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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Hardest part about learning Chinese?
I'm sure I'm not breaking any new ground with this question but it seems the toughest part is tones, I've met foreigners here who speak it very fluently and very smoothly though always seem to mess up the tones.
10 years 50 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
Tones, and then the fact that all words/characters sound the same.
Scandinavian is right for some people. For me, it's not the tones, same sounds, characters, etc.
For me, it's motivation. I'm sure 99% of the people in the world could learn Chinese if they were motivated enough. The biggest problem when trying to learn anything is motivation. If you don't have the drive to continue, you'll give up quickly.
Scandinavian:
ah, I have that on too. I pretty much don't care what people say, and the wife speaks plenty of English to keep me entertained
ambivalentmace:
motivation is a big problem and the fact that ok now i speak chinese, what does that mean, i can listen to ridiculous irrelevant gossip on the bus, i can piss off the inlaws by discussing politics, rule of law, i can work at a company that tries to take advantage of me everyday, what is the benefit to learning the language, i havent found a benefit to justify the time and energy. perhaps i will find one in the future.
For me, getting from an elementary standard to an intermediate one. Seems like a big jump in almost every learning resource I've investigated; a far greater jump than beginner to elementary
Even if I understood Chinese language, I wouldn't understand the meaning often. There are so many things that have no words for like computer or airplane or man who keeps godzilla in his pants.
t91camp:
I tried to point that out over on the main site, and people just thought I was racist or something.
Traveler:
Racism is an emotive tag people use when they have no logical argument . I was accused of that once on here as well.
When you are called a racist, you know you have won the argument
I never saw the point in learning it. The few supposedly professional teachers I tried had terrible teaching skills, and quite frankly, outside China, Chinese has very little use.
t91camp:
And in the places where it is useful, most of them aren't speaking Mandarin...
JungleLife:
You don't see much point in learning it? wow. I think anybody who is in China will have a much better time if they learn Mandarin, or at least try. You're treated better constantly, better for business, can connect with more people, can express yourself better and more often, don't get lost as much, don't get ripped off as much and even get discounts, save time, get more respect from the people, get more female attention by far, more Chinese guys want to be friends too, easier ordering food, directing a taxi, etc, etc.
Traveler:
None of that is of any importance. A translator is only as far away as the mobile phone. There was no need for me to learn the language. I survived quite comfortably for over a decade without it.
Most of my work was to teach Chinese people to conform to western standards, for either the employer they were working for, or for acceptance to western universities. If they didn't want to conform, there were plenty more waiting to take their place. There was no need for me to reject my own culture and conform to China, though I did respect it.
Hulk:
Traveler is right. I've never actually needed any of the Chinese I know.
I can get by with just pointing and smiling... then again, you can get by anywhere in the world with nothing but body language.
Traveler:
Pointing and smiling? That is exactly what the Chinese do to foreigners
JungleLife:
You aren't rejecting your own culture by learning Mandarin. And yes, of course you can still 'survive' in China by not learning Mandarin, but are you optimizing your time, experience, connections, etc.?
I can dial a dozen contacts too that can always translate via the phone too, and I often do, but don't you think it is so much easier if you don't have to do that ALL the time?
I also like to mingle a bit with the people as I go about my day if I am alone too, if you don't speak Mandarin you are just restricting yourself from being able to do that. I think one only realizes/feels the benefits once they start to use Mandarin, before that they don't know what they are missing. Also, you don't think Mandarin will be useful to know in say...20 years from now back in Oz?
Traveler:
There are better things I can do with my time than learning Chinese.
In Australia, more people are learning Latin than Chinese, because most people don't see it as having any long term importance.
English is the international language of everything, though many in Australia learn Indonesian and Japanese. These countries have an established and projected long term association with Australia, and are considered far more relevant than China.
China needs to conform to the rest of the world if it wants to survive. It is generally considered unimportant in international affairs, except to the Chinese military. Even China's government realises that. That's why they have absolutely no foreign policy whatsoever.
JungleLife:
China is not really conforming, yet they do not cease to be buying up Australia, USA, Canada piece by piece. They have money, nothing else matters.
Traveler:
They think nothing else matters, but as they are finding out, they are very, very wrong:
This is the world's largest ever corporate blowout, but it is by no means an isolated case. The Chinese try to do the same crap in Australia that they get away with in China, but end up losing a large amount of their money. To Australians.
They just can't comprehend "rule of law," and that is to their own detriment.
JungleLife:
No, they are not very very wrong, they are ruthless and smart. they will do things like this all the time and get away with it, or settle and walk out smiling, strategy that they can use, and the governments will sit back and accept it. Courts will not tell this economy supporting customer to go away and don't come back even if they could. There are now laws that protect these foreign state owned investors. They are ruthless in business and rich. Western countries are less so in all those ways. Ethics, honesty, or good character don't play a part in who wins the game of monopoly.
Traveler:
OK. If you're happy to believe that, go on believing it. Actually, it is totally off topic anyway.
The point is, Chinese really has little use outside China, not knowing the language had absolutely no effect on me living there, so I couldn't justify wasting my time learning it. The same as most people in Australia see it as pointless.
JungleLife:
I never said I was happy to believe that. I was just laying out some facts.
I intend to live here. I also want to show some respect to my hosts. Also my girlfriend. So motivation is not an issue. Tones are Hardest. But i thought that was plain and obvious to anyone.
The hardest part is understanding old Chinese. Many poems are written in it, if modern Chinese translation is not available, I'm lost.
Idioms are kind of hard too.
Motivation is the hardest part. It occurred to me recently that the real trick to learning Chinese is to cultivate a genuine interest in the language. From that interest all else follows.
I think the best way is to speak more ,you can find a Chinese friend to chat ,the more you speak ,the better your tones will be .
I think it's the tones. The stresses and also one word can mean many things. Those two things for me I find is very very difficult.