candle to Japan

Go tell that to the Japanese who have been studying Chinese literature for centuries

[Anonymous No.22526774]

>>22526407
>Japanese novels are universally trash
I definitely regret the time I wasted learning the language, but this is just a retarded thing to say.
芍藥も十坪あまり一面に植付けられてゐたが、まだ季節が來ないので花を着けてゐるのは一本もなかつた。此芍藥畠の傍にある古びた縁臺のやうなものゝ上に先生は大の字なりに寐た。私は其餘つた端の方に腰を卸して烟草を吹かした。先生は蒼い透き徹るやうな空を見てゐた。私は私を包む若葉の色に心を奪はれてゐた。其若葉の色をよく/＼眺めると、一々違つてゐた。同じ楓の樹でも同じ色を枝に着けてゐるものは一つもなかつた。細い杉苗の頂に投げ被せてあつた先生の帽子が風に吹かれて落ちた。

[Anonymous No.22526848]

>>22526520
Japanese literature is inauthentic at its core. It has always just been about imitating the forms of literature for clout: pre-modern lit parrots the aesthetics of Tang China, early 20th C novels parrot the French, Murakami parrots JD Salinger with a side of Boomer music posturing. Japanese culture is so obsessed with authority that the only authors who dare to write something that they really believe is true are the crazies like Dazai and Mishima, but those are self-obsessed and write exclusively about their own internal worlds. Otherwise it's all just recycled trope after recycled trope, everyone trying to be "the Japanese version of _______" rather than do something truly new.

Chinese literature is melodrama all the way down. Martial novels (from Three Kingdoms onward) speak for themselves. It is at least its own thing, but that thing has never evolved. The classical poetry is fascinating and beautiful, but if you read enough of it you realize that it's all the same - they just recycle the same fundamental ideas and try to express them in a clever way. There is no irony, no sense of an evolving context.

Great western literature is always the product of refining a story over time in response to critical input. Homer was repeated and improved upon in the oral tradition for thousands of years before being written down. Beowulf is a reaction to the heroic literature that preceded it. Shakespeare's plays were performed live every day before both jeering punters and a highly educated elite.

Asian literature lacks this dynamic. It's all about the primacy of the text. Many would even say that a bad poem in good handwriting is a good poem. On the other hand, Japanese and especially Chinese (HK/Taiwan) film are great, perhaps because they escape from the overbearing presence of text.

[Anonymous No.22526874]

>>22526774
What about this long descriptive passage do you think is interesting or beautiful? What does Soseki have to say that wasn't already said by Flaubert or Zola or any other realist writer that preceded him? He's important in the context of Japan because he wrote nice Japanese prose, but that's no reason to learn the language to read him, or indeed to read him at all unless it's your business to write Japanese prose yourself.

[Anonymous No.22526924]

>>22526379
based literally me

[Anonymous No.22526930]

>>22526874
I don't think you get what I said. I regret the time I spent on learning the language because I could've have spent that time learning not even just one, but over that many years multiple languages closer to my own which would have opened up a whole lot more literature of a significantly greater quality. However, painting Japanese literature as a whole as "universally trash" is ridiculous. That's all I was saying, so I don't know why you're bringing up Flaubert and Zola. I think you just have a weird bent against Japanese literature, when they've got names like Tanizaki, Souseki, Ougai, Touson, Santouka, Yumeji, Edogawa Ranpo, Akutagawa, Masaoka Shiki,, Eiji, Abe Koubo, Nishida Kitaro, the list goes on and on, and that's not even getting into their classical literature. While Japanese literature doesn't reach the heights of French, German, English, or American literature, it's still great, but not good enough to justify learning the language.

[Anonymous No.22526941]

>>22526848
>(HK/Taiwan) film are great

You are forgetting the mainland's 5th generation and many of those movies are based on 20th century books. I think part of Asian/Chinese literature's defect or simply difference is that the limitations of the language (more limited vocabulary as well as grammar) necessitates more interpretation or sometimes making your way through the text by feeling rather than being directed through highly precise language, which is a characteristic of Western, and in particular, the English language.

[Anonymous No.22526945]

>>22525073
1. Where the hell did you get that 9/12K number from? An educated Japanese knows 3K on average, an educated Chinese knows 3-4K on average, let's say 4K. Of course, avid readers, for example, know more in both languages.
2. Chinese characters usually have one reading, Japanese usually have two and relatively often more.
3. Chinese characters are pretty much morphemes. Japanese characters usually consist of from one to four morphemes, sometimes five (there are can be more, but those words are uncommon). Like, 承る is read as u-ke-ta-ma-wa-ru (ru is the second character, hiragana).

Also, it's more about the language itself than its writing system, but, in a way, Chinese is like German or French and Japanese is like English. As in, roughly put, Japanese has two times more words than Chinese, just like English has two times more words than French or German (roughly, I don't know the numbers), "two registers" and stuff (though that two registers thing is a simplified description in both English and Japanese).

Anyway, it's 2:20 here, I really, really want to sleep! Good night :)

[Anonymous No.22527966]

>>22526930
I’m the opposite to you, but I don’t think our conclusions are that different. I don’t regret learning Japanese, it’s been very fulfilling and I genuinely like other aspects of Japanese culture that I think are really unique and innovative, like films and standup comedy. But their literary tradition is just not great, especially considering the reputation it has in the west. All those authors you list are merely OK, certainly not worth learning Japanese for. Even knowing both English and Japanese, I wouldn’t spend my limited time on earth reading them (again) when the western canon is so superior.