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Date 28-June-2005
  FAQ - How tough is Mandarin?Is Chinese a tough language to learn?I think every language has it challenges. There are things that are pretty easy about Chinese language - no verb conjugations or multiple tenses, and very logical names for each day of the week or month of the year. Grammar is fairly simple and logical. If you are good at mimicing tone and pronuniciation, picking up a few useful phrases every week should be a snap.There are some downsides though - reading Chinese characters takes a lot of work. Though many have an element that can give you a hint on pronunciation, these are only consistent as of a few thousand years ago. Basically, they can give you a clue on how you could potentially pronounce the character. And of course, you have to know the pronunciation of the element itself...this would only be possible after a few years study. To the average Joe Sixpack, you might as well try to pronounce heiroglyphics. On the plus side, there are a very limited number of sounds. The romanised form of Mandarin Chinese is known as The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den">pinyin and you can often see it below the Chinese on signs. Quite why it's there is unclear. It gives no clue as to meaning for the hapless foreigner, and any Chinese presumably already know how to pronounce the name of the place. Whatever the case, at least you'll be able to say the name of the place you want to go. The major stumbling block, and a source of much amusement, is mastering the four tones of Mandarin. For example, the sound ma can different meanings depending on it's tone:
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