Learning Mandarin – Difficulties and Opportunities

Mandarin language studies are problematic. Mostly because Mandarin is different from other languages that people on west have tried to get to grips with before trying to learn Chinese, not because learning mandarin chinese language is much harder. Mandarin is strange in some ways. The writing system is obviously completely different. Presently there no alphabet just as the one that Germanic and Latin derivates have. Instead an image defines every word; or rather a set of what referred to as strokes. For example, three stokes that together make a square means mouth, one combination of strokes that sort of depicts a woman holding a kid means mother while on. But the differences don’t end and then there. The grammar is largely made up in the is called airborne debris. For example; adding a syllable pronounced ma after a sentence turns it ideal question, adding guo after a sentence means that which it happens in items on the market. Combining these basic examples; you go shanghai guo ma? Communicates the question: have you gone to Shanghai? The differences are however much more explicit that your. Even the sounds of spoken Chinese are completely different from western counterparts.

Chinese spoken test is not only based on syllables as western words are. Hugely for mother in English is just 6 different sounds noted by each character; M, O, T, H, E and R. In Chinese there is two syllables, not four characters, ma and ma. The twist is that “mama” can be pronounced in twenty-five means. Each of the two syllables, ma and ma, can be pronounced with 5 different tones, creating a total matrix of 5 times 5 possibilities, and just one means mother. The tones are called tones but they are not tones like A minor or G, they are pitch modulation. Most important tone is a slightly steady high throw. The second is a rising pitch. 3rd tone goes down and then -up. The fourth is a pointy decline in pitch from high to low. The fifth is called the neutral tone will not not actually have a modulation form.

All that sounds bloody difficult, of course you can is, at least at first. Exactly how do you best go about visiting grips with the program? Because of course moment has come possible. In fact I know one lovely French girl called Julie, her Chinese is much better than her English. In addition know a very talented German videographer that has lived in China for just three years; he often searches for the English word to explain something and upward saying it Truly. Basically, I would argue, that Chinese isn’t so much bloody difficult as it’s not bloody different.