The Chinese language occupies the honorable first place in the list of the world’s most difficult languages. Even native speakers cannot master all its aspects at once, such as grammar, characters, and phonetics.
It’s difficult for foreigners to start learning Chinese because of the characters, which have nothing to do with the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. As a result, the level of knowledge of the Chinese language is assessed not by the number of words memorized but by the number of characters learned.
The most widespread dialect of the Chinese language is the Northern dialect, which involves the pronunciation of four different tones. One word can be pronounced in four ways, and each pronunciation changes its meaning. There are ten different dialect groups in total in China. Still, each dialect group has its characteristics and is radically different from the other, so knowing Mandarin Chinese does not guarantee that you will understand the Chinese people. Indeed, even people from one part of China may not understand people from another because of the significant difference in dialects.
So you’ve already figured out that learning Chinese isn’t easy, although who says it has to be? No language in the world can be learned quickly and effortlessly, and in the case of Chinese, it is more complicated.
To make it easier for you to decide whether it’s worth spending time learning Chinese, I’ve prepared a list of pros and cons for you. So, let’s get started!
Disadvantages of Learning Chinese
- As we already know, Chinese is at the top of the list of the most difficult languages in the world. When learning Chinese, you will have to learn three languages in one, and that is something new. Many people know that Chinese has five tones, including four basic tones and a neutral tone. Also, in Chinese, there is a “pinyin” spelling system, or in other words, the Latinization system, in which transcriptions are denoted by Latin letters. Thus, to spell one word correctly, you will have to learn its spelling, translation, pinyin spelling and memorize the tone number.
- If you want to get a practical knowledge of the Chinese language, you will have to visit China. You can work there, but be ready for meager wages. There are no high-paying jobs in China for foreigners with poor Chinese, but of course, everything will depend on the city and your occupation. Learning Chinese should become your way of life because you’ll spend many years mastering it, preferably learning the language in a Chinese environment. Until you come to China, I advise you to surround yourself with Chinese music, movies, books, and socializing with the Chinese.
- Finding a good Chinese teacher is not easy. Be selective with tutors because a person who has never lived a day in China will never teach anyone correct pronunciation. Only in China can you hear the real Chinese language with all its peculiarities, which are not written in any book. It is also believed that you can learn several other uncomplicated languages in the time it takes to learn Chinese.
- Despite the simple phrases the Chinese use in conversation, the five tones of Chinese may seem difficult to learn to a Westerner. This is because the tones carry meaning. You have to associate the tone to the specific meaning of the word. That takes a lot of practice and awareness, or else you might want to say one word and say a completely different one just by mispronouncing the tone.
- Additional complexity in learning Chinese is writing and reading Chinese characters. For example, you need to know at least 1000 characters to read a newspaper, but to write Chinese characters, you need to know some rules, such as the order of writing features and understanding the meanings of the components of the character.
Advantages of Learning Chinese
- Scientists have calculated that all the costs of learning the Chinese language will eventually be repaid in full by the income from cooperation with the Chinese.
- One-fifth of the world’s population speaks Chinese, and this is no joke:)
- Chinese grammar does not know what suffixes, prepositions, clauses, and many other things are. Compared to English, it’s very easy to learn tenses in Chinese, and you can easily swap words in a sentence without changing their meaning at all.
- China is developing at a breakneck pace, so don’t miss the opportunity to gain knowledge that will pay off as China begins to “conquer the world.” Nowadays, the Chinese already have a strategy of introducing their language to different parts of the world. Every university in China has language courses and other programs for international students.
- Chinese is relatively easy to speak, and can be considered difficult only because of the presence of tones. But ultimately spoken Chinese is not difficult because the Chinese use elementary words and simple sentences in most situations.
- The Chinese people face the problem of multiple dialects and the complexity of learning their language, so they are always trying to make learning Chinese more accessible. Therefore they have decided to make a single dialect called “Putonghua” mandatory in the teaching so that in the future, both native and non-native speakers can understand each other without any problems.
China makes most of the world’s products; they make clothes, shoes, and supply products for people in many countries. And in order to organize all these processes, they have to be in constant contact with customers. The Chinese can’t learn all the languages, so they are actively introducing their language around the world. Who knows, maybe the next international language will be Chinese, so why not try to learn it?
