Why Chinese Can Be a Difficult Language to Learn for Westerners

↑ Click above to follow us!

点击上方 宝安外语协会 关注我们

Some people may not like the suggestion that certain types of people find it easier to learn languages than others; after all we would love to believe that all human beings were created equal. While that may be true to an extent, we all face different challenges in life that can affect us when attempting to learn different languages. 

This could relate to many things such as circumstances when growing up as children, for example; those from wealthier backgrounds may have access to better education and learning resources than those from poorer families. 

Maybe it is down to our personal levels of intelligence or motivation to learn alanguage. Regardless, it is often suspected that Western people find it harder to learn Chinese than those who hail from elsewhere. Why could this be the case? Here, we shall discuss some of the possible factors.

Linguistic distance:

To put this simply, this is the extent a language or dialect is differnent from another. When it comes to learning to speak Standard Mandarin, native speakers of other Chinese languages may find it to be much easier to learn than those who speak other languages.

those who speak Cantonese or Shanghainese may find that they are already capable of reading and fully understanding the text of a Chinese newspaper despite not being able to understand a single word of spoken Mandarin thanks to a shared writing system, a matter which we shall discuss further shortly. 

Another example from closer to home for Western people would be that of the Romance languages (also known as Latin languages) for example, native speakers of French may find it relatively easier to learn Spanish or Italian than they would to learn to speak German. This is because those languages are closely related to each other. 

When a Westerner enters China however, they may feel that the language is completely different to their own and more time may be needed to adjust as a result.

The tones:

People hailing from certain areas of the world, such as Africa and Southeast Asia already speak tonal languages; it is even said that the number of tonal languages that currently exist in the world exceeds that of non-tonal languages. 

For the speakers of such languages, the tones may not represent such a challenge, an international student from Thailand or Vietnam is less likely feel intimidated by a new language that contains 4 tones, when their native language has 5 or 6.

Regardless, the fact remains that the vast majority of languages spoken in the Western world are non-tonal in nature. When we attempt to start learning the tones, it may often feel like we are singing the language rather than speaking it. For young children, this may sound like great fun, but for an image conscious adult, this may prove to be very challenging indeed.  

The writing system:

Japanese people already know a lot of Hanzi characters by default from the Kanji characters that they use in their own native language. Exact meanings of the characters may differ slightly between the Japanese and Chinese languages but as soon as they start learning Chinese, the average Japanese person will most likely have a few thousand characters head-start on their classmates when it comes to reading and writing; it will be the phonetics that will prove to be a more formidable opponent in their quest to learn to speak Chinese.

In some other nations where the Chinese people had influence of some kind during ancient times through colonization or trade, the linguistic legacy of the Chinese can be found. Vietnam was subject to 1000 years of Chinese rule, a variation of Chinese script known as ‘ChữNôm’  was used before the country was later colonised by the French, therefore those with a keen interest in history may already be familiar with script. 

Prior to the introduction of the Hangul script that the Korean people use today, classical Chinese script was used, and these characters are now referred as 'Hanja.' Many of these characters are still used within the Korean language today; not just when reading ancient scripts, but also in legal documents. Most Korean personal names are also based upon Hanja characters, meaning that many a Korean also has some degree of familiarity with Chinese characters.

For Westerners, Chinese characters may look beautiful. We may even choose to have them etched on our bodies permanently in the form of tattoos, yet the idea of learning to actually read and write in the language can prove to be rather intimidating.

Pinyin lures you into a false sense of security:

Some Westerners will ask how Chinese people can type on a computer when there are several thousand characters that can be used. Pinyin offers the simplest solution to this dilemma and also a method that actually romanizes the language. Therefore, there is effectively a way to start learning to speak Chinese and write down those new words in your notebook before you can even read it.

However, if one only uses pinyin, they will never fully understand the context of written words. They will often write pinyin without the tone-marks, meaning that when they send messages exclusively written in pinyin, the receiver may find it very difficult to fully understand the meanings of those words.

What's more, the sounds of the pinyin syllables do not correspond exactly with their English counterparts or even those of other languages of European origins. The 'c' sound in Chinese is quite like the 'ts' in the word 'cats,' for example. For those that do not attend Chinese classes or use good quality materials, this can prove to be quite a curveball.

Not everyone speaks perfect Putonghua:

You probably know that some Southerners speak Cantonese. Shanghainese can seem like a secret code of sorts. Standard Mandarin Chinese or 'Putonghua' may be a lingua franca of sorts across China, but even for native Chinese people, speaking it perfectly is not always easy. 

Therefore, many foreigners who were lucky enough to learn some Chinese before they arrived may find that the language actually spoken around them is not quite the same as the perfect standard Chinese that they learned from their teachers back in the classroom. 

One may find themselves having to be flexible and adapting to a local accent/dialect or two when they start living and working in China; although this is not always a bad thing, many local dialects have their own colorful local terms or variants that can prove to be quite interesting to learn about. What's more, you'll never learn those in your classroom.

In addition, this should serve to remind you that even if you can't learn to speak Chinese perfectly, it is still better than nothing and there are also others that struggle to extent; despite actually being Chinese citizens. When you watch TV and turn over to a regional channel, you may find that subtitles are used throughout because Chinese people cannot always understand each other 100%. 

Younger Chinese people are often better educated and exposed more to Putonghua from a young age, but you may still encounter those funny accents when speaking to older people. Putonghua is the standard that all should aspire to though!

Some Chinese people really want to practice their English:

So, you make a great effort to interact and socialize with Chinese people to improve your Chinese language skills. Unfortunately, they may be just as eager to improve their spoken English! If you do begin a language exchange of sorts, make sure that it is a fair and even one.

If the Chinese people that you meet already speak English to a very high standard, they may insist upon speaking English for the sake of convenience. Do not take it personally, they're just trying to get things done.

You'll never speak it as well as about 1 billion Chinese people - HSK 6 is nothing special for a local person.

Many foreigners strive to learn Chinese to give themselves advantages in very competitive job markets. Unfortunately, it might not actually help that much in China because even if you were to pass the highest level internationally recognized Chinese language currently offered, there will be at least 1 billion fairly well-educated Chinese people that can use the language more effectively than you.

That should not dishearten you, however. It is still of great value for a foreigner to be able to speak Chinese well as it allows Chinese people and companies to better connect with the outside world. It will still allow you to enjoy life to a much greater extent in China and open up more doors for you.

Your foreign friends may discourage you:

As a foreigner living in China, you will probably socialize with fellow foreigners who can relate to your experiences as an outsider in a foreign country far away from home. Unfortunately, many will make an initial effort to learn Chinese and give up early on. 

They may tell you that it is too difficult, not worth learning and that everybody can speak English. Others may accuse you of showing off, if you dare to speak Chinese while in the near vicinity. This can be demotivating, but you need to push through it.

Your Chinese friends may discourage you:

Well, not really. It's just that Chinese people are often very proud of the fact that their language is very difficult for foreigners to learn. They may simply not expect foreigners to be able to learn or make the effort to learn Chinese and they will often make the effort to accommodate you as a result.

Sometimes, you will have to stand firm and keep trying regardless; if you order your coffee in Chinese and that waitress responds to you in English, don't take it too personally. Some Chinese friends might just teach you some of the dirty words after a few beers for their own entertainment, just like in many other countries; but do try to show that you are interested in going far beyond that.

End

Editor's Picks 往期推荐

✨👍👏

***所有文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本站立场*** 

---

邮箱：[e-mail]

扫码关注我们  获取更多公益活动信息

▼Extract the QR code to follow us▼

FLA

Official Account

Follow us

     FLA

QQ Group

815613448

Join  us