You might have heard that Chinese is a difficult language to learn, and that is true, but it is also true that Chinese is not nearly as complicated as it seems. It's a lot like English, with some extra added letters and other symbols. Once you get the hang of it, you'll be able to read and write in Chinese in no time! In this blog, we are going to discuss reasons that Chinese isn’t as difficult as it seems to be!
5 Reasons Chinese Isn't Hard To Learn
Chinese is one of the hardest languages to learn, right?
Not so fast! There are a lot of reasons that Chinese is actually pretty easy to learn and here is how!
1. You can read Chinese even if you don't speak Chinese!
You don't need to be able to speak Chinese before you can read it, because it uses pinyin (Romanized letters), which converts the sounds into Romanized letters so that non-native speakers can read and understand them more easily. The pinyin system also makes it easier for children who are learning English as a second language to read Chinese words because they're already familiar with their pronunciation from their native language!
2. Chinese is an alphabet language
Chinese is actually written using an alphabet called Hanzi, which means "Han characters." The alphabet was created in the 5th century BC by scholars who felt that the pictographs used previously were too difficult for outsiders to learn. (That's right pictographs were created by Chinese people who wanted more foreigners to understand their writing).
3. Chinese uses fewer characters
While there are over 50,000 characters in the Chinese language, only about 3,000 of them are commonly used in daily life. That means you can learn a good portion of the language with just a few hundred characters!
4. The written form of Chinese is very similar across dialects
Chinese has many different spoken dialects, but the written form is the same across all of them. This means that if you can read one dialect, you can probably read all of them. The only difference is pronunciation but it's possible to sound out words even without speaking the language!
5. It is easy to remember new words
Chinese words are often made up of radicals that represent different parts of speech, like "water" (水) or "person" (人). These radicals give clues about how the word should be pronounced and used in sentences, which makes it easier for students who are learning Mandarin for the first time (or even second!).
Final Thoughts
We've all been there: You think you're going to pick up a new language in no time, but then you realize that it is harder than you think. Then it gets harder, and then it gets even HARDER.
However, don't despair! We are here to tell you that Chinese is actually pretty easy to learn. There are many reasons why Chinese is easier than you think. If you're interested in learning more, check out our website mandarininn.