Is Chinese really so hard to learn?
I went to college with the intention of learning a second language. My major was linguistics (while it doesn’t require a second language minor, I opted for one.) After some thought, it came down to either Russian or Chinese. Then by random selection went with Chinese Up to that point I had no contact with that language. It wasn’t long after however, that that I absolutely fell in love with the language. I think listening to the flow and rhythm Mandarin is really fun and beautiful. Following 2 years of learning Mandarin, I found a job in Taiwan as an ESL teacher.
Now Chinese is a significant requirement for my business and travel. The last few years has seen a great rise in the numbers of people learning this language. One of the initial questions many people concerned in learning Chinese would be, “is Chinese hard to learn?” And while there are features of Chinese that native English speakers have a hard time understanding, for example how one syllable can mean 5 different things depending on the tones used, there are other parts of Chinese that are quite simple. Mainly simply think of the tones you have to learn and the complex writing system of characters instead of a phonetic alphabet. While these elements are significant, Chinese wouldn’t be Chinese with out them, a novice truly doesn’t need upset or obsess that they won’t be able to cope with them, it simply comes with time.
If I had to rate the question “Is Chinese hard to learn?” on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is Finnish and 1 is Pig-Latin I believe Chinese would honestly be somewhere about a 5 or maybe a 6 (if you count learning the writing system). When you boil studying Chinese down to just the words you say it can be reasonably elementary. The basic grammar is actually similar to English in a way that many other languages aren’t. Chinese uses the basic “subject-verb-object” sentence structure which makes direct translation easier than with other languages. This makes the beginning of speaking Chinese not so difficult and while the tones are a very important portion of the language, honestly, most native speakers can understand what you mean even without the tones. You can pick up the tones most easily by listening continually to others speak them over time.
However, unlike English or French, you can’t necessarily just read your way through it. While there are systems of phonetics that make it possible for us to ‘read’ Chinese, most native speakers don’t discern the Westernization of the language and can’t read “pin yin” or the old fashioned “Wade-Giles” phonetics. I like to imagine of each character like a challenge; they aren’t just random pictures, each one has several different parts that come together to make a whole “concept” rather than just a word or syllable. But, honestly, you don’t actually need to learn the writing system to get by. I know some people who are completely fluent in speaking but can only recognise possibly 100 characters or less. So leaving the writing portion out makes Chinese that much easier to learn to speak.
Chinese is a beautiful language, and just like with any new language there are easy parts and complex parts to it. “Is Chinese difficult to learn?” only if you think it is. At its essence it is straight forward (and decidedly easier for us to learn Chinese than for Chinese speakers to learn English)
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