Over 90% Chinese speak Mandarin, but most likely they also speak another dialect of their own. A local dialect is commonly believed to be more intimate and is used among family members and those who come from same place, share the same dialect. In China, the local dialects are of considerable social benefit, people will teach their small children the dialect even when they move to a new area.
English learning is popular in China, we Chinese students begain to learn it from middle school, thus for those were born 80’s afterwards, most of them can speak some English. So far as i know many foreingers in China are working as English teachers in schools or language training classes, Especially those from America, England, Canada and Australia.
Also seems Chinese is becoming more and more popular as days pass by. Many foreigners begin to learn it as well. In China, less foreigners who speak none Chinese .
It is widely accepted that to gain more foreign friends, one method of upmost importance is to speak their language especially when you are at their country. However, some foreigners may think Chinese is hard to learn, looks similarly, sounds differently, similar sounds, different meaning….
Is Chinese difficult?
There are, as all know, two parts of a language, the spoken and the written, dialects included, but not refer to it at the moment. Another classification as Common Chinese, Lesser classical Chinese and Higher classical Chinese. Even the written Chinese can be classified as Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. Also more specified classification divides Traditional Chinese into several styles.
Is Chinese a difficult language?
To answer it, will first need to specify how high are you going to reach. But take the spoken Chinese for instancee, compared with English which I know, I think spoken chinese is easy.
Because Modern spoken Chinese has no strict rule on case, tense, variable verbs, basically no strict grammer. Some even hold that Spoken Chinese is baby language for the uneducated.
I have no idea that how long it will take for a child to learn english, but Chinse children seems begin to talk fast. Some scholars said it has been proved children from other countries can speak Chinese at very early stage.
It might be a lesson for those who are well educated and interested in Chinese. You may try “to be like little Child” if you are encountering too much difficulties with Chinese learning.
Is written Chinese difficult?
In my opinion, it might not be as difficult as you think. Its difficult actually does not come from complexity, but more due to it is a deep lanugage that is to express deep feeling with simple language, we can say to some extent that it is a language of heart, a poetical language. By the way, Chinese poems, especially those classical peoms are very difficult to be translated well into other languages as I know.
If anyone like to learn Advanced Chinese, to better know Chinese people, following are some tips.
YOu can try to read some Confucian Classics, also some Taoism if you have time as it is another important school as well; Classical literature provides you another good channel to learn Chinese and Chinese people, it will not only promote your language skills but your understanding of Chinese people at the same time; To know brief Chinese history.
Make sure not to confine yourself to those articles and papers on China written by your people who visited or had been living in China. To know more truth, you may need to do your own work, do not let prejudice blind you.
