Quote:
And Im no linguistics expert, but considering that Japanese has multiple readings for each character (why did you put the word kanji in quotes? I realize its not called kanji in Chinese but nonetheless), and Chinese has only one, Japanese is generally regarded as more difficult *to write*.
Yes, I wrote kanji in quotes because in Chinese they're all those types of characters. You are correct in that there are multiple readings for characters in Japanese, but writing them is not the difficult part. What's difficult about Japanese is reading aloud, specifically the pronunciation of word combinations. Writing is not difficult because once you've learned a word, you've learned the word. There's only one way to write it. Reading for meaning is not difficult because of the same thing. And because Chinese characters/kanji have meaning in their strokes and radicals, you can decipher meaning without even knowing what the word means. On the other hand, what's extremely difficult about Japanese is the pronunciation of words and their combinations. It's why you can receive a business card of someone's name and have absolutely no clue how to say it.