Is Chinese Hard to Learn? 4 Reasons It’s Actually Easier Than You Think!

Your comments are welcome. You can read them or you can listen to the texts being read out, and any new vocabulary items are highlighted and explained. © Copyright 2023 LTL Mandarin School Chengdu. Nevertheless, Chinese grammar can be pretty simple compared to some others. Chinese words are short and simple. Whether it’s through watching Chinese movies, listening to Chinese music, or chatting with Chinese speakers, the more exposure you get to the language, the more familiar the tones will become to you. 35 billion compared to Cantonese’s roughly 80 million. If you don’t see the audit option.

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You have to conjugate it. Or maybe I just ignored them. 12 years of school to be able to read and write to the point where they can read and write the most common characters. You have travelled in vain. Learning to count in Mandarin makes certain math concepts intuitive – like place value. It also helps you learn a language successfully. Price: Free with in app purchases starting from $9. Mispronouncing even just a single vowel can change How to learn Chinese without being difficult? the meaning of an entire word completely. To understand them better, read the article What’s the Difference Between Kanji and Hanzi. I listen to some of my favourite Chinese/Taiwanese artists because I think Mandarin Chinese is really beautiful. I mean, have you ever tried drawing a simple visual symbol for “philosophy” or “uncle who is the younger brother of one’s mother”. I graduated from 20 Lectures on Chinese Culture to Intermediate Reader in Modern Chinese out of Cornell University. This isn’t always the case, but for simple ones, it’s very effective. If you want to start reading in Chinese, The Best 10 Free Chinese Reading Materials for Beginners to Learn to Read Mandarin will point you in the right direction, as will the blog post, Learn How to Read Chinese Characters Using Apps. Just let the words and phrases you have heard and practiced flow out, mistakes and all. This app uses fill in the blank exercises in which you can type in your answer or choose from multiple choices. When we first published this list, in June 2012, it contained 25 resources. Learning Chinese may be considered difficult, but nowadays it’s easier than ever to pick it up, especially if you learn Chinese with. Japan is a leading centre for innovation, boasting a beautiful business and living environment within one of the world’s largest economies. As well as being a fun way to improve your listening comprehension, watching Chinese movies will give you a window into Chinese culture. Though you can pronounce each of the tones in isolation, your tongue gets tied when you try to tie two tones together. You may never need to use the word manufacture 制造 in your life unless it’s for your job. It was founded to fulfill the needs of working professionals, business people and full time students who aim to have conversational fluency in a variety of situations covering daily usage, business and tourism. Making friends in China is simple when you speak Chinese.

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How Do You Read Chinese Writing?

Pitch is different to tone because it refers only to a high or low sound while tones are more variable which is why Chinese is more vocal/musical and sounds so different to Japanese. Nevertheless, Chinese grammar can be pretty simple compared to some others. Your email address will not be published. All these stories have been written and recorded by native speakers, with professional translations. It features six tones two of which are particularly tricky, a large number of vowel sounds and several sounds that are unlike anything in English. Each word normally stays the same; thus there are no conjugations, no plural forms, no genders and no articles. Even if you do not know any Chinese characters, you can learn some sentences. So it starts from basics to advanced. The following data may be collected and linked to your identity. Mondly dedicates itself to helping you learn new vocabulary and teach phrase structures helping you create full sentences. SuperTest formerly HSK Online helps you prepare for the Chinese Proficiency Test HSK with vocabulary and grammar materials for HSK test takers. But they aren’t prescriptive.

4 Most Common Problems With chinese

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One reason for this difficulty is that Icelandic words can be very long, with syllables pronounced completely differently from how they are spoken in English i. The more you study, the faster you will improve. The most difficult is to learn every day for a long time. The first method is typing according to strokes. Pinyin is the official romanization system of Standard Chinese, designed to help people learn Chinese pronunciation, and it’s very effective. And learning any foreign language at a young age has been shown to have brain building benefits that can last for life. Another thing that’ll make Mandarin vocabulary easier to grasp is the Chinese characters, as mentioned earlier. You could say that Chinese doesn’t just make your brain smarter, it makes it healthier too. Thus, learning Japanese would be a great stepping stone to boost career opportunities. Many Chinese are too shy to dare making mistakes, thus we just keep silent. Would you, strictly speaking, need Japanese to do that. This is how you learn. This point really seems like it’s clutching at straws. I’ve used ximalaya FM 喜马拉雅 FM in the past and found it to be really good. These apps can actually take you pretty far, but they’re often best used in conjunction with other study methods. Chinese is a tonal language with four tones high level, rising, falling then rising, and falling. Study Chinese songs and lyrics. Share with all your friends by clicking on a social sharing button below. However, before you dive into the “proper” books to learn Chinese vocabulary, I cannot stress enough how important it is to pick up a dictionary. However, the spoken form managed to evolve greatly. No one really knows how many characters there are. Here’s a poem I wrote earlier, about ice cream. I had a set of 1,000 small cardboard flashcards with the most frequent 1000 characters. Skritter is perfect for those who are serious about learning to write Chinese characters. 99 monthly, depending on your plan and target language.

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Comparing Korean and Japanese Language for business

In fact, one could argue I’ve experimented too much in trying to find the perfect app, I would have learned more Chinese by simply knuckling down and studying using the most rudimentary materials. Pinyin is the romanization system for Chinese characters. Immersion and integrationDistinctively ChineseLearning in classLearning outside class. Terms of Use: rivacy Policy: upport Url: upport Email. Practicing with native Chinese speakers is certainly one of the fastest ways to make serious progress in the language, and HelloTalk makes it super easy to find language partners. Notify me of follow up comments by email. ” and can be used when receiving a gift, or when someone treats you to dinner. Good job for the one who prepare these Chinese notice of common phrases. That said there are a few features of Mandarin Chinese that can pose difficulties for native English speakers. There is a Chinese saying, “磨刀不误砍柴工”, which means “the more the preparation, the faster work gets done. Plural or tense, these factors within Chinese use word order and context in communication instead of inflection. Well, in contrast to English, which has 26 letters, Chinese doesn’t have an alphabet, but rather 3,000 common Chinese characters. How do you get to work or school every day. Despite being widely portrayed as having a single language, China is in fact an astonishingly diverse country when it comes to accents and dialects. The only contemporary language that does not have an alphabet is Mandarin Chinese. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of work. China is now a world leader in a number of fields within manufacturing, medicine, technology and finance. There are many jobs in trade, import and export, IT, technology, writing, hospitality, marketing, language related, entertainment, to name a few. While it has borrowed vocabulary from the Romance languages, including French and Spanish, there was a strong push during the 19th Century to solidify Basque words for new phrases. This means that spelling and pronunciation can be more difficult and there is more room for error. FluentU brings Chinese to life with real world videos. Or maybe I just ignored them. Develop a practical vocabulary that consists of 15,000 most common Chinese words and phrases;. Another good option if you are looking for a starter course. Best for Structured Lessons: TutorMing. This has been proven to intensify learning and fast track an understanding of the Chinese culture.

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5 A gateway to an incomparable cultural universe

Learned more in a few lessons than in years of grade school. Misinformation about Chinese writing abound, either from non native Chinese speakers or non native English speakers. I started learning Chinese with big effort but i can’t get it wellMy speaking is very good but understanding is not good at all. On FluentU, you’ll find short videos featuring authentic Chinese content, including TV shows, commercials, inspirational talks and more. Each system has its own function, though, so determining when to use one or the other isn’t difficult. My teacher is really great and we become lovely friends. If you do hire a tutor, be clear that your goal is not to learn new words, improve your pronunciation or practise grammar, but to simply talk. In addition to the nice design, this course is good for the amount of speaking and listening practice it offers. The course may offer ‘Full Course, No Certificate’ instead. FREE DOWNLOAD ALERT – Want to download our Korean Alphabet PDF’s. This is actually a vocabulary issue, which every language has – for example, “uptight” in Spanish depending on the context can be mojigato, which has nothing to do with cats 🙂 This particular point has nothing to do with writing systems, or anything to unique to Chinese, and like many points in this article just confirms that “learning any foreign language is hard work, no matter what language”. Which language will result in the greatest economic rewards aka which will make me more $$$. Comparing these numbers, it’s obvious that the Chinese language has a bigger number of speakers than Japanese. Welcome to LTL Mandarin School. And my philosophy has always been if something is hard, then it’s probably only gonna get easier from here on out. All our Audio and Video lessons can be easily downloaded with the click of a button. But hold on a second – sure, if you are trying to learn the entirety of Chinese in a few months, this figure could stump you unless you had an incredibly intensive project specifically about reading the language. Some of you right now: “What about Pinyin. Continuing down the avenue of struggle now, relax later: the vast majority of Chinese characters only get pronounced in one way. So, they give you the due credit in return for your attempt to learn even a few basic phrases and simple words. For additional practice, there are reading and listening comprehension exercises with each article. As you progress, you may find that the ability to type in Chinese is sufficient for your purposes and decide to focus less on Chinese handwriting. There is a trick about HOW TO LEARN CHINESE IN 5 MINUTES. And, as a bonus, it also teaches you how one stroke or lack of can completely change the meaning of a particular word or character. We have some great recommendations of Chinese Dramas and Chinese Movies you can watch. If you’re used to using the Latin or Roman script, it’ll be quicker to learn the languages that also use the same script such as Spanish, Italian, or French. A few examples of this are below.

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It also shows you other videos that use that same word or phrase. I mean there’s only four and I have a sneaking suspicion that the second is pretty much the same as the third. But the more you enjoy studying, the more you will study. Gradually, you will build up your knowledge. Maggie and I met online. If you create an account on Weibo a Twitter like social media platform popular in China, you can participate in the chatter or just browse through other people’s conversations. Learned more in a few lessons than in years of grade school. FluentU offers users a massive library of real world videos that add context to Chinese vocabulary and grammar. It’s fair to say we’ve been hooked ever since. These are two of the 214 components that make up all characters. You can’t learn it theoretically. I also like to go back and listen to the audio from my lessons.

Dewitt says:

But I am also willing to bet that it would not drop you into the same depths of despair as the above. The lifetime VIP of US$30 is worth it, and you don’t need other sources just to do practice exercises for HSK. Hear the lesson vocabulary and main phrases and repeat after the native speaker – it’s the best way to perfect your pronunciation. This was not available to me 50 years ago. Nick is an English teacher who has taught English as a Foreign Language in China, Italy and France. Because you will forget the characters almost as quickly as you learn them, and therefore need to relearn them again and again. Conversation, common expression, practical usage, and cultural tips were also included. However wacky DuoLingo sentences might be, they will never be as compelling as good stories and meaningful articles on interesting topics. Of course, when we say Chinese, what we really mean is Mandarin. Xie xie EasyMandarin. Because you’ve gotten used to it. In this article we’ll take a linguistic perspective and look at what makes Mandarin easier to learn than you might think and, in Part Two we’ll look at what makes Mandarin challenging. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in. Korean, too, believes so much in respect, so in doing better business in Korean, it is very advisable to learn the language as it would boost the trust in doing business. If your area has a large community of Japanese or Chinese speakers, for instance, that could be a huge help. Mandarin is indeed one of the most difficult languages, but with determination and a little help from a professional Chinese teacher, you can learn Chinese. Let’s go through each of the reasons briefly. Today there is no limit to the material you can find, and there is no limit to where and when you can listen.

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Afraid of getting a word wrong. In the UK, Chinese is not the first foreign language choice, while European languages such as French, Spanish and German are much more popular. On average you can get 9 12 cents per word, although, again, specialization can help pump that price up. These review principles form the basis of most spaced repetition software programs, but using a technique like the Memory Palace is often much more effective. Live lessons with our engaging teachers. I studied Mandarin Chinese 50 years ago. It practically covers all the important rules and patterns you’ll need to know to write and speak fluently. For one, Japanese phonology the sounds that make up the language is really simple. Emily’s teacher is fun and engaging, and is very suitable for Emily. Anyway, this wasn’t meant to be an advertisement for another app. I’ve been using Rosetta Stone for years to gain basic competency in multiple languages including German, French, Italian, and recently Chinese and Russian. This book is best for. In Japanese, subjects and objects are optional if they’re already understood based on context. This is very common, such as in restaurants wherein we ask for a plate or a drink. The red and yellow of the suitcase are intended to bring to mind China’s flag, while the graphic of the luggage label references Mandarin characters.

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People like to compare Chinese characters to the English alphabet, in terms of their function in Chinese. Being able to speak Chinese increases your employability significantly and makes you stand out from the crowd. This reminds me of something else. They say Chinese isn’t written in pinyin, so why should I learn it. Make this fun and increase your retention when you learn Chinese grammar by writing sentences that are funny or interesting to you. Japanese and Korean grammar are quite similar, and the above points all apply equally to Japanese. Japanese, on the other hand, doesn’t crack the top 10, boasting only about one tenth of that, at roughly 128 million speakers. It’s the same case when it comes to learning Chinese. Knowing Mandarin is also useful for travel. If for example you enter “他最近從法國回來了” in the search bar, you’ll see the same phrase appear in 14 different languages among which is also English. When you finish every course and complete the hands on project, you’ll earn a Certificate that you can share with prospective employers and your professional network.

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There are numerous reasons to listen to Chinese songs. So to me, they are equally easy and fun to learn. Some people will say 1,000. Learn how to follow instructions. 100% Satisfaction: 30 day money back guarantee. It also has to do with the difficulty of the Chinese language itself. For example, Mandarin Chinese has four different tones flat, rising, falling rising, and falling which can change the meaning of a word entirely. Another reason is that the most common language constructs and vocabulary are quite different from those with which Westerners are generally familiar; rarely when studying Chinese do students stumble upon words or grammar points that simultaneously occur in English or other European languages. That was always the difference with the most successful students. But it’s important for sounding eloquent. You will notice that in this example a particular reference is made, ‘the woman’. Your learning methods also play an important role in how fast you learn Chinese. However, this is not always the case, clusters of Chinese characters with similar meanings often have similar patterns, these recurring elements are called radicals. The best Chinese learning app for. For example, sometimes syllables with the same initials and finals, but spoken in a different tone. They are ideographic characters meaning behind each character is a picture or a story.

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Depending on the tone, ma can mean ‘mother,’ ‘fiber,’ ‘horse’ or ‘curse. You may find it tricky at first to get used to the sentence structure of Mandarin Chinese. When two or more radicals are combined, they work together to create a single character; the radical on the left indicates the character’s category or meaning, while the radical on the right might indicate its pronunciation. Here we have actually two adjectives following the noun shirt ‘衬衫 chèn shān’. Chinese characters, known as hanja in Korean and Kanji in Japanese, are used in both languages. The app however is a bit clunky to use. Having lived in China for five years, I can assure you that speaking in proper tones is essential. Do you know if other schools have the same program. Ok, I know you know the difference between reading and writing. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the similarities and differences between Japanese and Chinese, their history and unique features, and which one might be easier to learn for beginners. Chinese has no changes in word form morphology like English does — for example, “have” and “had. Since both the latter systems are phonetic, they are often used to replace the Kanji symbols for nouns when the writer forgets it. Limited use of the app is free, a paid subscription unlocks all of the content. If you’re feeling adventurous and you really want to try conversing in Mandarin with an actual native speaker outside the comfort and security of a tutoring session, then try Lingbe.

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It will be hard at first, because you’ll feel a bitlost amongst all the new information, and you’ll feel a bit silly making upthese crazy sentences. If you already know English, what’s next. And once you have known all the radicals, which are around 200 in total, you would have a solid foundation for breaking down any character you may encounter. However, it is also considered a bit outdated at times, and is generally seen mostly in novels. You might wonder why learning Chinese characters is essential. Devices: iOS and Android. This language exchange app is unique for how quickly it can get you speaking with someone. It’s the only language I know of where there’s more than one writing system in common use. Chinese has its tones, where each syllable is pronounced with one of five different pitches, making the language sound very melodious. The two languages share some key differences. With 30 minutes of daily audio based exercises, this app can help you better understand what’s going on when listening to others speak Mandarin. The perennial example is 手紙, which means toilet paper in Chinese, but means a letter the kind that one gets in the mail in Japanese. Be aware of how much you’re pushing yourself, and don’t use up all your enthusiasm and energy in one go. On top of that, the written system has spaces. Ever spent weeks studying, only to discover that you still can’t make your own sentences. Phase Four of The Mandarin Blueprint Method is built around graded reading in Chinese, providing you with carefully curated content to help you learn to read Chinese. When you want, where you want, online or offline, LingQ is synced up and ready when you are. As a result, group harmony, respect, and family are the center of importance in the culture. We’ll explain all about Pinyin below. Take advantage and listen whenever you can. ” Also, spoken Chinese is very different from written Chinese that actually has a complex grammar and different vocabularly based on Classical Chinese.

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As you listen in, you’ll be able to pick up more than 1,500 Chinese words, phrases, and expressions. Because the brain’s language expression is mostly unconscious. I cannot reiterate enough the importance of that statement. Copyright © 2023 All Language Resources. Afraid of getting a word wrong. Need some motivation and inspiration to learn Japanese. Let’s say you’re learning every day on Ninchanese. Having a language partner not only helps with just the language but you get to understand the culture and Chinese way of thinking. You could choose an intensive study program, or actually live and work there. Doing some lighthearted reading or watching a short learning video for 5 minutes before you go to sleep could be helpful when learning Chinese. Korean here beats out Japanese by an ever so slight margin. A common question from ambitious and time conscious people alike is: can you learn both of these languages at the same time. “I didn’t really know what to expect because I hadn’t heard much about Hangzhou, but it was magical. It is even more related to the Japanese, as well. ” → Ni3 hao3, wo3 jiao4 Benling. For more advanced learners, blogs and social media posts also let you get familiar with internet speak, which is often different from what you’ll read in print media or hear spoken aloud. Chris Tompkins is a print designer with a focus on book and poster design, identity creation/branding, illustration, layout and art direction. This is a great tool if you have specific questions about reading Chinese and can’t find an answer anywhere else on the web or in the dictionary. As a self student, you might aim for another level of fluency, and you won’t be studying Mandarin in an intensive classroom situation. If a sentence refers to someone in particular, definite article ‘the’ is translated as ‘that’, ‘the woman’ is ‘那个女人 nà gè nǚ rén’. There are plenty of resources that can tell you the hardest languages to learn if you speak English. 2 Many Chinese learners are interested in Chinese history and culture. Learning only what you need has never been easier. The cup cannot hold any more tea. Shi picked up the corpses of the ten lions and took them to his stone room. It also means that your associated Gmail, YouTube and Google+ accounts will all be displayed in Chinese. Japanese vs Korean vs Chinese – It’s Not So Bad. China has a massive presence throughout the world and has an excellent stronghold on exports to the US, UK, and several countries which makes it a valuable trade partner.