Comments on: How difficult is Chinese?

By: Charlie

Charlie — Sat, 29 May 2010 11:07:57 +0000

There is a thereshold in Chinese learning. But after it is stridden over, it is possible to find certain disiplines which can make Chinese learning much easier. Memorizing the characters does need efforts, but the grammar is much easier to master. A lot of the words can be both used both as a verb and a noun, and don’t need conjugation which can be seen everywhere in English, Spanish, Japanese etc. Chinese is based on logic and feelings instead of grammatical rules. Chinese is beautiful. In its characters, tones and also its way of communicating.

By: Neilfox00&

Neilfox00& — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:59:56 +0000

Don’t kid yourself. Vietnamese is far more difficult than Chinese. Loan words are more than 1000 years old. A native Chinese speaker Will learn English much more quickly than Tieng Viet. Don’t let the Romanticiezed alphabet fool you. The subtleties of this language and written dipthongs leave even native Asian speakers in the dust.

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:17:51 +0000

I like to think of it from the other side … we say that Chinese is difficult, forgetting however how difficult English really is!

http://mandarinsegments.blogspot.com/2009/05/stop-whining.html

By: Pom

Pom — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 08:59:28 +0000

help me am not sure which language to study, chinese or french???

By: Liz

Liz — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:30:48 +0000

Thanks! Good to have your opinion!

By: Dawn

Dawn — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:39:43 +0000

a very informative essay for Chinese learners I must say.

By: Cross-Culture Tweets - Week 14 of 2009

Cross-Culture Tweets - Week 14 of 2009 — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:42:50 +0000

[...] How difficult is Chinese? - Thank you @pocketcultures for such good insights [...]

By: oohkuchi

oohkuchi — Sun, 31 May 2009 13:10:07 +0000

“Chinese is no harder to learn than any other language”–John, this simply is not true and you know it. I spent two years learning French, in which I am pretty fluent, and I have spent fifteen years on Chinese, and I am still intermediate. I can just about read Chinese at first go, if it is news or economic copy, my area, but anything else I don’t even attempt any more, even though I could happy plod through any French novel. Sorry folks, but Chinese is UNBELIEVABLY DIFFICULT. If you venture into this, be aware that you have a life sentence and even then you will never be really comfortable with it. Yes, ultimately it all comes down to ‘difference’ rather than ‘difficulty’ but the distinction is irrelevant. It is really, really hard to get good at Chinese.

By: Liz

Liz — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:22:23 +0000

Thanks for contributing Stevo - useful insights.

In my experience (which doesn’t include difficult languages like Chinese) there are always road block phases in learning a language which you can only get past with willpower and persistence. It sounds like with Chinese these phases are so much harder than in other languages.

By: Stevo

Stevo — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:26:48 +0000

Learning Chinese is devilishly difficult. It takes a great deal of willpower and dedication to learn the language. The hurdles you mention above are more like road blocks.

That said, the language is logical. There are no confusing (and sometimes moronic) grammar rules, as there are in English. Looking at translated vocabulary you can see how practical the language is, as opposed to the linguistic stew that is English.

Listening to well spoken Mandarin is like listening to poetry: It’s beautiful. I have been learning for 4 years and am still miles away from fluency. It bears mentioning that most people (foreigners) that learn Chinese never learn to read or write, learning to speak (and be understood) is difficult enough.

By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:32:23 +0000

Hi Carl. Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s a good point that English has assimilated many different influences and that makes it difficult once you get past the basics. In fact, I was talking about exactly that with some English learners yesterday. Good to hear your encouragement for Chinese learners as well!

By: Carl

Carl — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:19:24 +0000

Oh wait, I just re-read the last two paragraphs and realised other learners had made similar remarks. It seems great minds think alike after all!

By: Carl

Carl — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:17:02 +0000

Interesting article.

This is a much debated topic in Chinese studies. I think it is more like this: whilst European languages have an easy learning curve, Chinese tends to have a steep one. For example, English has an alphabet which, once learnt, means you can spell out any word in the language. The alphabet is also partially phonetic. Plus, if your first language happens to be a European one, there will be some cross-over when it comes to similar vocabulary items. HOWEVER, my impression of English learners is that whilst the basics are relatively easy to master, the more advanced stages can be quite difficult. This is because English, both syntactically and lexically, is quite complex, and incorporates elements from a wide variety of different (mostly European) languages.

Chinese, by contrast, has been more or less isolated for the past five or so millenia. Therefore, its language system is more logical and self-contained. Yes, there are a lot of characters, and this presents a very large stumbling blog for most learners at the beginning. However once this learning curve is surmounted, in my opinion, Chinese suddenly gets easier! Once you get over that massive character block, its quite enjoyable to read Chinese texts because you’re not shackled down by the complex grammar systems other languages have.

Just my two cents. Cheers.

By: Liz

Liz — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 07:57:33 +0000

Even better!

By: Jensen | CS-Weekly

Jensen | CS-Weekly — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:49:27 +0000

Actually I am thinking about “How easy is Chinese.” mmm…