Learning Mandarin Chinese

Learning Chinese is an interesting business... but well worth the effort! It's an amazing language, full of history and culture, providing years of great learning experiences. However, there are a few basics that seem to put people off the challenge. So here are our top two reasons why people don't start learning Chinese...and how you can overcome your fear!

1) Tones. Chinese is tonal, meaning that changing the way you say a sound can actually change its meaning. Thankfully, Chinese is not the most complicated tonal language in the world: it has just four different tomes, and a neutral tone. The first tone is a higher, sustained tone, the second is a rising tone, the third falls first and then rises, and the fourth is a falling tone. The fifth tone is neutral; it has no tone. Chinese has a relatively small amount of sounds that fit together to make syllables. Depending on the tone, the same sound or syllable can mean different things. For instance, the word 'shujia' can mean bookcase or summer vacation, depending on the tones, and 'wuqi' can mean fog, weapon, or to miss your deadline. To make it even more complicated, many characters share both the same sound AND the same tone, but have a different meaning! For instance, there are over thirty-five charcters that are pronounced 'shi' with a fourth tone. How do you tell them apart? by listening to the context.

It has to be said that this idea of tones is what kills most foreigners Chinese, at least learners from Western countries. It is one of the most basic elements of the Chinese language however, and just has to be learned. Challenging, but not impossible. Don't worry...you'll never be perfect, but eventually most people will understand what you say! so don't let the tones put you off...

2) Characters. It is commonly said that if you can read the 3000 most common characters then you can read 80% of a Chinese newspaper. Only 80% mind you. There are over 10,000 different characters. Learning to read Chinese means learning to recognize them, remember their meanings, recall their pronunciation AND their tones. Learning to write them means remembering every stroke that makes up that particular character, and the order that the strokes are written in. The simplest character is made up of one stroke, whereas the most complicated can have well over thirty! Chinese children spend much of their time writing these characters over and over hundreds of times to memorize them, and they do it for at least the first 18 years of their life. So really, we second language learners have no chance! But don't let that stop you. If you work hard, you can probably get the 3000 most common without too much trouble. And the good news is that even native speakers frequently forget how to write..so it's not just you!

Learning Chinese has been a fantastic and rewarding experience...try it out yourself! For more information about Chinese, translation, and Taiwan, check our our website www.mingguangtranslation.co.uk