Is it easy to learn Chinese?
Can you say "Hello" in Chinese? Yes, you can - just say "ni hao (你好)". Can you say "How are you?" in Chinese? Yes, you can - just say "ni hao ma? (你好吗)". Who said Chinese is difficult to learn? Now you have already learned your first two Chinese sentences!

Many people believe Mandarin Chinese is a difficult language. After only two lessons of one-on-one Private Class at ChineseHour, most students say that Chinese is a very logical language, and it is easy to learn for English speakers. Many other Chinese learners around the world also agree.

Three things make learning Chinese different from learning a European language:

  • First, European languages have many words which are similar to English words.
  • Second, unlike English, Chinese is a tonal language, so it is important to develop the habit of listening for tonal distinctions and producing them correctly in speech.
  • Third, Chinese characters are very beautiful and interesting. If you want to read or write Chinese you will have to become familiar with the characters.

Spoken Chinese is easier to learn than you might think. Chinese grammar is simple in comparison with European languages. There are no inflections, cases, genders, or declensions. English speakers sometimes complain that languages like Spanish have a complicated grammar (masculine and feminine genders, verb conjugations, etc), whereas Chinese has little or no bound morphology and there are no grammatical rules to memorize. Each word has a fixed and single form: verbs do not take prefixes or suffixes showing the tense or the person, number, or gender of the subject. Nouns do not take prefixes or suffixes showing their number or their case. Many people who begin to study Chinese quickly get "hooked" on it, because it is so interesting.

According to a survey conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Education and Language Commission you only need to know about 1,000 Chinese characters to be able to read 90% of current Chinese publications. Each Chinese character is pronounced as a single syllable. Learning to write Chinese characters is a rewarding and pleasing activity and it will give you a great sense of achievement.

Quotes:

""Chinese Mandarin is Easy --- Comparing Its Difficulty with Japanese, German, and Spanish", by Mike Wright

"The biggest impediment to learning Mandarin seems to be fear--sometimes caused by the teachers. I've studied quite a few languages, and none of them were as easy for me as Mandarin."

Read more: http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Chinese-Mandarin-Easy.html
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