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I'm just trying to start some counting during the game. With Japanese I need to take into account prisoners, and figure out which part of the enclosed area will actually be territory.
On the other hand with Chinese scoring I have a much larger surface of the board to worry about.
Can anybody with experience of both comment about which they find easier/faster etc.?
For me, Japanese counting is easier--but I can't say whether it's intrinsically better, or whether it's just what I'm used to.
Don't try to keep a separate count of the prisoners. Instead, remember the spaces on the board where prisoners have been captured--so the prisoners count as part of the territory they came from. (It's easier than you might expect!)
Figuring out which part of an area will become actual territory is an issue whichever method you use. It's a big part of endgame strength, and takes a lot of experience.
It depends. I think probably 95% of board positions are easier to estimate using territory (Japanese) counting. Area (Chinese) counting is sometimes useful when the boundaries of the controlled regions are very regular and there are a lot of caputured or dead stones in those areas. This applies to some moyo games. If that's the case, just being about to say, well, white controls this quarter of the board and black controls that quarter, and this area of black's control is bigger than white's, etc. is easier than trying to count all of the dead stones in an area where some huge exchange has occurred.
The closer you are to the end of the game, the more accurate you will want to count, and then territory counting because easier because you're not just guessing rough rectangular areas.
John F. Chinese pros uses Japanese counting during a game.